Adam O'Brien (born 26 October 1977) is an Australian professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

football coach who is the head coach of the

Newcastle Knights The Newcastle Knights are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Newcastle, New South Wales. They compete in Australasia's premier rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership. Playing in red and blue, th ...

in the

NRL The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

. He was previously an assistant coach at the

Melbourne Storm The Melbourne Storm are a rugby league club based in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia that participates in the National Rugby League. The first fully professional rugby league team based in the state, the Storm entered the competition in 1998. ...

and the

Sydney Roosters The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional Rugby league, Rugby League Football Club based in the Eastern Suburbs (Sydney) and parts of inner Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) competition. The Roosters have won ...

Coaching career

Melbourne Storm

O'Brien started his professional coaching career as an assistant to

Brad Arthur Brad Arthur (born 21 May 1974) is a professional rugby league football coach who is the head coach of the Parramatta Eels in the National Rugby League (NRL). He was the caretaker coach at the Eels for the final six games of the 2012 NRL season ...

with the

under-20s side before working as a development coach for Melbourne and spending five years alongside

Craig Bellamy Craig Douglas Bellamy (born 13 July 1979) is a Welsh former professional footballer who played as a forward and is current assistant manager at EFL Championship side Burnley. Born in Cardiff, Bellamy began his senior playing career with Norw ...

as an assistant to the

side.

Sydney Roosters

After 11 years at the Melbourne club, O'Brien joined the

as an attacking coach under head coach

Trent Robinson Trent Robinson (born 15 March 1977) is an Australian professional rugby league coach who is the head coach of the Sydney Roosters in the NRL and a former professional rugby league footballer. He has previously held coaching positions at Toul ...

in 2019. He finished his time with the Roosters as a part of their

2019 NRL Grand Final The 2019 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the 2019 National Rugby League season and was played at Sydney's ANZ Stadium. The match was contested between defending premiers the Sydney Roosters and the Canberra Ra ...

winning team.

Newcastle Knights

In September 2019, O'Brien signed a three-year contract to become the Head Coach of the

starting in 2020. Newcastle demonstrated a marked improvement in performance over previous seasons, finishing in 7th place and reaching the first of week of finals. They finished the year with 11 wins, 1 draw and 9 losses. In February 2021, the Newcastle club extended his contract until the end of 2024. O'Brien guided Newcastle to a 7th placed finish in the

2021 NRL season The 2021 NRL season was the 114th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 24th season run by the National Rugby League. Teams The lineup of teams remained unchanged for the 15th consecutive year. Regular season Ladd ...

as the club qualified for the finals. In the first week of the 2021 Finals Series, Newcastle were defeated 28-20 by

Parramatta Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...

in the elimination final which ended their season.

Head Coaching Statistics

Controversy

On 10 February 2021, O'Brien was named as the person involved in an alleged incident at a Newcastle racecourse. It was alleged that O'Brien had the altercation in one of the toilet blocks at the racecourse and had to be ejected from the venue by security. One security guard spoke to the media about the incident saying “The coach was arrogant and belligerent and even used the old, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ line when we escorted him out of the men’s room and told him to cool it". This was later refuted by the Newcastle club in a statement which read "Reports alleging those Knights staff were intoxicated, disruptive and ejected from the venue are incorrect. This has been confirmed by NJC staff and independent eyewitnesses. Information gathered confirms all Knights representatives always acted professionally and appropriately, NJC has confirmed there were no incident reports recorded."

References

External links

Newcastle Knights profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Obrien, Adam 1977 births Australian rugby league coaches Newcastle Knights coaches Living people