Rugby league: Nathan Brown opens up on Warriors exit and putting family first

Nathan Brown parted ways with the Warriors about a season and a half at the helm. Photo / Photosport

Nathan Brown and his family live by a golden rule: stick together. It saw them relocate several times in Brown's 20-year career as a rugby league head coach, and ultimately saw his tenure as head coach of the Warriors come to an end.

Brown was relieved of his role with the club earlier this week after he informed them he would not be able to move to New Zealand to see out the final year of his contract in 2023. The revelation came following a discussion with his family more than a month ago.

Speaking on Fox Sports' NRL 360, Brown said while his son was happy to move anywhere, his daughters did not want to move away from their current home in Sydney and that made the next move in his career an easy one.

"My wife informed me that my two oldest daughters weren't prepared to move to New Zealand and my youngest daughter said she wanted to live with her sisters," Brown said. "Basically, I said to them 'well, that's pretty much the end of my coaching career.'

"We're a family that have done everything together...we've always operated together and that's been our golden rule. There are a lot of people in professional sport; head coaches I suppose all over the world that relationships become a bit of a statistic because work becomes more important, and I'm just not prepared to do that."

Brown informed the club of his position about a fortnight ago and after thinking things over the club ultimately decided that parting ways immediately was what was best for them, promoting assistant coach Stacey Jones in the interim as they begin their search for a new permanent head coach.

The decision did not come as a surprise to Brown, who admitted he told his family that the club would likely move quickly after learning he wouldn't be around in 2023.

"Whether I had won the last two games or not, the news would have come as it was because they're really good people, they know what they want and they're a club that's moving forward."

After taking over the struggling club in 2021, Brown had some work to do in order to try turn the team around. In two seasons at the helm, he coached the team to a 12-25 record; finishing 12th in 2021 and currently sitting 13th this season.

However, looking further afield than the on-field performances of the club, Brown is leaving the team in a better position than when he inherited it in terms of talent. While the Warriors have had some misses with the recruitment in the past couple of seasons – with Matt Lodge and Euan Aitken both also telling the club they would not move to New Zealand – the have inked several exciting talents under Brown's watch.

With young players oozing potential in Reece Walsh and Ronald Volkman, to the established first-graders Marata Niukore (Parramatta Eels), Mitchell Barnett (Newcastle Knights), Luke Metcalf (Cronulla Sharks) and Dylan Walker (Manly Sea Eagles) joining the team next season, there will be a bit more to work with for whoever might take the reins from 2023 onwards.

"It wasn't a hard job from the point of view of where we were salary cup-wise...it's a hard point in actually recruiting. Getting players to come to a club when you're down low – and the Warriors have been down low for about 10 or 11 years – so that's not easy," Brown told NRL 360.

"I feel really good that we've got the right players coming to help the Warriors. Unfortunately, I won't be there to coach them, but I think the next coach is going to get a good job and, at the end of the day, for me personally, that's an important thing.

"At every club I've been at, the new coach has got a far better job than I got given and that's important for me. That's the kind of coach I am. Not all of us can win premierships; some just help clubs and that's the way it is. You have to be comfortable with who you are."

Despite vacancies opening up with two of the Sydney-based clubs (Wests Tigers, Canterbury Bulldogs) Brown confirmed his career as a head coach had come to an end and he was instead looking to do something else in the rugby league arena.

"I told (the Warriors) I'm not going to appear at another club. I said you can decide whether you want me to stay for the rest of this year or not, but my head coaching days are over. I'm going to go into another field in rugby league, and I'm going to honour what I told those blokes. I want to help another coach keep their job so (the media) stay off their backs. That's what I'd like to do. How that looks, I'm not too sure.

"My head coaching days are over. I'm moving into a new field, but I'm very grateful for the 20 years I had doing it."