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Sport Nation
The coaching alternative the Western Bears must consider
Nicholas Quinlan • May 2nd, 2025 2:15 pm
Andrew Voss has thrown his support for Willie Peters to become the coach of the Western Bears.
While the Western Bears are yet to be officially confirmed, speculation has come thick and fast that former Parramatta Eels coach Brad Arthur will be the inaugural coach.
Arthur who is currently coaching the Leeds Rhinos in the Super League has said he wants to return to the NRL despite enjoying his current job.
“I’m enjoying it, I really am (at Leeds)," Arthur said.
"But I want to coach in the NRL again and I’d like to come home.”
But Voss believes that Peters is the better candidate for the job citing the fact that the Hull KR coach has the team on top of the ladder this season.
“Brad Arthur coaching Leeds, they're not setting the world on fire,” Voss said on SEN 1170’s Breakfast.
“Sam Burgess coaching Warrington, they're not setting the world on fire.
“The Australian who is going great guns is Willie Peters. He’s coaching Hull KR; he’s got them to the top of the table.
“Willie Peters on the back of a really good year, last year, is he the Australian that no one is talking about because he doesn’t have a profile?”
Peters has been building up his case within the Super League as a premier coach in the competition.
In the three seasons that he has coached Hull KR, he currently sits on a win percentage record of 71.43%.
Peters has also helped Hull KR reach the finals in both seasons and just fell short in last year's Grand Final to the Wigan Warriors.
And when compared to Brad Arthur’s record in the Super League over the last two seasons with his win percentage sitting at 52.38% and Sam Burgess’ win percentage over the last two seasons at Warrington sitting at 71.11%, shows that Peters has been the better coach in the competition.
However, Michael Carayannis was quick to assert that the position is Brad Arthur’s citing his experience in the NRL as to why.
“This is Brad Arthur’s job, it’s all but done,” Carayannis said with confidence.
“It’s going to take something catastrophic for that deal to fall over.
“Because it’s an NRL appointment, they’re not going to have an NRL coach because that would cause an absolute uproar if the NRL tried to poach a current head coach.
“They could have gone for an assistant no doubt, but they have gone to the Super League for whatever reason which I don’t know, I don’t understand cause he wouldn’t have been my appointment.
“But all things have led to Brad.”
