A lone figure moves purposefully through the empty corridors underneath the stands of Halton Stadium. His first job of the day is to do a load of laundry.
Tim Sheens, a World Cup-winning head coach who is now in charge of the once world-beating Widnes Vikings, has to turn his hand to everything as he tries to bring the good times back to a club recovering from financial hardship.
It will be hours before his part-time squad are due in for training, but at a club that can’t afford an assistant first-team coach and can only pay to have a cleaner once a week, the 69-year-old is responsible for picking the team – and picking up dirty kit.
“I’m full-time, so when I come in and the players have trained the night before the bibs need to be thrown into the washing machine,” Sheens tells BBC Sport.
“It is very much a tight-knit group. If we have to empty a bin, we empty a bin.
“I don’t think it is beneath me, no. It is a professional job, it is my livelihood and I’m earning a living while doing it.
“The other staff will do exactly the same. The boys clean up the dressing rooms after training, they sweep and mop.”
‘They turn up enthusiastic and that keeps you young’
Having lifted the World Cup trophy as Australia head coach in 2013, taking a job in England’s second-tier competition with a club on a restricted budget after going into administration less than 12 months earlier was seen as a shock move by many.
The side that finished fourth from bottom in the Championship last season, after having a 12-point deduction imposed on them, are now being led by a man that coached four premiership-winning teams in Australia.
“Coaching is coaching,” says Sheens, who is on a two-year contract with the Cheshire club after leaving Hull Kingston Rovers last summer.
“I’ve coached at the highest level, and that team in ’13 is probably the best football team on the planet by a long way in my opinion. We went through after the England (group) game without a try being scored against us, which included the final against a very hot Sonny Bill Williams-led New Zealand side.
“But this is still coaching and working with people that are motivated. Everyone is working hard and wants to he here. They turn up enthusiastic and that keeps you young.”
The Australian took the job in England’s second division despite being strongly linked to roles in the NRL with Newcastle Knights, Cronulla Sharks and St George Illawarra.
The story goes that when told of Widnes’ financial constraints, the former Canberra, Wests Tigers and North Queensland Cowboys supremo simply said that he would be happy with balls and a whistle to coach with.
His football department includes his sometime assistant Ryan O’Brien, who works as reserves, under-18s and under-16s coach, as well as video analyst Jamie Elkaleh and a part-time physiotherapist.
As for a strength and conditioning coach…. the Vikings are in the process of looking for a replacement.
“The fundamentals is all I need,” said Sheens, whose first competitive game as Widnes boss is Sunday’s season opener at Oldham.
“I did get phone calls from a couple of them (NRL clubs), but then I started to look at this thing and I was keen to stay in England.
“OK, I’m working with part-time players, but overall it is the same role – it’s coaching and I enjoy it.
“You do have to provide players with the environment and tools, which we do at least have as we lack for nothing major because this was a Super League club not that long ago.”
‘You are reminded of the greatness of Widnes’
In a glass case in his sparsely decorated office at the foot of the north stand in Widnes’ 13,300-seater home, there is a framed Canberra Raiders Hall of Fame picture of Sheens.
He grins when he mentions it is fairly new, having received the honour in 2019 when the club marked the 30th anniversary of the club’s maiden premiership win.
It is not the only place the famous colours of ‘the Green Machine’ can be seen at the ground near the River Mersey.
In the team’s meeting room, there is a photo of players in Raiders tops celebrating with pure elation, and in the trophy room the green, yellow, blue and white is impossible to miss.
But these are not misplaced reminders of a Canberra triumph, they are snapshots of Widnes’ most famous day when they conquered Sheens’ Raiders in the 1989 World Club Challenge.
Many Widnes players swapped shirts with their counterparts at Old Trafford that day, so it is a memory tinged in lime green.
For the current generation of Widnes players, they serve as a daily inspiration.
And for Sheens they are a reminder of the club’s proud heritage, which includes three English championships and seven Challenge Cup triumphs.
“When I did my interview here it was in front of the picture of the players celebrating that win, and after the interview, I had my photo taken in front of it,” Sheens smiles.
“You are reminded everywhere you go about the greatness of Widnes as a club.
“It is not the moneyed club that it once was, but mind you the money then wasn’t even a thing as it was amateur when they were at their greatest. Blokes were still working, coaches had other jobs.
“It is a different atmosphere all these years later, but it’s still a great history and the badge is still important to the players and fans.”
The success he enjoyed with Canberra in the pre-professional era, and experience he first gained as a rookie coach with Penrith Panthers 36 years ago will come in handy at Widnes – a club run on a shoestring budget and with a skeleton staff.
“It’s like I’ve gone back to the 80s,” said Sheens, who was one of the game’s first full-time professional coaches.
“I worked a full day in the office and coached at night, two nights a week and had the game on Saturday – and that is exactly what I’m doing here so I’ve come full circle.”
The Championship isn’t new to Sheens, as he guided Hull KR to promotion at the first time of asking in 2017 following their relegation 12 months earlier.
From his desk, he pulls out the medal he earned for collecting the League Leaders’ Shield and for getting the club up through the play-offs – recalling “the amazing feeling” on the east side of Hull at the time.
At Hull KR he won when expected to do so in the Championship, with a top-flight sized budget and fully-professional side at his disposal.
The challenge at Widnes is completely different.
He has brought in former England scrum-half Matty Smith and hooker Logan Tomkins, fresh from helping Salford to the Super League Grand Final, and has local lad and loyal club servant Jack Owens leading the side as captain. But Sheens will rely heavily on youth.
“We were on a salary cap that is nearly three times what we are on here now,” he said of his spell in the Championship with Hull KR.
“We are up against clubs now that are on a massive salary cap compared to what we can spend after coming out of administration and being put on a limited cap (by the RFL).
“But we have done very well to get that squad, our first-team and reserve team, together.
“I’ve got a very good, smart spine and they are directing us around the field and that is important.”
‘Energy and experience’
When Sheens looks up at the white board at the names he will call on in 2020, he readily admits that “a lot of them many won’t know”, but quickly points put that the “kids can play”.
And as unlikely as it may seem, when Sheens looks at a picture of himself celebrating glory with rugby league greats Mal Meninga and Glenn Lazarus (above), he draws comparisons with the part-timers now under his tutelage.
“They were a great bunch of youngsters,” Sheens recalls. “Glenn was 21, a rookie in a pack of forwards that people said couldn’t compete with Souths, Penrith, Balmain or Cronulla, but we went from fifth that year right through and he went on to define a generation by winning Grand Finals with three different clubs.
“I’ve always worked well with juniors at clubs that had good juniors and developed them.
“You see a good kid and you work with them, and I see them here – a heap of them.
“If you get the right group of veterans and put them together with a good bunch of juniors and you can get some results – you get both the energy and the experience.
“I’m used to working with that sort of group and there is an element of it here.”
