Here is my first interview with Mr Kelly. It's a pity that things didn't really work out for Neil and I thought it fitting to post after hearing he had left the Leigh Centurions by mutual consent this week.
He continues to be linked with the Head Coach position at new club South Wales Scorpions.
The First Neil Kelly Interview
Dave Parkinson chatted to Neil Kelly about returning to rugby league, the Leigh job, his previous career and rugby union.
Q: First of all Neil, welcome back to Rugby League, how does it feel to be back?
It feels really good. I’ve enjoyed my time in rugby union but I think I’ve said several times that I’ve always considered myself a rugby league coach first. I’m more naturally a rugby league coach and can naturally coach the game. It’s really good to be back.
Q: Interesting choice of club too, why Leigh? What was the draw of the club?
Do you know, I’ve always had a feeling that one day I’d coach Leigh. From an opposition point of view, I’ve actually coached other clubs against Leigh in significant games that Leigh have unfortunately lost.
I actually thought that when Dewsbury beat them in the 2000 Grand Final that Leigh were the better side and that if you can admire a club from afar, I’ve done that. When the vacancy became available I was very quick in getting my application in.
Q: What ambitions do you have for the club? Obviously the club is thinking big with the new facilities on the horizon.
I went to the game against Warrington a couple of weeks ago and I saw the facilities, which was the first time I’d seen them live. I was very impressed by them.
It’s nice that Leigh have shown the confidence in me to coach them at this time. They are going to move and it’s a very important time for the club. I think my plans, they have a franchise bid in obviously, but I can only go from where they are at the moment and I think we can build on some very solid foundations already there but actually build the club up. Whether it’s for next season or three years time, I’ve got to get the club ready from top to bottom with the help of the people that have already done some good work to get in there and obviously do well with the first team as well. If I achieve my ambitions I am sure it will more than fulfil Leigh’s ambitions as well.
Q: You mentioned before about building the club up, or building on the foundations that have already been laid. There are a number of talented young players at the club and I don’t know whether you were aware of how well Leigh has done on the youth side of things. Do you see that as a major strategy for yourself?
Yes, I don’t see the future in overseas players or players from other parts of the country, albeit they may be needed and valued in the short term. I see, like I saw when I was at Widnes, we very much went in the long term to go for home grown players, and if not from Widnes from very close geographically to Widnes. I feel very much the same at Leigh. It’s great if there’s good young talent coming through already and we’ve got to look at maybe in the long term building on the scholarship and creating our own Service Area and becoming autonomous from Wigan in that respect. For the short term it’s going to continue in the same way. We’ve got to build on those sorts of things. In my eyes I’m not just coming in to build just the team up, although that is one of the objectives, I’m coming in to build on the foundations like I said and build a strong academy set-up, a strong schoolboy set-up and one that sees the professional side link closely into the community, which it may already do.
If that is the case I’m right behind it. If it doesn’t I’m very keen to build links.
Q: I suppose from afar you must be proud of what’s going on at Widnes as you were involved in setting all of that up with relation to their youth structures?
I was yes, although I didn’t do it all by myself. Myself and several other people were instrumental in building and what was put in place at Widnes. When we did go into Super League and this may sound really convenient from a coaches point of view, we could have done without relegation then. That would have really made it a lot easier to build the strength of the club up from the bottom upwards. Obviously there was relegation and we didn’t quite get the balancing act right and you can become a victim of that and it all falls apart. But, I’ve got to treat Leigh totally separate to Widnes. I’ve got my ideals on how I’d like to do things but I’ve got to treat it on its own merits. It may have some things that are stronger than what Widnes had, it may have some things that are weaker than what Widnes had. I’m not going to use Widnes as a blueprint. Allan Rowley and Arthur Thomas have both voiced an opinion that there is a desire to make this club strong and get it ready for Super League, hopefully for next year or for in three years.
Q: Have you felt an expectation level? As a Leigh fan we want to be up against the big boys and playing Wigan, Warrington and St Helens.
I want to play in those games, but we are not there yet. I keep harping back to the franchise system, and we may get elevated to that level straight away, but more realistically I don’t think we’ve got to put everything into getting the franchise bid and if we’ve got to work towards playing in those sort of games against that sort of opposition then that is what we can do, and maybe that’s better in the long run.
Q: You’ve spoken about the long term aims, are there any goals in the short term, any areas you are thinking that could do with changing, or is it more of an assessment role at the moment?
I’m very fortunate in coming in when there is a blank weekend next week. I’ll take in the game on Monday and probably have a little bit of a watching brief for the rest of this week, but knowing myself I can’t really watch for too long, I’ll have to put my two-peneth in, but it gives me chance to look a who the leaders are, what the strengths of the squad are, how things are done, what the medical side is like – all those sorts of things. I can equate myself with the club. The short term goal is to get the side ready to play for me against Featherstone in the first home game of my time in charge. We want to get it off to a good start.
Q: And I guess that now you are back you will be renewing hostilities with your brother Andy at Dewsbury?
I would like that, especially as I have close links with Dewsbury, but it’s just another game really. It just happens to be tha my brother is coaching that side as well. That’s an added bonus, if we win but we’ll concentrate on trying to beat them when that fixture comes round.
Q: If we were to do a bit of Curriculum Vitae of your career how would it read? First of all from a playing perspective, then a coaching one?
I started playing in 1982 – it’s quite a long story this one!
I played predominantly for Dewsbury, 300 times, I did spend eighteen months at Wakefield and eighteen months at Featherstone and had three spells overseas with Australian and New Zealand teams which culminated in me finishing playing really around the mid nineties, at which time I became the coach of Dewsbury. I took over them when really I couldn’t think of a more trying set of circumstances. When I took over they’d announced record debts, they’d lost all their contracted players and finished bottom of the division. Fortunately there was no relegation that year, but for the first summer season they reintroduced relegation and that was when I took over, so because I was cheap and I was available they made me the coach. I think I must have been Genghis Khan in a previous life, but there you go!
We actually then did quite well. In coaching, I coached Dewsbury between 1996 and 2001. In 1999 we finished top of the league and lost the Grand Final by a point. In 2000 we finished top of the league and beat Leigh by a point in the Final. The club was subsequently denied promotion to Super League because Dewsbury were such a small club. They were deemed ineligible for Super League.
I then went to Widnes in 2001. We had a great honeymoon period there and won seventeen of eighteen games which culminated in a Grand Final win against Oldham.
We were promoted to Super League and in 2002, I won Coach of the Year in Super League at the Man-of-Steel awards. Of course in 2002 we finished just one point away from a play-off position. In the second year we finished in ninth place – I didn’t win the coach of year and then in 2004 I left Widnes because my contract wasn’t going to be renewed, or should I say I was sacked. That came on July the fourth, independence day, or that’s the way I look at it. Then I went to Ulster where I’ve been ever since.
We won the Magners League with Ulster in 2006.
Q: So that’s brought us up to date. I’m curious to find out a little bit more about what your role has been at Ulster? Was it defence orientated like a lot of League coaches?
It was initially, but I’m sure every rugby league coach that has gone into rugby union and started off as a defence coach soon realises that after working just a couple of days really that you can’t just limit yourself to one role and there is a need for you to get involved in training in general, lines of running and you’ve got an influence over all training really.
Q: Rugby Union also seems to have come on over recent years?
Well I’ve got a better appreciation for it now than I had when I first went across. I’d be lying if I said I totally understood all the line-outs and the scrums but certainly the backs play is improving no end and it’s got a lot of improvement still to make, but maybe the law changes that are going to be introduced this year for next season will have a positive impact on that. I sort of feel that the law changes to the game are to make it more and more like rugby league. That’s why most of the defence coaches that go in there find their role isn’t just restricted to that defence because the game of rugby union is becoming more like rugby league.
Q: Do you feel that as a coach you’ve developed through your experiences in both codes?
Definitely yes. Actually I feel that once I got over the initial disappointment of my dismissal from Widnes, I felt I was a better coach and a better person for that matter, for being through the actual process and the experience of being sacked. I know that sounds rather a negative thing but I was able to analyse what I could have done better, what I didn’t do right or what I did do right, what parts of that situation were my fault, what parts of it were other peoples fault and I actually felt I was better equipped to coach than I was before I was sacked. Going into rugby union I’ve expanded my knowledge even more. Obviously we are not going to start doing line-outs and scrums but my appreciation of people and skills and what everyone has to offer has grown and I’d be lying if I said that I’d not grown as a coach over the whole ten or twelve years I’ve been coaching anyway.
Q: I would imagine it’s one of those things that you progress into?
It’s a fine line. Rugby union was good I got to go to different places. It’s a bit different getting on an aeroplane to play in Treviso, or Paris, or Toulouse, or Beritz, it’s a bit different from getting the bus to Batley and Dewsbury. That’s good experience as well. They all go to make you a better person and a better coach.
