RUGBY LEAGUE
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DIRECTION, structure and culture.
Newly appointed Orange Hawks captain-coach Wise Kativerata has pulled no punches in his assessment of the battling two blues ahead of one of the biggest challenges of his glittering coaching career- reviving one of Group 10’s sleeping giants.
Hawks boast the best juniors in the competition, but with “the blind leading the blind” throughout the 2015 season Kativerata says this year’s co-coaching duo of Brock McGarity and Jared Brodrick were on a hiding to nothing.
He wants to change that in 2016.
And he believes establishing a direction, implementing a structure and building a culture will go a long way towards rocketing Hawks back up the Group 10 ladder.
“I feel for the young coaches looking back ... there’s not a lot of direction, no structure, no culture, and there’s two young coaches employed. It’s going to be hard,” Kativerata said.
“We need a re-vamp. We need a massive clean up from the top to the bottom.
“And I’m calling for all of the local people in town, all of the old players, old supporters, old boys to come in and support the club.”
Hawks vice-president Jake Hurford praised the effort of Brodrick and McGarity, but said the credentials of Kativerata - he played NRL with Parramatta, St George and South Sydney after scoring 33 tries in Hawks’ 1999 premiership-winning season - were simply too good to knock back.
“We’ve been looking for something like this for a long time,” Hurford said.
“I think Wise will bring another dimension to the club, something we haven’t seen.”
Kativerata has previously held captain-coach roles at Bundaberg, the Kyogle Bush Turkeys, the Muswellbrook Rams and then the Taree City Bulls.
He’s won three premierships, but it’s his efforts with Muswellbrook that’ll catch the attention of Hawks fans.
“When I went to Muswellbrook, they were (coming off) 69 losses in a row ... they didn’t tell me that until after I signed,” he smiled.
“I took them to the finals. In our first training session there was only five turn up. When I turn up here, there was about 50 boys at training. That’s 60 per cent of the job done, already.
“It’s a matter of getting them into a structure, set something up for them so when people from the bottom come in they know where they’re headed.
“At the moment, we’re just blind leading the blind.”
Both Hurford and Kativerata were hopeful McGarity and Brodrick would still play with Hawks in 2016.
“But at the end of the day it’s their decision,” Hurford said.
“We’d love to have them back. They’re good footballers and good blokes as well.
“We’re proud of what they’ve done and we can understand how much of a hard year it was. As a club we thank them and respect everything they’ve done.”
Hawks will be holding their 2015 presentation night at the Gladstone Hotel on Friday, September 18.