Frank Stanton (rugby league)

Frank "Biscuits" Stanton (born 7 February 1940 in St Leonards, New South Wales) is an Australian former rugby league player and a successful club and national representative coach. His playing and club coaching career was with the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles. He enjoyed success as coach of the Australian national side from 1978 to 1984, being at the helm in the period when the Kangaroos began to consistently dominate the other rugby league playing nations.

Player

Stanton was a versatile back who played 129 first grade games for Manly between 1961 and 1969. He started out as a talented Halfback and later played at Centre in Manly's 1968 Grand Final loss to South Sydney.

He made two state appearances for New South Wales and was honoured with national selection for the 1963 Kangaroo tour. He appeared in 18 minor matches on tour and did not play in any Tests with the Australian selectors at the time having a wealth of three-quarter talent available in Graeme Langlands, Reg Gasnier, Peter Dimond, Michael Cleary, Ken Irvine and Les Johns.

Coach

After retiring as a player at the end of the 1969 season, Stanton became the Sea Eagles Reserve Grade coach in 1971, leading the team to the Reserve Grade Premiership in 1973. In 1975 he took over as coach of Manly-Warringah from Ron Willey and was in charge for five seasons till the end of 1979. He guided Manly to premiership success in 1976 and 1978. The 1976 win was a triumph for the astute and powerful Manly triumvirate of captain Bob Fulton, coach Stanton and club secretary Ken Arthurson who would all go onto higher honours in the game. Stanton spent 1980 coaching Redcliffe in the Brisbane Rugby League premiership. Redcliffe finished 5th in 1980.

Stanton was appointed coach of New South Wales in 1978 when interstate games were under the old "State of Residence" rules. In 1982, Stanton replaced Ted Glossop as the Blues State of Origin coach, being the first NSW coach to contest a three-game Origin series. Queensland won the series 2–1 and Glossop returned to coach the Blues in 1983. Stanton again coached New South Wales in the 1984 Origin series to another 2–1 loss against the Maroons.

Stanton was appointed Australia's Test coach in 1978 and in the next six years was rewarded with whitewash wins over Great Britain (1979, 1982 and 1984), New Zealand (1978, 1980 and 1982) and France (1981 and 1982). His 1982 side also won the first ever Test played against Papua New Guinea.

The 1978 Kangaroo tourists, after a successful 2–1 Ashes campaign in England, wound up the French section of the tour with egg on their faces, losing both Tests in France. Whilst the refereeing in the first Test came in for criticism Stanton acknowledged no excuses for the Australian defeat in the second Test. The 1982 Kangaroo touring side avenged the French embarrassment of 1978. They were Australia's most successful ever national side going through the 23 match tour of Papua New Guinea, England and France unbeaten and becoming known as the Invincibles.

Stanton retired as national coach in 1983 and was succeeded by Queensland coach Arthur Beetson. Beetson only lasted for the 1983 series against New Zealand, and was replaced after Australia won the first test at Auckland's Carlaw Park, but lost the second test at Lang Park in Brisbane. For the 1984 Ashes series against Great Britain, Stanton returned for his final stint as Australian coach. The Aussies won the series 3–0 and Stanton retired from representative coaching. During his time as Australian coach, Stanton oversaw the start of the stellar international careers of players such as Wally Lewis, Wayne Pearce, Mal Meninga, Peter Sterling, Brett Kenny, Kerry Boustead, and Eric Grothe.

He was the Chief Executive of the Manly club during the late 1980s. Stanton was the interim Chief Executive of the Melbourne Storm for a period in 2004 and up till 2006 was a Board Director of the Storm.

In 2010 Stanton was temporarily re-appointed as Storm caretaker-CEO following the sacking of Matt Hanson in the wake of the Storm's salary cap scandal. He remained in this role for three months until Ron Gauci took over.

References

Sources

• Andrews, Malcolm (2006) The ABC of Rugby League Austn Broadcasting Corpn, Sydney