2025 Super League Coach of the Year shortlist revealed with surprise omissions
Leigh Leopards' Adrian Lam (circle) and Wigan Warriors' Matt Peet are among the three on the shortlist for Super League's Coach of the Year award
Hull KR’s Willie Peters, Wigan Warriors’ Matt Peet and Leigh Leopards’ Adrian Lam have all been shortlisted for the Super League Coach of the Year award.
Peters – who scooped the accolade last year – has led KR to two major honours so far in 2025, lifting both the Challenge Cup and Super League Leaders’ Shield.
Peet meanwhile won the award back in 2022, and has now led the Warriors to four successive top-two finishes, a feat only ever previously achieved by Brian Noble at Bradford Bulls and Daniel Anderson at St Helens in Super League.
Papua New Guinean Lam – who won the award in 2020 during his stint at the helm of Wigan and in 2023 at Leigh – has led his Leopards side to a third-place finish, with that their highest-ever in Super League.
As a result, they host Wakefield Trinity on Friday night in their first-ever Super League play-off tie on home soil in the eliminators.
The shortlist for the award is decided by a vote of all 12 Super League coaches, and the winner will be crowned during the Rugby League Awards Night in Manchester on October 7 – four days before this year’s Grand Final at Old Trafford.
2025 Super League Coach of the Year shortlist revealed with surprise omissions
The shortlist brings confirmation that Leeds Rhinos’ Brad Arthur and Wakefield Trinity’s Daryl Powell both aren’t in the running.
In his first full season at the helm of the Rhinos, Australian Arthur led them to a fourth-place finish, and earned them their first play-off home tie since 2017: which will come on Saturday night at Headingley against St Helens in the eliminators.
Powell meanwhile has guided Wakefield into the top six in their first year back in Super League.
Many thought at least one of those would make the shortlist for the Coach of the Year award, and Paul Rowley’s name had also been speculate
Rowley’s Salford Red Devils side finished bottom of the Super League ladder this term, but their plight came amid a financial crisis which remains ongoing and has seen him stripped of virtually all his squad.
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