Six of the best: Heenan shoots for record with UQ

Tue, Oct 27, 2020, 9:34 AM
Jim Tucker
by Jim Tucker
Mick Heenan aiming for six of the best. Photo: QRU
Mick Heenan aiming for six of the best. Photo: QRU

Mick Heenan’s golden run as a five-time premiership coach will hit record heights on Sunday should he add No.6 with the University of Queensland at Ballymore.

Masterminding a grand final win over minor premiers Easts would nudge him ahead of Ron Price and the late Joe French, who currently share the “five-time” mantle across the 75 years of post-war club rugby in Queensland.

Few realise the fertile coaching incubator that made Heenan’s move into the role almost certain when a knee injury ended his playing days as a lean Uni lock in the mid-’90s.

His insatiable love of coaching was unwittingly born in the crossfire of spirited rugby debates between the late Wallaby Jake Howard and his wife Margariete.

As a uni student, young Heenan had been a lodger at the Howards’ Ashgrove home for more than two years after going to school with their son Pat, the future Wallaby.

Heenan’s own home on the family’s Gatton potato and onion farm, that triggered the nickname “Spud” for Wallaby brother Daniel, was too far out of town.

“I don’t think I’d have become a coach but for the influence of that time when Jake was assistant coach of the Wallabies and Margariete was coaching Colts at Uni,” Heenan said.

“There was always a lot of debate about style of play, Margariete with her passion for the flat-line Randwick-style of attack and Jake with the pragmatic accent on the scrum and breakdown.

“They had (coaching icons) Bob Templeton and Alex Evans dropping by or calling on the phone regularly so there was always good rugby chat around the place.”

Through it all, Heenan picked up themes that have resonated through his reign as a 12-season rock at UQ. Premierships have flowed in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2019.

“The overriding thread from Jake and Margariete was an insistence on proper technique and things being done properly at training,” Heenan said.

“There were also little gems that have stayed with me.

“I was in the car driving with Jake one time when he said: ‘I was a lot better coach when I only had two or three things to concentrate on’.

“That still resonates...keeping players’ minds uncluttered and on the important things for a particular game like a grand final.”

Heenan, 47, has been a two-decade long fixture as a mentor in Brisbane with GPS (1997-2008), Uni (2009-) and Brisbane City (2017-18) in the National Rugby Championship.

While other premiership-winning coaches in Brisbane and Sydney have parlayed successes into stints in Japan, Europe and the US, Heenan has stayed at home in Brisbane.

He juggles a successful career as an industrial relations specialist, being a father of three young boys and marriage to supportive wife Danielle so there’s not a lot of free time anyway.

“There have been a couple of nibbles from Japan but timing and just what’s important to me have kept me in Brisbane,” he said.

Coaches usually wear out their welcome at clubs well before a decade is up. Heenan’s longevity derives from being an excellent man manager, being adept at the jigsaw of piecing together a club team and being honest with his troops.

That’s brutally honest at times. He calls people out on mistakes where other coaches tip toe.

“Players have pretty good bullshit radar so it’s better to be honest than fudge it," Heenan said.

When the Red Heavies lost their final game poorly before last year’s semi-finals, Heenan was blunt with two players at the team review session.

“You may as well not have played. We’d have played better with 13”...no ambiguity there.

Price savoured his success at the helm of the dominant Brothers sides, captained by Tony Shaw, which won five straight titles between 1980-84.

French, a former Australian Rugby Union chairman and president, coached Brothers to five premierships when still in his 30s between 1946-53.

Uni are in the club's richest decade of premiership success since Ashley Girle, Norbert Byrne, John O'Neill and Bob Templeton coached seven between 1960-70.

It says much of Heenan’s coaching fibre that he has found a way by building up new squads repeatedly in this professional era with such high player turnover.

He gives a generous nod to the club’s active Colts program, stimulated by Elton Berrange, as the bedrock to continuing success.

“Some other clubs recruit for Premier Grade, we do focus on recruiting into our Colts system and it’s a template that seems to work very well,” Heenan said.

Conor Mitchell and Curtis Browning were part of the 2012 title team while still of Colts age and teenage stepper Mac Grealy is another young gun who could turn Sunday's grand final.

Fresh, talented faces on the way up...it keeps Heenan motivated.

“The key thing is I still enjoy coaching with a group of young men trying to achieve something worthwhile,” he said.

“I get a kick out of watching guys improve and that fix of competing every weekend.”

No Angus Scott-Young (knee ligaments) is a blow for Sunday’s grand final. Fergus Lillicrap is a hardworking replacement and the backrow will still be high quality with Sam Wallis, captain Pat Morrey and Mitchell in partnership.

Signing on for a new campaign is never a paper contract requiring a signature.

“We have a ‘one more year?’ chat and it’s done over a ceremonial schooner in the front bar of the Royal Exchange Hotel,” said UQ Rugby president Michael Zaicek.

What about 2021?

There’s grand final business to be taken care of first.

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