The Life and Times of Former Kiwi Coach Frank Endacott

The Life and Times of Former Kiwi Coach Frank Endacott

Former Auckland Warriors, New Zealand Kiwis, and Wigan Warriors coach Frank Endacott first started playing League in 1955 as a standoff when he was seven-years old in the newly created housing area of Shirley. The interesting thing about the Shirley League Club was that Frank’s father and a few of Frank’s friends found people to play Rugby League as it was getting popular at that stage and overtime it became the most popular club for juniors.

After a few years, Frank started played Rugby League for the Addington Magpies and they had a super important match one Sunday Afternoon. However, during the Thursday training session, the coach at the time walked away from the club and was never to be seen again. At a team meeting in the team room that they had at Addington Park, the team decided to make Frank a player/coach of the side. Frank said, “I was the youngest in the team, and somehow I got the player/coach job. I still don’t know if they were mickey or whether they saw something in me.”

Frank felt that he was a leader during his playing career, so after Frank finished playing Rugby League, he decided that he would give back to the great game and become coach of Addington in 1982. They won the title for the club in that year and he felt that it was a terrific year. After coaching Addington, Frank then coached a few sides in Canterbury before becoming the Canterbury coach in 1993 (taking over from Ray Haffenden). At the time, the New Zealand Rugby League was strong in four areas: Auckland, Bay Of Plenty, Wellington and Christchurch. In one of Frank’s memorable moments in his career, he coached Canterbury for five years and in that time, he beat a star-studded Auckland side in convincing fashion.

In 1994, Frank was announced to be the coach of the reserve grade side for the Auckland Warriors inaugural season in 1995 where they played the first game on Ericcson Stadium (or Mt Smart as it’s known as today). He had the side for two and a half years and in that time they made the playoffs and made the final in 1997 where they lost to a strong Cronulla side by two points. It was an experience that he and the players who played in the game will never forget. A lot of that side made the step up into first grade while Frank coached the Warriors between 1997-1998. Frank took over the side halfway through 1997 and the side improved a lot as they moved from last on the ladder (of ten sides) and moved up to seventh. In 1997, the super league year the Warriors finished third in the world club championships which was no mean feat going down to the Brisbane Broncos 18-12 in the semi-final. In 1998, he felt that the side played more as a side and finished … on the ladder with many close losses.

In 1995, Frank took over as coach of the kiwis league team where he had 20 wins as coach (including beating the star studded Australian side twice) and also coached the kiwis in two world cups in 1995 and 2000. Even though he enjoyed the experience, he felt that the Kiwi side was unlucky to not win a title.

As coach, Frank always backed himself on the decisions and selections he made. In one case, the 1996 tour of the UK, star lock Mark Horo was injured early in the tour. Frank needed a lock and then picked a young Logan Swann at the time straight from reserve grade and put him on the bench in that series (who played in numerous games for the Kiwis). That series, the Kiwis saw three tough and physical games in that series. However, Frank felt that there were times where he struggled to pick the players that he wanted due to injury or players being suspended (for minor offenses). “At that time there were fun and games going on with the Australians and Super League and we suffered a lot from those juridical decisions because of the Super League war and such. It affected us as Kiwis in the test matches.” He also feels that when he was coach, he didn’t have the log of players to pick from like they do today.

Frank feels that the Kiwis sides (both when he was coaching and today) are better in tours or series rather than test matches because in a series they get together more. When Frank coached the Kiwis in one-off test matches, he felt that keeping it simple helped as they come together very quickly. “You just bring them together, they are the best players that you have got, and you give them the calls, and you bring them together so that they go out united.”

Frank coached the Kiwis in 35 test matches and the 1998 test match win against the star-studded Australian side, which included Laurie Daley, Mat Rogers, Wendel Sailor, Steve Renouf, Geoff Toovey and many other Australian greats. Many league fans wrote the kiwi side off with the Australian betting agency Centre Bet having the Aussies to win by 40 points and Frank also remembers people ringing an Auckland radio saying that the Kiwis could lose by 50-60 points. Frank picked a strong side for the match that included Matthew Ridge, Richie Blackmore, Stacey Jones, John Lomax and Joe Vagana. The kiwis won the game 22-16 and Frank said it was one of the toughest test matches he has ever coached in and all the guys put their bodies on the line. “ I know at one stage I had the medical people in my ear at one stage saying, hey Frank, we have this guy underneath, we have this guy getting stitched and this guy going to the hospital. We had one guy on the bench, and at one point Ritchie Barnett had a broken bone in his finger, and he went back out and played. Jarrod McCracken had stitches in his head, and he went back out and played and the same for Quentin Pongia.”

After being the Warriors’ coach, Frank took some time off coaching a club side and concentrated on the Kiwis role. He received a phone call at midnight one night from Wigan chairman Morris Lindsey asking if he would like to coach one of the most successful and richest clubs in English history who were struggling at the time. Frank had a very successful year going from fifth to first and winning the championship but got beat in the final by a star-sudded St. Helen’s side that Included, Paul Schulthorpe, Keiron Cunningham, and Leon Pryce. At the end of the year, he also won the British coach of the year.

Coming to the end of the 2004 season, Frank bought a pub off former Warrior and Kiwi Terry Hermansson in Christchurch, and one night when we was behind the bar, he was contacted by Widnes to help get them out of relegation as the side was struggling and they didn’t want to get relegated. Frank thought that it would be a challenge at their last five games were against tough opposition and they managed to stay afloat by winning their last game and getting other results to go their way. Frank was reluctant to stay on for 2005 but did and felt that they were affected by injuries and were relegated at the end of 2005. “We went through 38 players. Even then we didn’t finish last we finished second to last, we still got relegate because it was the only year the two teams were relegated in Super League in one year. That was the introduction of the French team coming in too.”

Back when Frank was coaching Wigan in 2000, he felt that they were the first club to bring the wrestle in. Franks remembers one night two big security guards, Royce and Shane, came up to him and asked if he would like them to put on a wrestling session and felt that it improved their defence a lot. “They were two guys that were known not to be messed around with. I spoke to captain at the time Andy Farrell about it, and he thought it would be good for our defence to try and win the tackle on the deck, which was so vital. So we got them in, and they proved to be really good, and they did a great job. They threw some boxing too, and I think boxing is good for footballers as well to get that upper body strength and also give them confidence. The wrestling was good, and it helped our game defensively.”

During the regular season (whether it was in the NRL or Super League), Frank would concentrate one session on looking at the opposition’s good points and weak points. Also, he would spend time working on defense and defensive screens and teamwork on attack, along with a couple of weight sessions to mix it up a bit. He felt that it was important to keep the players as fresh as possible (including getting them ready for other games like the challenge cups games) so that he could keep their minds on the job at hand.

Franks feels since he was coaching that the quality of the referees has gotten better. They are scrutinized a lot more by fans and commentators but at the same time they make the odd mistake from time to time but less than the players do. He felt that Bill Harragon was a good referee and that there were also good referees in New Zealand as well. But the key difference is that the referees today have been trained a lot more and that referees today are full time compared to what they were back then.

Frank feels that the game has become more cleaner since he played and when he was coaching. Back in his day, guys were in fights, there were head high tackles and numerous other brutal acts. However, he feels that they are walking a fine line between being safe and too soft as fans like to see a bit of biff rather than a player penalised for something that might be classed as rough today. “Some of the tackles that the referees pull up for a high tackle is just a joke. An accidental slap across the face someone is getting penalized or worse, it’s ridiculous. You don’t see the bad offenses now compared to what there used to be where guys like Paul Harragon vs. Mark O’Caroll and when Kevin Tamati vs. Greg Dowling were going at each other.” Franks feels that one-on-one dust-ups are ok as no one really got hurt.

Franks feels that when he was coaching in the English Super League, there wasn’t a gap between them and the NRL. Today, however, there is a huge gap, even though Wigan beat Crounlla in the world club challenge last month he feels that there isn’t a team that could consistently beat teams in the NRL as that comes down to the salary cap which has impacted the quality of the football players. “The reason for that is because of the exchange rate dropping dramatically, it’s worth a lot more money for a player playing in the NRL now, especially with the salary cap increasing. The super League cap is just staying stagnate, it’s a monetary thing and also the offshore incentives. It’s just a tougher criteria for players to get there now so they aren’t getting our top players now and the standard of their competition has dropped accordingly.”

After Frank gave up coaching, Frank linked up with Aucklander Peter Brown and his company called Peter Brown Management where they manage English Super League players and NRL players. Like Shaun Johnson, Manu Vatveui, Thomas Leulaui and Ata Hingairo. Frank manages the English side of the firm with his good understanding of the English Rugby League system, and Peter manages the NRL Players.