Lowe opts for Juniors over NRL

Sunday 27th September 2009

A COACHING ASSIGNMENT with an under-six team may prevent 2008 NRL premiers Manly from persuading one of their favourite sons to return to the club.

A Sea Eagles insider has informally approached Graham Lowe - who coached Manly from 1990 to 1992 and of course, had a successful spell in England with Wigan as well as coaching New Zealand, Queensland and the Cowboys - and asked if he'd be interested in returning to Brookvale as chief executive. The club dumped incumbent Grant Mayer after a damaging mid-season boardroom split, have suffered from off-field controversies and exited the playoffs in the opening weekend.

Lowe remains popular at Manly and has a longstanding friendship with the club's godfather, former ARL boss Ken Arthurson.

But he's in his sixties now, and having overcome some terrible ill-health, seems to be in one of the happiest stages of his life.

Last year, he sued the NZRL for $182,000 of lost earnings after being dumped as their director of football but after a "very amicable agreement'' with the league's new chief executive, Jim Doyle, has this month dropped the claim - a hint perhaps he will get involved with the national body again.

He's become a successful corporate speaker - he was at a conference in Gisborne when we spoke this weekend, and Fiji the week before - and also contracts to a major recruitment company.

He lives on a 'lifestyle block' in the rolling rural suburb of Dairy Flat, north of Auckland.

And most importantly he's enjoying being a dad again. Earlier this year, Lowe wrote a book about the joys of fatherhood and in particular, raising his twin five-year-olds, Jack and Sam. He took them down to junior registrations at his local club last winter and ended up with possibly the proudest assignment of his coaching career - head coach, East Coast Bays Barracudas under-sixes.

Lowe's other gig, incidentally,is coaching the Bay of Plenty rep team. He stepped in when they couldn't find a suitably-qualified local, and began driving three hours down to Rotorua every week to ready the Stags for the provincial competition against Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, Waikato and Taranaki (facing the first three is probably the Kiwi equivalent of London Skolars against St Helens).

So while Manly have rung, Lowe tells me: "I haven't really thought about it, to be honest.

"Jeez, I've got two little blokes and I'm contracted to coach these under-sixes for the next ten years, I reckon.''