QLD assistant's insight into Slater's potential coaching move

Queensland assistant coach Nate Myles has lifted the lid on Billy Slater’s commitment through Origin camp after the Maroons coach revealed he was operating on a year-to-year handshake deal.

Slater shocked the NRL world by revealing his role as Queensland coach was “not a contract job”, with the Origin great instead taking every year on a verbal agreement with the QRL.

With doubt around the coaching future of Storm master coach Craig Bellamy, Slater has been earmarked as the ideal replacement given his longstanding connection with the club and his standing within the establishment.

“I don’t think so, but I don’t know,” Slater said when asked if this series would be his last in charge of Queensland.

“I won’t be signing another contract, this is not a contract job for me. I really enjoy helping this group of men to go and inspire our people of Queensland.

“When that changes, my position will change or if someone in the QRL thinks there’s another person better for the job, I’m all for that as well.

“Yep, pretty much (it operates on a handshake deal) - it might surprise you, but that’s how it is.”

While Slater later clarified he has no new coaching opportunities offered to him, the prospect of Slater taking over in Melbourne remains a very real one.

Should the former Storm fullback take over the coaching role in Melbourne, it would likely mean he could not continue as Maroons coach.

Myles, one of Slater’s assistants in camp and a Maroons great in his own right, praised his level of intensity through Origin camp, but wasn't sure if it could translate to the season-long nature of NRL head coaching.

“I'm always happy where he is at the moment, mate, because I see how much he enjoys it, and how much I get to hang around him and his family quite a lot,” Myles told SENQ Sportsday.

“So I also see that side of it, and I just know the commitment that it would entail for him to go to the NRL level.

“And I'm not saying he will or he won't. I just know what that commitment would take, and the way that he applies things himself to things is just like you've never seen anyone do.

“I have been in the Melbourne system, it was only 6 months (but) I did see what they do down there, and that's exactly how he is… it would be difficult for him to have this high level of intensity that he has in every Origin series.

“He leaves nothing unturned. For him to do that for not even 11 months of the year, it would be 12 months of the year for him if he took an NRL job.

“He'd probably look like Craig Bellamy after six months I reckon if he tried to keep that level of intensity.”