Rugby League Coaching Manuals

By Steve Ricketts, Courier Mail - John Dixon was a proud man when his Queensland Universities rugby league team tackled Great Britain in a "Test" at Hull's Boulevard Ground in 2001. There were only about 500 spectators, but it gave Dixon a huge thrill to see his students from Brisbane, Townsville, Toowoomba, Rockhampton and the Gold Coast singing the national anthem before doing their best for the Maroon jersey.

In Toowoomba 27 years earlier, he had played for the Clydesdales against Britain on a day when the tourists' dual international forward John Gray kicked nine goals from 10 shots in a 42-16 win.

Now Dixon is a British resident - at Bridgend in Wales, to be precise - where he has done the seemingly impossible and guided the Celtic Crusade rs into Super League after just three seasons in the lower divisions.

The Crusaders, who have a three-year licence to play in SL, will kick off the 2009 season with a match against the champion Leeds team at Headingley on February 6.

It says a lot about this former school teacher's love of rugby league that he has given so much at so many different levels as a player and coach.

Toowoomba-born, he played for All Whites in the local competition for three years before taking on a captain-coach role at Dalby Brothers and then having one final season as a player with Rockhampton Brothers.

"I was a teacher, and teachers probably have a feel for coaching. It was something I wanted to do," he said during the Crusaders' recent training camp in Brisbane.

"I met (Broncos coach) Wayne Bennett in 1995 when I was on a QRL coaching panel and he ended up offering me a job at the Broncos.

"I went on to do a variety of things including junior development, player recruitment and coaching their feeder team, the Toowoomba Clydesdales.

"I had 10 years at the club so you could certainly say I served my apprenticeship.

"Wayne was tough to work for because he set such high standards. But I didn't expect anything else."

Just after Dixon accepted the Celtic Crusaders job in 2005 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and was advised by his doctor to forget about taking on such an onerous task.

But after successful medical treatment Dixon headed to Wales and the rest, as they say, is history.

Since 2006, 57 Welsh-born players have appeared in the top grade for the Crusaders in National Leagues One and Two, an example of Dixon's thinking that establishes the infrastructure for long-term success.

He brought a solid nucleus of Australian players with him to Bridgend to give the locals guidance, including Tony Duggan, Damien Quinn and Jace Van Djik, who had been part of the Broncos system, and more recently Josh Hannay, a former Queensland State of Origin centre who was unwanted at Cronulla.

Following Celtic's promotion, NRL hard-heads such as Adam Peek, Mark Bryant, Lincoln Withers, Ryan O'Hara and Marshall Chalk have been added to the roster.

"There is a great opportunity here for the Australians to maintain their status as professional footballers while at the same time helping the game grow in Wales," Dixon said.

"With the Welsh boys with rugby union backgrounds it has been great to see the way they have improved and the way all our players - and we have Englishmen and Irishmen as well - get along."

Broncos football manager Peter Nolan coached against Dixon in the Toowoomba competition in 1992-93 and then worked with him at the Broncos.

"John has hung in there and if anyone deserves a chance at the top level it's him," Nolan said.

"He's one of those blokes who just wants to coach and he has been willing to make a lot of sacrifices, some of them financial, to get where he is.

"He just lives, eats and breathes rugby league and his ethics are second to none."

Dixon showed on the 2001 students' tour he could be one of the boys. The students had to dig into their own pockets for the trip and it was an educational and cultural experience as much as a football assignment.

After the game against Scotland in Glasgow, Dixon wore a kilt and let his hair down as the players mixed with their Scots rivals in a local pub - the best night of the tour, the boys said.

Now Dixon is dealing with men, many of them hardened professionals, in a competition some Aussie imports claim is equal to the NRL.

The Crusaders will cop some canings in their SL debut year, particularly on the road at formidable venues such as Headingley, Knowsley Road and JJB Stadium.

But as long as his boys give 100 per cent, just as the 2001 students did, Dixon will be proud of their efforts.