Chris Rattue: Quiet Cleary lets his team do the talking

Warriors coach Ivan Cleary during training. Photo / Dean Purcell

Coach of the year?

All Whites boss Rick Herbert has that sewn up.

For my money though, Aussie Ivan Cleary is - in the true coaching sense and ignoring patriotic qualification - the outstanding candidate.

Cleary, with a remote personality, is not all that easy to warm to. Unlike a few league characters, he is no vaudeville act. His team is speaking volumes on the field though, and no more so than in the brilliant win over Brisbane on Friday night which secured them a top-eight finals place.

If Cleary can do the unthinkable and - do we dare risk fate and utter these words - take the Warriors into the grand final, this rather mysterious character will go down in Kiwi sporting legend.

A quick word on the All Whites.

Instinct and logic, plus a few loud and well-placed whispers that have come my way, indicate that Ryan Nelsen (assisted by his old comrade Simon Elliott) was the driving and tactical force in the World Cup campaign, rather than Herbert.

I've long believed and stated that without the presence of Nelsen, the All Whites would not even have gone close to that magical soccer ride. Nelsen was one of the tournament's finest defenders, along with being the All Whites tactician, the commander and the enforcer. He also drew the very best out of young defenders Winston Reid and Tommy Smith, without whose presence the All Whites could not have kept Italy and Co at bay. Nelsen was the man the squad looked up to.

Herbert will take the applause, and the badge says he was the man in charge.

Having said that, sporting awards are not only subjective, but occur without any real investigation beyond the most memorable headlines. They are about impressions - often on the mark, sometimes not. Let's hope Nelsen also gets his rightful recognition.

Graham Henry will also be in the hunt for the top coach award, and Richie McCaw should rival Nelsen for the sportsman of the year title. New Zealand is enjoying a stellar period in the main winter codes. A massive weakness in the awards system is that they often don't reflect our true sporting preferences, and can't extract the influence of individual brilliance in team performances.

Please don't let a Commonwealth Games competitor be allowed to steal the real show.

On to Cleary. This is coaching in the true professional sense, over a whole season or a few seasons. This is where you really find out a coach's mettle (as we are doing with Henry).

This, ironically, is where Herbert himself has probably excelled the most, lifting the Phoenix up the A-League table last season and providing magical moments at the end of the last campaign. Will it continue though? That's the big question.

The Warriors' turnaround is among the most staggering in New Zealand sport.

Last year they were C%$# with a capital C, to the point you feared the club may be doomed, as they finished third from last.

For that, Cleary must of course take plenty of blame.

But to have learned so well from a bad year and found a way to turn a potential disaster around, is a job superbly done.

None of us, the pundits, thought the Warriors would go anywhere near the top eight in 2010. Yet here they are, one of the form sides, close to the top four, although probably not quite close enough.

They have had to go through the season without Steve Price and also lost the outstanding Sam Rapira for a decent chunk.

Cleary has proved to be spot on with his signings, particularly James Maloney. He got the captaincy change, from Price to Simon Mannering, dead right, even though the idea lingers that Price was privately unhappy with the way this was publicly handled. Cleary also made staff coaching changes.

The development work - Aaron Heremaia and Lewis Brown are the picks in this department - has been inspired. Somehow, Cleary rejuvenated a tired team.

The future suddenly looks very bright.

Anyone who saw the brilliant (if wayward) Parramatta ballplayer Feleti Mateo's best moments against South Sydney will be licking their lips in high anticipation about what the Warriors can achieve when he and the equally enigmatic Krisnan Inu arrive in Auckland next year.

In a new environment and with Cleary secure and on his game, Mateo and Inu might take their careers, and the Warriors, to new heights. Style-wise, it should be a spectacular ride.

The way the Warriors smashed up the Brisbane Broncos, a club that even in poorer years typically has some of the best young players in the game on its books, was stunning.

They did this without Micheal Luck, one of the bravest and hardest workers in the NRL. Both the result and the entertainment was fantastic.

If only the people who ran Auckland rugby had half as many clues.

Cleary was probably an easier character to define when he played - a dedicated professional who made the very most of his abilities. As a coach, he is outwardly stoic, yet his 2010 team has tremendous spirit.

The Warriors just had to quickly rise because they face being swamped by a Rugby World Cup frenzy next year. The Warriors' home crowds have generally been poor in 2010, so they can never rest easy.

Imagine if they went into the 2011 year as the NRL champions. In their best interests though, this column won't dare predict that.

WEEKEND WINNERS

The Warriors - a desperate Broncos were no match for them.

WHAT TO WATCH

The Sonny Bill Williams show