Mike Eccles never planned for a career coaching rugby league, but London Broncos' former strength and conditioning guru now finds himself overseeing the club's Betfred Super League return; watch the Broncos against St Helens on Friday, February 16 live on Sky Sports
Monday 8 January 2024 08:58, UK
It is Thursday, June 2, 2022. Mike Eccles has been thrust into a job he never wanted and faces the daunting prospect of rousing his London Broncos team for the long trip up to west Cumbria to face fellow Betfred Championship strugglers Workington Town.
To make matters worse, the Broncos' long-serving head of performance, placed in interim charge of on-field affairs following head coach Jermaine Coleman's departure nine days prior, then sees his already shorthanded squad lose captain Will Lovell and France international Rhys Curran to injury in a 32-18 defeat.
Fast forward a year-and-a-half and Eccles, now director of rugby and performance for the Londoners, is overseeing preparations for the team's return to the Betfred Super League after a remarkable run which saw them progress through three away games, including a semi-final at promotion favourites Featherstone Rovers and a Grand Final against Toulouse Olympique in the South of France, in the 2023 Championship play-offs.
The Broncos' odds-defying turnaround from flirting with relegation to Betfred League One to being back in rugby league's big time, which included a relocation across the capital from Ealing to Wimbledon's Cherry Red Records Stadium, is impressive enough. But perhaps what makes it even more astounding for Eccles is that it is happened with him at the helm.
"It's been pretty nuts because I'd never prepared for this," Eccles, who originally joined the Broncos as a strength and conditioning coach in 2012, told Sky Sports. "I'd never wanted to be a head coach - I'd never wanted to coach or wanted this position, profile, or responsibility.
"I look back at my first game in charge where we were on TV and got pumped at Workington, who were bottom of the league at the time. We were busted, we had no players and my two best players, one got stretchered off and sent to hospital - Will Lovell - and Rhys Curran came off with a back issue.
"That's what I look at and think 'wow, look at what we've achieved from that point on'. I never thought we wouldn't stay up and had the confidence we had enough games to stay up, but to get beaten like that on television, see Will in hospital and things like that was horrible.
"To come and do what we did within 18 months, I'm really proud of that. But in terms of the process of me doing what I've done, it's fallen in place overnight with absolutely no strategy or thinking behind it from my side."
Rugby league has always been part of Eccles' life. He may have been good enough at football to be part of Wigan Athletic's youth set-up in his formative years, but his family are all Leigh Leopards or Wigan Warriors fans and he played the 13-a-side code for his school as well as rugby union for hometown club Leigh, based a well-placed drop kick away from his childhood home.
After graduating from Edge Hill University with a sports-science degree in 2007, he joined Salford City Reds - now going under the Red Devils moniker - in a strength and conditioning role followed by heading south five years later for a similar job with the Broncos, which would prove to be life-changing in more ways than one.
Eccles has taken lessons from every coach he has worked under at Salford and London, but it is recently appointed Hull KR assistant Danny Ward and now Sale Sharks rugby union coach Jamie Langley - the Broncos' former head and assistant/academy coaches respectively - who unknowingly, at the time, helped him prepare for this current job the most.
To come and do what we did within 18 months, I'm really proud of that. But in terms of the process of me doing what I've done, it's fallen in place overnight with absolutely no strategy or thinking behind it from my side.
"We had such a close relationship off the field we were best mates, basically," Eccles said. "I didn't realise how much I was learning until I had to do the job myself.
"Although you're trying to learn, you're not trying to learn from a rugby perspective and that was all subconsciously sitting in all of those video reviews. You're talking hundreds of videos I've done with Wardy and Langers.
"That's kind of been the bedrock of my learning, and the things I try to pass onto my staff and players."
Eccles has made it his priority to carry on Ward's philosophy of giving his staff the autonomy to do their jobs as well, but on the field one of the more notable aspects of the Broncos' success in 2023 was that it was achieved with a playing group which did not contain anyone from rugby league's traditional northern heartland.
Aside from a handful of Southern Hemisphere players, the homegrown contingent hails from places like Rochester, Sawbridgeworth and Northampton, and with recruitment for the club being so hard - particularly outside of Super League - Eccles knows the importance of building a team with that at its heart.
"That was magic, wasn't it?" Eccles said. "I was the only Northerner - I used to get bullied! We're the most diverse playing and staffing group probably in world rugby.
"We've got players from all over the world and even lads from London were born outside of the UK and have made the UK their home. That's what's magic about London, if you can pull that together, you've got a really strong bond and that's what we did last year.
"It's really important we build the club around players we produce and we're at 70 per cent homegrown this year. That will continue... and it's still my ambition to promote from within and get the core of the team London-based."
That ambition has not been dimmed by the Broncos' decision to run a reserve team rather than Super League Academy and Scholarship sides this year, and Eccles is adamant that strong history of youth development will continue.
The 38-year-old knows establishing the club back in Super League is key to retaining that talent though, even though the IMG gradings - "I can't affect those IMG points other than getting London Broncos as competitive as possible on the field," is the view Eccles takes - will determine the competition's make-up from 2025 onwards.
The Broncos' last campaign in Super League five years ago saw them relegated on points difference from Hull KR in the final round of regular season matches after winning 10 games, including defeating eventual champions St Helens twice.
Eccles' squad, which will retain a handful of part-time players even though the club has reverted to full-time status this year, will approach the 2024 campaign with the same attitude as Ward's 2019 side which won so many admirers for their displays against all expectations.
"We won't be spotting games to try to win or not win, we're going to throw everything at every game this year," Eccles said. "That's what we did last time and sometimes the games people don't expect you to win are the ones you win.
"If you find yourself trying to win the more 'winnable' games you never know what might happen on that day.
"You might have a red card in the first minute or they just might be too good on the day, and you've wasted the other weeks and opportunities to pick up wins. It's a tough start, but we're certainly up for the fight and we'll give it everything we've got."
Watch every match of the 2024 Super League season, including Magic Weekend, the play-offs, and men's, women's and wheelchair Grand Finals, plus the World Club Challenge, live on Sky Sports. Also stream with NOW.
