Jamie Peacock: external coaching pressure

In his latest Daily Mirror column, Jamie Peacock explains why external pressure on Super League coaches is an unfortunate, but necessary, part of the job.

As a head coach, you get your good times and bad times but you are always under scrutiny.

That's part of the job. The problem is everyone who isn't a coach thinks they can do a better job than you! It's a challenge. And regardless of who you are, if you get a string of poor results, you are going to face pressure.

It's then about the owners and whether they have faith in their coach or not and how strong their relationship is.
I saw Wigan coach Matt Peet's comments defending Ian Watson after the Huddersfield boss' position came under fire when Giants lost 54-0 at Leeds last week.

Peet said the media here needs to have more empathy and rugby league's not like football.

But journalists have the right to ask questions and, for me, coverage here is fairly balanced.

Every situation where a coach is in a losing streak is different. Clearly, there are times when a club does need to make a change and for me - like everything with coaching - that decision is very much an art form: there's some science in it but there's also some guesswork in there.

Personally, I've never been interested in a coaching role. You can have a three-year contract but then have six bad games in a row and be sacked. There's only a small field of jobs as well so not many become career coaches in this country...

Read Jamie Peacock's full column on the Daily Mirror Website