NRL coach safety ratings: Adam O’Brien, Andrew Webster, Benji Marshall and Des Hasler in the firing line in 2025
There will need to be big changes for some NRL teams to save their coach’s career. We rate every coach’s safety rating across the competition, with several in a danger zone if they can’t produce results in 2025.
Broncos
– Peter Badel
Michael Maguire is as safe as Fort Knox. He arrives at the Broncos on a three-year deal following the shock sacking of Kevin Walters, who parted ways with Brisbane in September. The Broncos moved quickly to secure Maguire, who resigned as NSW Origin coach to take up the challenge of snapping Brisbane’s 19-year premiership drought.
Maguire is just the sixth coach in Brisbane’s 36-year history, which should underline the club’s preference for stability. However, he will be the fourth full-time clipboard holder in the past seven years, highlighting a rollercoaster era that has delivered a wooden spoon and a grand final appearance.
A premiership coach at Souths in 2014, Maguire wants immediate success at Red Hill, but Broncos bosses will back him to implement his own structures in 2025. A dismal season next year, however, and more pressure will be applied.
SAFETY RATING: A
Bulldogs
– Pamela Whaley
After taking the club from the bottom of the ladder to an elimination final within the space of a season, Cameron Ciraldo’s coaching credentials have been affirmed.
His first season in charge was a learning period for players while he began to change the club’s losing culture, and in 2024 the fruits of his labour were evident on the field.
The addition of superstar centre Stephen Crichton as captain this year, who quickly became one of the best leaders in the competition, helped set Ciraldo’s standards.
The pair forged their relationship while working together at Penrith, and have now formed a dynamic duo in Belmore.
A three-game losing streak to finish the year was not the ideal way to finish the season, which included a demoralising 44-6 loss to North Queensland in the final round before being bounced out of the finals in week one in a close loss to Manly.
But Ciraldo has breathed life into the Bulldogs after years of misery, and for now appears the answer.
SAFETY RATING: A
Cowboys
– Travis Meyn
Todd Payten is embarking on his fifth season in charge of the Cowboys and looking for some consistency in Townsville. The Cowboys made the preliminary finals in 2022 under Payten then fell off a cliff in 2023. They bounced back last season to reach the second week of the finals and now the challenge for Payten is to keep them up in premiership contention. Payten has had time to assemble his own squad and has got the Cowboys to within a whisker of the grand final. Now he needs to take the next step.
SAFETY RATING: B
Dolphins
– Travis Meyn
Kristian Woolf will begin his NRL head coaching career with the tough task of succeeding Wayne Bennett. Most of Bennett’s successors have failed but the Dolphins believe Woolf has the best opportunity to thrive. He has an extensive coaching resume and success in England as well as at Test level with Tonga. Regardless of whether he enjoys first-year success or not, Woolf will be given time to prove he can make it in the NRL.
SAFETY RATING: A
Dragons
– Michael Carayannis
You could see the similarities to what Shane Flanagan achieved at the Sharks to what he is now building at St George Illawarra. He is in the middle of a three-year deal and any top-eight appearance should guarantee a contract extension.
The Dragons fell just short of a finals appearance in his first season, but he still gets a massive pass mark considering what he was able to get out of a squad which, on paper, was not top-eight quality.
The test will be to see how much he can improve the squad, which is stronger after some good recruiting.
While the Dragons are in no rush to get a new deal sorted, as they naturally want to wait and see what results bring in 2025, Flanagan will make the decision easy for them should they look like playing finals football.
They would also like to see Flanagan attract another marquee player or two for 2026 with the Dragons still having salary cap space to sign a big name.
SAFETY RATING: A
Eels
– Adam Mobbs
Rookie coach Jason Ryles has taken over the most daunting job in the NRL, trying to end the longest active premiership drought n the competition, which now stretches into its 39th season.
A four-year deal gives Ryles the security and time to implement his vision, which he wasted little time in executing after releasing Gutherson and Campbell-Gillard.
Ryles has been an understudy to Craig Bellamy, Trent Robinson and Eddie Jones, and picked the brains of the likes of Warren Ryan as he begins his NRL coaching career.
He’s also well supported with his assistants. Nathan Brown has 475 games of first-grade coaching experience, Scott Wisemantel is an accomplished rugby coach, Sam Moa was the defence coach for Catalans and will strengthen the link with the club’s Polynesian players.
Most rookie coaches come in when a team is at its lowest. But Ryles inherits a solid, albeit underperforming, roster, at a club with a growing investment in its junior nursery and a $70 million centre of excellence that is due to open its doors in April.
The question remains over what type of coach Ryles will be, given he has exclusively been an assistant while serving his apprenticeship and is yet to run a football program at any level.
SAFETY RATING: A
Knights
– Pamela Whaley
Adam O’Brien is heading into his sixth season at the Knights and except for 2022, has taken the team to the finals every year in charge.
The issue is how the Knights go to the next level.
If the question is have they improved or established themselves as competition heavyweights, the answer is ‘not yet’ for both, which is the concern.
By now, they have had several roster changes but have not yet pushed for a premiership.
Their highest paid players Ponga and Best are at the peak of their powers and need support now to win a title.
Middle of the road finishes and an overreliance on Ponga with no big additions for 2025 is a recipe for pressure on O’Brien’s back.
His head was on the chopping block back in 2024 before a remarkable on-field turnaround earned him a three-year contract upgrade, which keeps him locked in until the end of 2027.
That contract gives him enough security for 2025 but that won’t stop fans calling for change if they have a poor season.
SAFETY RATING: B-
Panthers
– Fatima Kdouh
There is no greater insurance policy when it comes to head coaching than premiership wins, and Ivan Cleary has paid the premium four times over. Cleary is signed until the end of season 2027 and given his immense success at the helm at Penrith, his job as head coach is untouchable. Cleary comes in a package deal with son and champion halfback Nathan Cleary and the Panthers are already working to secure the duo for another five seasons, until the end of 2032, on a combined deal worth around $13 million. The only real threats to Cleary’s Panthers tenure is Penrith’s success stalling, which would raise questions about whether the coach’s time at the club has run its course, and the threat posed by expansion clubs willing to hand the coach an open checkbook.
SAFETY RATING: A+
Rabbitohs
– Tyson Jackson
South Sydney fought hard to lure the 74-year-old Wayne Bennett back to Sydney following a two-year stint with the Dolphins, and expect him to have his full contract length of three years to turn the once powerhouse club around.
Bennett left the Rabbitohs following the 2021 grand final, where they were an interception away from winning the game, and the club hasn’t been the same since.
Only making the finals once from the last three years without him, many fans and club officials will praise any move the supercoach makes if it means a more favourable outcome. While he is set for three years, no one should get their hopes up for a longer stay by Bennett, with teams, some not even yet in the competition, already planning a bid for what will be the 78-year-old coach.
SAFETY RATING: A+
Raiders
– Fatima Kdouh
Stuart has managed a luxury other NRL coaches can only dream of – job security. Only a wooden spoon, maybe even more than one, will be a slump bad enough for Stuart’s job to face any threat.
Having re-signed until the end of 2029, Stuart will need to turn his youth strategy into on-field success. He deserves credit for keeping the Raiders in the finals hunt in 2024 with one of the less-fancied rosters in the competition. He’ll face the same challenge in 2025, trying to squeeze the most out of a young roster with almost half of the top 30 aged 23 and under.
While the Raiders have not been a title threat since the club’s last grand final appearance in 2019, Stuart’s worst finish in the last five years at the helm is 10th on the ladder.
SAFETY RATING: A
