THE life of a rugby coach is often erratic and involves lots of sleepless nights.

The Coleman brothers know all about that in their jobs as head coaches – Darren as boss of the Warringah Rats in Sydney and the NSW Country Eagles and until the weekend Scott as long time mentor of the Hamilton Hawks in Newcastle.

Darren had his time in the sunshine when the Rats broke their Shute Shield drought at the end of August in Sydney, while Scott finished a great run with the Hawks that saw them win three on the trot last weekend.

The bond between big brother Darren and young ‘Bubba’ was there for all to see on social media in the early hours of grand final day last weekend.

Darren, obviously finishing off preparations for the Eagles’ vital game against the Canberra Vikings in Armidale, posted a message to his brother on social media at 1.22am on Newcastle grand final day.

It read: “To my little bro, You teach me more about life and being a good person every day than I’ve ever taught you about footy. A three-peat (and seven premierships) would be a nice note to pause on. If not, so be it – you’ve earned a break.
May the best team win. 
# Go Hawks!”

The rest as they say is history with the Hawks demolishing the Wanderers 45-12, coping with a send off in the first half and capping off the club’s 50th anniversary celebrations in grand style at the Newcastle Sports Ground No. 2.

Since Coleman’s appointment in 2006, the Hawks have won titles in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016 and now 2017.

They were beaten grand finalists in 2007, 2011 and 2013 and have won 186 of 242 games at a winning percentage of 77%.

Coleman is taking time off to build his young family a new home but as he said in the wake of the premierships decider he’s still about and obviously will have some input into what happened next at the Hawks.

He came to the ground feeling confident after the Hawks “circle of truth”, a device used by brother Darren at Warringah in the wake of the death of club mate Lachie Ward.

It’s a simple device where the players sit in a circle and talk about what the club means to them and the effect winning a grand final would have on them.

They sat in a circle and each player took it in turn to talk about the club and explain what winning a grand final would mean.

“It’s easy to say now but I felt that if we could click for 80 minutes and control possession then we were a big chance,” Coleman told Bar TV.

“We had our team meeting a couple of hours before the game and from our little circle of truth I was pretty confident that we could get the job done.

“A lot of guys told some hard stories, there were a few tears of joy and few of sadness but I came away from that with a good feeling about the game.”

But he couldn’t have seen the way that this game was going to pan out – 10-0 after 10 minutes and 31-7 at halftime!

The halftime talk was a story of its own with the players taking over to make sure that the foot wasn’t taken off the throat.

“They were up each other at half-time saying we have to score, we have to score, the job is not done,” Coleman told the Newcastle Herald.

“That showed their mentality. They knew we couldn’t switch off. We knew Wanderers were going to throw everything at us. They were sealing off at the breakdown so there was no use going for the ball. We got our spacing right and worked on line speed.”

Coleman added: “This year is the most pressure I have felt. With it being the club’s 50th, the special events around that and the expectation on us to win … it is definitely my proudest moment rugby wise.”

The grand-final triumph completed a hat-trick of premierships – the first in the NHRU since a Steve Merrick-led Singleton claimed three straight from 1995.

“It is the biggest moment in the club’s history,” Coleman said. “I don’t think anyone every imagined winning three straight. It’s so hard to win one.”

At some stage the brothers will toast their 2017 accomplishments – and when that happens looks out!

IMAGES COURTESY OF PICS WITH PAT/ HAMILTON RUGBY FACEBOOK PAGE