Brisbane interim coach Peter Gentle has chuckled at the prospect of taking the job fulltime, comparing an NRL head coach appointment to a management role that doesn’t appeal to him.
The Broncos assistant is the reluctant face of the club after Anthony Seibold’s exit last week, the side winning just one of 14 games since the competition’s restart in May.
Gentle has tweaked their preparations since Seibold’s departure but had little on-field joy, a 58-12 loss to Sydney Roosters their third by 46 points or more this season.
They face Penrith on Thursday, the Panthers on an 11-game winning streak and capable of twisting the knife further at Suncorp Stadium.
Gentle, a head coach with Hull in England for two years, still has another year to run on his contract at Red Hill.
While Kevin Walters and Paul Green present as front-runners to replace Seibold, Gentle won’t be applying and knows he could be made redundant by whoever does win the post.
But that is fine with the quiet achiever, who played a handful of games for St George in the late 1980s and has an interesting take on the modern-day coach.
“Not a chance … he (whoever gets it) can have the head coaching role, I just want to coach, not do all this sort of stuff,” he said in reference to his weekly pre-game press conference.
“I was head coach in Hull for a couple of years, it takes you away from the actual hands-on coaching.
“There’s a lot of peripheral stuff, but as assistant coach you’re dealing with the players one-on-one, you’re nobody and that’s fine by me.
“You’re actually coaching, whereas now a head coach is more and more like the (English) Premier League manager, so I prefer this side of it.”
The Broncos are his for the last four games though and, sitting just one win ahead of Canterbury but well behind on percentage, Gentle would love to avoid the club’s maiden wooden spoon.
“At the end of the day we have to make our one-on-one tackles,” Gentle said.
“We can look after each other a lot better on the field.
“I know it might not look like that at times on the field, especially with a scoreline like that, but I don’t see it as an attitude problem.”
STATS THAT MATTER
* This will be the first time since 2016 that a team on a five or more game winning streak comes up against a team on a five or more game losing streak.
* Penrith have had nearly 38 tackles per game inside their opponents 20 to lead the NRL, while the Broncos have conceded a try every 8.2 tackles inside the zone.
* Broncos will aim to avoid losing four straight at Suncorp Stadium for the first time since 2007.
