When a Warriors player walks into coach Andrew Webster’s office for a meeting, they have two options about where to sit.
There’s a black leather sofa by the wall, or a chair beside a round, white table. Webster who has a desk in the corner, with a view out to the carpark and the hill at the northern end of Mt Smart stadium, jokes that their choice is important.
“I have them all in here – that’s the counselling chair and that’s the football chair,” he laughs, pointing to the sofa first. “So if you sit on one you’re about football and if you sit there [the sofa] it’s counselling. I tell them when they walk in: ‘Which chair do you want to sit on?’ And they laugh and they go: ‘I think I need that one today’. We laugh about it and then it is easier to talk about things.”
That small vignette tells you a lot about Webster,
who across one season has become one of the most popular – and successful – coaches in Warriors’ history. It’s not just that he gets results but how. While he is technically very astute – after a long apprenticeship at all levels of the game – it’s his communication and human skills that have stood out.
“He understands people, takes time to get to know people,” says a senior Warriors staff member. “He is genuinely interested in who you are and what you are about.”
“It’s the same with the team. He gets to know them beyond the footballer. You have 30 blokes and it is all about connection. He is a real people person. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are from, what your walk of life is, he will connect with you… and that is a rare trait.”
T
he Herald sat down with Webster on a day off for the players, in between staff meetings and planning sessions. His office – around the corner and down a corridor from main reception – is small and remarkably sparse. There’s no memorabilia, no trophies or trinkets. No posters or motivational phrases and nothing on the wall, apart from a single A4 piece of paper.
“I’m not into quotes, not into displaying the books I have read,” says Webster. “It’s not my thing. I like quotes but it is not me. I don’t want anything. I’m not a picture guy. I just want to see Max, that will do me.”
He’s referring to his 10-month-old son, the subject of the only two photos in the room.
“They were the first ones when he laughed,” says Webster. “My wife got them for me; they are beautiful photos.”
But there’s no evidence of the various teams he has been involved with, not even a picture with the premiership-winning 2022 Penrith Panthers squad (“No chance,” he laughs).
“If you came to my house you wouldn’t even know that I coached rugby league,” says Webster. “If I achieve anything I give it to my parents anyway. When I was a kid I had a competition with my brother on who would win the most trophies. He was two years older and better than me at most things.”
The piece of paper, pinned above his computer, is a set of guidelines, around how they want to play and other core principles and beliefs.
“It’s my compass, to keep me on track,” explains Webster.
A whiteboard on the far wall lists details of plays, training drills and structures, with the stuff “you can read” by the assistant coaches, while “the scribble” is his.
“We have our own language in league,” says Webster, mentioning “pendulum”, “neg”, “siren”, “shield”, “transporting”, “sausages” and “drill and drop”, among many others.
“It’s a bit like the baseball or NFL,” he adds. “We are running the same plays, but you still don’t want them to know what you are calling.”
His days are long, starting with a 5am alarm and a gym workout before the 7am coaches meeting. He loves being on the grass with the team – “that’s where the best work is done” – but also spends a lot of time at his desk.
“Ninety per cent of the time, the door is open,” says Webster. “So I can interact with all of the [assistant] coaches; players are doing one-on-one videos; I can hear conversations.”
Players also enter and exit the club via the corridor outside his office, which means a constant flow of traffic, greetings and little – or longer – chats. But that’s the way he likes it.
“It’s time-consuming because you are just getting some momentum with work but that should be your focus anyway,” says Webster. “They are your focus. Once they leave you get stuff done.”
Webster first arrived at the Warriors in 2015, appointed as an assistant coach under Andrew McFadden, who is back now, in charge of recruitment and pathways, after a four-year spell under Ricky Stuart in Canberra. They first met at Parramatta in 2002, where McFadden spent a season as NRL halfback and Webster was an aspiring youngster.
“He had a personality that was very engaging,” says McFadden. “We didn’t play together week to week, but there are people that you remember and Webby was certainly one of those guys.”
By 2015, Webster had accumulated a decade of coaching experience in the United States, England and Australia. He guided the Balmain Tigers SG Ball team (with Mitchell Moses and Luke Brooks) to that title in 2012, then had success with the Tiger’s Under-20 side in 2014.
“He was developing a good reputation,” says McFadden. “So when I took the Warriors’ job he was first on the list.”
That 2015 team featured a lot of big names, including Simon Mannering, Shaun Johnson, Thomas Leuluai, Manu Vatuvei, Ryan Hoffman and Sam Tomkins. But the coaching rookie – in his first NRL job – quickly won their respect, with his creative ideas and technical understanding.
“He was confident but players could see pretty quickly that he could back it up,” says McFadden.
He was also popular.
“He was a bit younger then, he was social, good fun to be around,” says McFadden. “He enjoyed going out and the players enjoyed spending time with him. That’s part of your culture – celebrating the moment when you have a good win – and he certainly did that very well.”
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