Couldn't help but notice that there are a lot of NRL coaches in the last decade or so who are, or were teachers.

Is it the same back home? And if there are, why are teachers?

Yes a lot are teachers, probably because they're compelled to do RL related community work/PR - a lot of that will be with kids, teaching them the game.

Stuart Cummings was my games teacher, and contrary to a lot of opinions on here (those who basically know his name as the Refs' boss) he was a very sound bloke.

Bob Everitt who is an up and coming official is a teacher also.

Daniel Anderson
Des Hasler
Brian Smith


Graham Murray
Tony Rea

spring to mind

Roy Masters was a teacher and coach of the local school up the road from here before he went to Sydney and coached Wests. I assume he was still a teacher in his early Sydney coaching days too actually.

Current Wigan coach Michael Maguire.

Upholland High? He seemed a nice enough bloke when we played against them at school, though he had a shocking game as the referee - I scored a try which he then disallowed for a forward pass, which prompted me to rant at him about him allowing an identical try for Wakefield at Leyth in a cup tie the previous week

That's the one.

Outrageously, whilst we were there, Mr C was not in charge of rugby - that was left to a Welsh bloke with long grey hair called Mr Griffiths, who I think fancied himself as a bit of a David Essex. A poser, basically.

We had to play union, sadly, and what he knew about it could be written on the back of a postage stamp - for instance, we had some seasoned RL players in our year and instead of putting the RL players in the union positions best suited (ie, RL hooker at RU scrum half, RL scrum half at RU fly half, RL stand off in the centres) he simply thought that if he played hooker at RL, then he should be hooker in RU, and so on.

I don't think we ever won a game.

Thankfully I went to a proper school and RU wasn't given a second thought

Yeh, true. To be fair, Upholland High isn't 'really' Wigan. It's a West Lancashire school, and most of its pupils came from Skelmersdale - I presume they still do - so football was the main interest.

It also didn't help that we wore Orrell Rugby Union's cast offs for our kit.

I think it hugely depends on the individual teacher - I was lucky in that one of the PE teachers at my school (Bedford High in Leigh) was a pie eater and a huge RL fan, whereas I believe these days since he has retired that RL has dropped down the level of priorities. Likewise, I believe Cheshire Tiger on here in a PE teacher and as such has seen a big increase in RL participation?

I was suppose to go to Upholland, but if I did I wouldn't have been able to represent Wigan Town Team or play RL at school.

Strings were pulled and I went to Abraham Guest instead.

John Bevan was a PE teacher when he played for Wire
Mark Hilton is now a Maths teacher having retired from Wire

Roger Pearman who played for Trinity in the '63 cup final was our PE Teacher for a short while at Ossett Grammar School.
Not many kids liked him. Too handy with the slipper.

Ex Celtic Crusaders Coach John Dixon was an ex headmaster down under.

Mcrea at the Reds was a teacher- he believes MM at Wigan is following his career path-His words

Ged Dunn legend

Oh no. So basically, Maguires doing to gain about 10 stone, do very well at one club, then spend the rest of his life coming bottom of the league no matter where he is, occasionally making guest appearances on a satellite channel?

If there is one profession Barry McKenzie has little or no time for it's those who decide to become teachers.

There is an old saying 'Those who can do... do. Those who can't do... teach.'

And how very true that is.


In Barry McKenzies expert opinion the trouble with far too many teachers is they have never actually left school. By this I mean they attended school as kids, went on to college, then university, got a degree then became teachers....back at school. The few I have met have little or no social skills and are totally incapable of talking to anyone outside of a school environment or interacting with anybody else who is not a school teacher themselves.


Fact.

… alternatively, maybe it's just you they don't like talking to

A good point, but on this occasion, Robinson agrees with Barry McKenzie.

There's a quote worth keeping for future use

Jamie Leahy (SL ref) is a PE and science teacher.

Done and DONE





They all agree with me tb.

Some are just too shy to admit it.

Oh Dear - You've really set the cat amongst the pigeons. Once the very teachers you are having a go at return from their extended paid holidays this board will go into meltdown.

=#FFFFFFThis includes my lazy good for nothing wife by the way