SEN NRL expert Matty Johns has finally lifted the lid on why he is not pursuing a career as a coach, despite widespread calls for him to do so.
Johns has long been noted as one of the smartest minds in the game but has resisted the urge to jump into full-time coaching.
Matty and his brother Andrew have both held part-time gigs with a handful of clubs but have remained committed to their roles within the media.
The pair were heavily linked to possibly taking over Samoa in 2018, but Johns has revealed why he hasn’t moved into that path full-time and what could tempt him to make the move.
“You know what would appeal to me, week-to-week coaching if I didn’t do all the media stuff,” Johns said on SEN 1170 The Round Up.
“I was tempted a number of years ago to get into a club full-time coaching, when I was a player in the backend of my career, that’s where I was going, then I went into the media stuff.
“I made that decision because I’m sort of excessive compulsive… when I was playing, I was like that, (I was) making notes and scribbling down, I was never present and I was never relaxing.
“In retirement, I just liked the peace of mind, when I considered going into coaching again, I saw that trait come back in.”
Johns has worked alongside some of the current playmakers in the NRL but hasn’t held an official role with an organisation since he left the Melbourne Storm in 2009, where he served as the club’s halves coach.
“I found whenever I sat in Craig Bellamy’s company, we’d be sitting there having a conversation but he was never there, his head was just somewhere else, it was always in football, that was the thing that turned me off a little bit,” Johns added.
“If something happened tomorrow and I wasn’t at Fox Sports… club coaching would appeal to me a lot more than State of Origin.
“I’d just go all in, I’d back myself to get it done, I’ve been in and around the game long enough.”
The Johns brothers re-engaged their interest in taking over Samoa ahead of the 2021 Rugby League World Cup but had their offer rejected by the federation’s president who stuck by incumbent coach Matt Parrish.