Craig Fitzgibbon, players and great reveal true genius of Sharks coach, Brazilian jiu jitsu, Cronulla Sharks vs Penrith Panthers, preliminary final #adessonews

A yarn worth retelling now, too.

But first up, Saturday night.

When just like Rocky, Rudy or Rulon Gardner, Fitzy will look to not only end that greatest of Australian sports juggernauts – those threepeat Penrith Panthers – but somehow get home as $4.30 TAB outsiders.

Which sounds more than a little like trying to bowl Bradman — as in Sir Donald too, not Best.

“But if Cronulla can prove as tough and tenacious as the coach,” says Fitzgibbon’s close mate Trent Barrett, “they’re a hope”.

Which is why game day morning, Fitzy will first go fight the odds himself.

Almost as if before asking anything of others, this unassuming Sharks coach must first demand everything from himself.

Certainly, Shire prop Toby Rudolf believes as much — suggesting that only with said roll done, and his body wrecked, will the now 47-year-old feel he’s earned “the right” to lay out a game plan defined by wrasslin’.

While cult Shark Tommy Hazelton, meanwhile, sees similar in a coach who can wrestle his players, reads extensively, has run triathlons, rolls or surfs daily, and even in video sessions, brings such detail as to shock first timers.

“Fitzy is adamant good men make good players,” Hazelton says. “And he drives that by carrying those standards himself.”

Indeed, while much has been made of Fitzgibbon’s upbringing as the son of a first grade coach – and ‘80s Cronulla ball boy, no less — his real strength derives, you reckon, from all the old man was still going to teach even if digging ditches or delivering mail.

On those few occasions, for example, Allan Fitzgibbon has spoken publicly about his boy, the 1970s Balmain lock has declined to talk his strengths, or predict future successes, while also relegating his own influence to little more than sidenote.

Which must make for flat country down there in the ‘Gong, given how closely the apple has stayed to that tree.

And why when Fittler is asked to describe the mate who has lived to his immediate right in both Roosters defensive lines and NSW Origin boxes, he uses words like loyalty, reliability, humility and “someone I trust … completely”.

“Never heard anyone talk negatively about Fitz, either,” Freddy says. “Not once.”

Strengths as a coach?

“More than anything,” continues the man who coached NSW to three Origins series triumphs, and two with Fitzgibbon beside him, “I like the way he communicates.

“Craig has this great ability to get his messages across.

“Never overcooks things.

“That’s something I could never quite replicate myself — the way he communicates through video, through game plans … he talks and players just understand.”

Importantly too, men want to win for him.

A trait fellow Blues great Andrew Ryan says was born on the field – “when you watched Fitzy throw his own self care out the window” – and now continues off it, ironically, due to exactly the opposite.

“Greatest attribute? Care for his players,” Ryan says.

“You think about a head coach these days, especially new ones … they’re getting pulled in all these different directions – with sponsors, media, pathways, recruitment — and so often, the first thing to go is that one-on-one time you give your players.

“But not Fitzy.”

A truth confirmed by Dale Finucane, who this week returns your call about his coach by going straight to the day Fitzy appeared on his doorstep, unannounced, to walk both he and, as importantly, wife Maddie through every step Cronulla was taking to deal with those concussions issues that would soon enough retire him.

“Which could’ve been done in a phone call,” Finucane concedes.

But it wasn’t.

“And because Craig always cared about me as a person first, player second,” he says, “I now consider him a friend first, coach second.”

Same deal breakout Sharkies No.6 Braydon Trindall, who can still recall, exactly, his first conversation with the coach who, among several alterations, changed his focus from Queen of the Nile to king of the Shire – which, most recently, saw him starring in Cronulla’s first finals win since 2018.

“Fitzy said he wanted to make me a better person,” Trindall recalls, “before making me a better player.

“And he’s done that.

“Done that with a lot of the lads here.”

Which is different again to, say, Nicho Hynes – who, already the type of human you’d want your son to admire, has recently needed a different type of support from coach.

Hynes, as you may have heard, is currently under the type of pressure once endured by Andre the Giant’s black, spandex tights – with critics urging the $7 million playmaker be moved, dropped, paid less, involved more … and all as he now stares down Panthers megastar Nathan Cleary.

Yet asked by Fox Sports Australia this week about his coach, Hynes replied that from the pair’s first conversation “I knew everything he’s about, it was something I wanted to be part of”.

Just as importantly too, the halfback continues, “is his belief in me … I couldn’t be more grateful and want to now put in a performance Saturday that repays that”.

Yet know Fitzgibbon has given his beleaguered No.7 more than loyalty, too.

With Fittler noting how, in recent weeks, the Sharks coach has tinkered just enough to not only end that finals hoodoo, or go within one win of a Big Dance, but help ease the pressure on Hynes in every sense.

“He’s adapted,” Freddy says of the coach.

“His team, they have to play different.

“I think they realised the way they were playing, it won’t win them the big games.

“And so they’ve adapted.”

Asked to expand, the now NRL commentator continued: “The game they had was so based around Nicho and his style, everyone worked around him.

“But things look a little different now, where Nicho – and you have to congratulate him for this – he’s stood back a bit, is complimenting Trindall now … which I think all stands up better under pressure.”

Of course, what also stands up under pressure is tough men who tackle, and there’s no doubting a coach whose legacy was forged on those Rushing Roosters of ’02 still ascribes to Bear Bryant’s quote about offense selling tickets, and defense winning titles.

“You know they’ll be a wrestle team,” Newcastle coach Adam O’Brien says when quizzed on the coaching signature of his longtime friend. “They’ll want to control the ruck, the play-the-ball speed … Fitzy prides himself in that area”.

Elsewhere, O’Brien also praises how structurally “clean” sides look under a coach who, he insists, has an ability to mix incredible intelligence – both footy IQ, and beyond – with an unassuming, everyman quality.

“Craig Fitzgibbon, really intelligent,” he says of the early 2000s backrower who, even as beers were being passed around the sheds, would talk with team-mates about eating clean, breathing right, even learning to find the peak in their Circadian rhythm.

Yet the real kicker?

“There’s zero condescending nature,” O’Brien stresses.

“Sometimes with really intelligent people, they come across a little … well, it can be hard to gel with them because they just can’t disguise that you’re not on the same level.

“But Fitzy is just so humble, so down to earth that whoever he’s talking with at the time, that’s how smart he appears.

“The guy is a chameleon”.

For further proof of his character, Bulldogs great Ryan notes the number of relationships Fitzgibbon maintains with old Steelers, fellow Roosters, even players he coached for no more than a few days in Country Origin camp.

“Because even as his life has gotten increasingly hectic,” he says, “Fitzy still makes time for them all”.

Which is as simple as it is special.

Same deal, O’Brien says, those text messages appearing from Fitzgibbon at just the right moment during tough times, and always with a wonderful clarity and perspective.

“Never spent a bad day with Fitz,” he continues of the man he initially called cold seven years ago to assist in Country Origin camp, before then partnering up together as assistants to the Roosters’ Trent Robinson.

“Yes, we’ve been through bad times together, where our side has lost or whatever.

“But Fitz has an incredible ability to keep things in perspective, which, no doubt, is proving great for the group he has now.

“And great for somebody like Nicho Hynes.

“Just to have a coach who is so stable in that way.”

Elsewhere, and to a man, each of Fitzgibbon’s mates are quick to point out the humour brought by an NRL coach who Barrett, a friend since Illawarra U21s, stresses “is anything but boring”.

Fittler agrees, adding: “The guy would even dress in old men’s clothes”.

Huh?

“That was his party trick,” the Hall of Famer reveals. “Whenever we were at the pub, he’d go find the oldest bloke in there and swap clothes with him.

“No idea how he fitted into their gear.

“Or even how he convinced them to switch.

“But that’s the charm of that man … seeing him first, then the old bloke laughing at the end of the bar, Fitzy’s clothes hanging all baggy off him.”

Wonderfully, this is the same bloke now tasked with bringing down the winningest team in Australian sport.

A coach who come Saturday night at Homebush, will hand his players a style, steel and structure based big on wrestle, controlling the ruck, winning the middle, combating pressure, Hynes complimenting Trindall and, of course, some John Wayne grit.

Yet before asking all that of others, Fitzy must first go earn it himself.

With Fittler explaining how the greatest truth he learned defending alongside his mate through five years and four grand finals was that “he’ll do absolutely anything for his team”.

Which includes, most crucially, developing the motor required to live said statement out.

Which is why up to four mornings a week in winter, and before making the commute north to Sharks HQ, the Cronulla coach rises before dawn and readies for the daily six o’clock sessions at Garage Jiu Jitsu – named, wonderfully, after the North Bondi carport where gym founder, Brazilian Gui Neves, initially trained clients.

None of which is new.

Or not when you know Fitzgibbon hasn’t only been training martial arts from way back in his playing days, but extensively since joining the Roosters staff in 2012, where he worked closely with Tricolours longtime wrestle coach, Larry Papadopoulos.

Having now trained BJJ for well over a decade, including nine years at Garage, Fitzy isn’t only able to jokingly challenge the likes of his 115kg prop Braden Hamlin-Uele — “he’s threatened to snap my arm” the Shark once cackled – but now sits “very close”, as Walsh puts it, to attaining his black belt.

Which, again, and like everything else in his life, will have been earned in the hardest of ways.

“Because Fitzy’s body has endured so many years of stress and trauma,” says the instructor who has long had this Saturday kept clear in his calendar.

“And that not only makes getting to certain positions, when rolling, difficult for him, but once there maintaining them can be more than a little painful.

“Still, Craig’s never once used any of it as an excuse, same as it’s never stopped him training, either.”

So this Saturday morning’s roll is on no matter what?

“Definitely on no matter how he’s feeling,” Walsh grins. “With Fitzy, he just knows how to grit his teeth and get through.”