When Queensland assistant Josh Hannay achieves his dream of becoming an NRL head coach, he will reflect on the gratitude he feels each day to the late Paul Green.
Maroons coach Billy Slater has frequently mentioned Cronulla assistant Hannay’s influence on the success of the side and insists the former Queensland centre is ready to take on a head role in the NRL.
“The coaching merry-go-round changes quite frequently and if anyone is looking for a really good, young coach who is enthusiastic and knows his footy then Josh has got my recommendation,” Slater said.
Hannay, 43, started his coaching journey at the Moranbah Miners before taking the helm at Souths-Logan Magpies in the Queensland Cup.
In 2017 Green, then head coach at North Queensland, recruited a raw Hannay as an assistant at the Cowboys.
“Greeny gave me my first big shot. That was a real turning point for me,” Hannay told AAP.
“I observed the way Greeny coached day-in and day-out and I got a lesson in what great coaching looks like with his attention to detail, intensity and the way he set up the program.
"He was a wonderful mentor and wonderful man and I was able to see what elite coaching looked like. It has held me in good stead."
Hannay has no doubt in his own ability to be an NRL head coach.
“I also want to be patient about it. It is a pretty tough industry and you can dive in head first and get spat out pretty quickly,” he said.
“I want to be a great head coach when that time comes, not just a head coach. I say that with all due respect to the position. It is a hard gig.”
At the Miners and Magpies he got a taste of running his own team, as he did in two stints as interim head coach at the Cowboys and Sharks in challenging circumstances.
Hannay said his development had only increased under the tutelage of Sharks head coach Craig Fitzgibbon
“Fitzy, as a rookie head coach, looks like he’s been doing it for a long time,” Hannay saod.
“He is a good lesson for any young assistant coach about waiting for the right opportunity and waiting until you are ready. He is not just a head coach. He is a great one.”
Slater said he had always been impressed by Hannay, watching him from afar.
That high opinion has only increased working alongside him
“He has been a big part of the defence on our edges and that has been a real strength in our game," Slater said.
"He has created some principles in and around that.
“Josh has also had a real impact on our coaching group as well.
"Think of Nate (Myles), Johnathan (Thurston), Cameron (Smith) and myself … we are not NRL coaches.
"He has had a really big impact on the way we go about it, with little subtleties and structures around our coaching style.”
