The Newtown Rugby League Football Club has announced that NSW Cup Head Coach Greg Matterson will step down from the role from following the conclusion of the 2022 season.
The long-time Jets coach, who enjoyed a successful 15-year reign at the helm of the Jets NSW Cup team, moves on with the very best wishes of the entire Newtown club, as well as from everyone at the Sharks, including head coach Craig Fitzgibbon who praised Matterson for his efforts in helping to bring through the next crop of NRL talent.
“Greg has made an outstanding contribution to not only the Jets but also to the development of the Sharks players who have been under his care,” Fitzgibbon began.
“He’s been a great support for myself throughout this year and I’m sure the coaches before me over many years would say the same thing. He is highly respected by all at the Sharks, from the coaching and football staff to all the players, and we wish him all the best in the future,” he added.
Sharks star and Kiwi international Ronaldo Mulitalo was one of many up and comers involved in the championship-winning 2019 season at the Jets.
Playing alongside the likes of Will Kennedy, Sione Katoa, Siosifa Talakai, Toby Rudolf, Teig Wilton, Blayke Brailey and Braydon Trindall, the Jets won both the NSW Cup title and the State Championship match that followed under the guidance of Matterson, with Mulitalo crediting the Newtown mentor with playing a vital role in his development as an NRL player.
“I lost confidence after my first game of first grade and got dropped. Matto helped restore my confidence and has played a part in me being the player I am today,” Mulitalo said.
“What we achieved in 2019 will forever be in the history books of Newtown and Matto was the leader of that.”
In compiling an outstanding record in his time at Newtown, Matterson originally coached the club’s Jim Beam Cup team in 2005 and 2006 with considerable success, before serving as Assistant Coach of the Jets NSW Cup team in 2007.
He took over the club’s NSW Cup coaching position in the NSWRL Centenary Year of 2008, with his overall coaching record as Head Coach at Newtown between 2008 and 2022 including premiership titles in 2012 and 2019, the NRL State Championship in 2019 and this season the Jets first NSW Cup Minor Premiership trophy since re-entering the second-tier NSWRL competition in the year 2000.
Matterson steered the club into NSW Cup Runners-Up positions in 2008 and 2018, Preliminary Finals in 2016 and 2022, and into the semi-finals in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013. He also coached the NSW Cup representative team against their Queensland counterparts on several occasions.
His record-breaking tenure as Head Coach of the club’s NSW Cup team coincided with Newtown becoming the standard-bearer for the NSW Cup competition in terms of increased home game attendances at Henson Park, progressive club administration and in providing a reliable pathway for young players to move from junior representative teams into the NSW Cup ranks and then ultimately into regular NRL team places.
There are many players in the modern-day NRL and UK Super League competitions whose careers have been greatly influenced by having played under Greg Matterson’s coaching.
Matterson has agreed to accept a new role as the Head of Football with the Newtown RLFC for the 2023 season, with a view to assisting in a seamless transition to a new coaching regimen at Australia’s oldest rugby league club.
The Jets have moved to appoint George Ndaira as Matterson’s replacement as NSW Cup Head Coach in 2023.
Ndaira’s playing career was with the Newtown Jets (2007), Sydney Roosters, South Sydney, Newcastle Knights and St George-Illawarra, while from a coaching standpoint he was captain-coach of the Kurri Kurri Bulldogs, Assistant Coach with the Newcastle Knights and Newtown Jets NSW Cup teams and more recently as the coach of the Sharks SG Ball and Jersey Flegg teams.
