Newcastle Knights premiership winning five-eighth Matthew Johns has added his thoughts on the club’s current coaching situation.
While Knights attack coach Blake Green has been widely mentioned as a potential replacement should Adam O’Brien depart at the end of 2025, Johns pointed to one of Green’s colleagues as an option well worth considering.
“The one (coaching candidate) who hasn’t been spoken about is the Knights defensive coach, Brian McDermott, the Englishman,” Johns said on The Run Home with Joel and Fletch on SEN.
“He’s had great success in Super league and if you look at the Knights, they have the sixth best defence in the league—it’s just that we have the worst attack.”
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“(Brian) is really highly respected up there amongst the players so he’s certainly worth a mention,” Johns continued.
It’s a somewhat controversial take from Johns—while there’s no doubting McDermott’s defensive credentials, given the Knights have scored just 251 points in 17 games this NRL season (14.7 points per game) it seems the club’s current problems are at the other end of the field.
Born in Yorkshire, 55-year-old McDermott is a former Great Britain international who coached more than 440 games in the Super League between 2006-2022, winning four Super League titles and two Challenge Cups.
He joined Adam O’Brien’s staff in Newcastle before the start of the 2023 NRL season.
The Knights host the fourth-placed New Zealand Warriors on Sunday afternoon as Round 20 of the NRL continues.