- Join Mail+ to get ahead of the game with Rugby Confidential every Wednesday and Chris Foy’s World of Rugby every Monday
- Matt Peet’s Wigan Warriors completed an historic quadruple earlier this month
On his post-season holiday in Vietnam, Matt Peet will read a book called Becoming Supernatural. In the eyes of Wigan Warriors supporters, however, the 40-year-old is already a god.
It was 10 days ago at Old Trafford that Peet completed an historic quadruple with Wigan, becoming the first Super League boss to win the World Club Challenge, Challenge Cup, League Leaders’ Shield and Grand Final in the same season.
Peet has now won seven trophies in just three years as a head coach – a haul matching Pep Guardiola’s at Manchester City over the same period. What makes Peet’s record all the more impressive, however, is that he has achieved it in a salary-capped sport.
‘If you had asked me a while ago if I thought anyone could win all four, I probably would have doubted it,’ he tells Mail Sport from Wigan’s Robin Park Arena training ground, where he poses with his four trophies from this season, before flying to southeast Asia with his family the following day.
‘When we started this whole journey, we didn’t even really talk about winning trophies that much. Our whole focus was on learning and improving. So when you get the trophies and people are saying nice things about you, it’s a bit surreal.’
In a month when the England men’s football team have opted to appoint a manager from overseas, Peet is a major homegrown coaching success story.
The Wiganer did not play rugby league professionally but instead went to Manchester Metropolitan University to study a degree in English. He then first joined his hometown team as a part-time scholarship coach in 2008 at the age of 24.
After spending the next 10 years working his way up the ranks at the club, Peet left to be head of performance at Sale Sharks. But after one season in rugby union, he returned to the Warriors as assistant coach before taking the top job ahead of the 2022 campaign.
It is not just Peet’s route to the top, though, that is unconventional. This is a man whose interests include the works of Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who uses a life coach and who spent four days last year on a spiritual retreat.
While in Vietnam, he will meditate every day and, as well as Joe Dispenza’s Becoming Supernatural, Peet has packed The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.
‘I’ll always make time each day to do some breathwork and meditation,’ he explains. ‘It’s just about working on myself. If I can look after myself, then I can help look after the players and the club.
‘I speak to my life coach, Craig White, daily. He is a constant support, mentor and guide. He will tell me very straight and it’s important for me that I get challenged on a daily basis.’
Peet has passed his mindful rituals on to his players, carrying out daily ‘mental fitness’ sessions, which include breathwork, meditation, yoga and visualisation. That, though, is just one example of where he thinks outside the box.
‘We try and do things a little bit different,’ admits Peet. ‘On a week-to-week basis, we get different people in, like past players or families. On Father’s Day, we’ll get the dads in. Mother’s Day, we’ll get the mums in. It’s just anything to freshen it up.
‘The meeting before the World Club Challenge in February was very powerful. We had a player in from each of the four previous times we had won it, so Shaun Wane from 1987, Frano Botica from 1991, Denis Betts from 1994 and Joel Tomkins from 2017.
‘Then before the play-off semi-final, we put together a 10-minute video telling the tale of the season with some family messages on. We kept it secret from the players and just said we had an appearance at the cinema. When the lads watched the film, it was pretty emotional.’
Before the Warriors’ 9-2 Grand Final win over Hull KR at Old Trafford earlier this month, Peet called in his most special guest yet, his coaching hero Sir Alex Ferguson. The legendary former Manchester United manager presented Wigan’s players with their jerseys on the eve of the match and then delivered what Peet described as an ‘epic’ speech.
‘I was very nervous about meeting him,’ he admits. ‘After he had spoken to the team, he wasn’t in a rush to get away. I got to pick his brain, but we were chatting about all sorts. He was telling us about his horses and some tales from his days at United. He is clearly still very, very sharp.’
Picking the brains of coaches from other sports is something Peet has been doing for some time, visiting the likes of Steve Borthwick and Kevin Sinfield from England’s rugby union team, and Shaun Edwards from France. Such is Peet’s success at Wigan, though, elite bosses are now coming to watch him work.
‘We have an open-door policy at Wigan,’ he says. ‘I think having that network of people in similar positions is really beneficial. It can be a lonely place at times.’
Peet has also studied the methods of great sporting leaders including Ferguson, Phil Jackson of the Chicago Bulls and Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots. ‘I try and look at the elder statesman who have done it with different teams and reinvented themselves,’ he says.
His favourite leadership book of all is Win Forever by Pete Carroll, who won the Super Bowl with Seattle Seahawks. ‘It is gold dust for any coach,’ explains Peet.
‘The message is that if you set your sights on a higher purpose than just winning, you can’t really lose and there is no end to it. If you are constantly trying to make a difference, improve and help people, then it is bigger than just winning games.’
That is why Peet has placed such emphasis on getting his Wigan team out into the community, including sending young players to do ‘work experience’ with The Brick, an anti-poverty charity based in the town.
‘It’s a big part of what we do,’ says Peet. ‘As much as we’re having success on the field, the town has got some big issues.
‘The players get it. They understand that they play for something bigger than trophies in a lot of ways. They are well known and popular and can brighten up people’s lives. Pre-season, the lads are out every other day.
‘When people ask about what we are going to change next year, it’s more that kind of stuff that we will talk about. I do believe those sorts of projects help you. Obviously, it’s not done us any harm.’
Indeed, Wigan have not enjoyed this sort of success since the 1990s, when they won seven straight top-flight titles and eight successive Challenge Cups. Back then, Peet was a schoolboy watching from the terraces and he blushes at comparisons with that legendary side, which contained the likes of Martin Offiah, Andy Farrell and Edwards.
‘That is the most surreal thing that anyone can say to me,’ says Peet. ‘Truthfully speaking, I don’t think we’re in that category. You’ve got to do it for a long time. That was an era.
‘The players that they had were household names. For me, it’s almost like a different stratosphere.’
Comparisons, though, are valid given Wigan have just repeated the feat of their 1994 squad, who also won the four biggest honours in the same season.
That side went on to be crowned Team of the Year at BBC Sports Personality of the Year and the Class of 2024 could follow suit at December’s ceremony in Salford, when Peet will also be in contention for Coach of the Year.
‘That’s never something that you set out to achieve,’ adds Peet. ‘But to do it, I would be so proud. It would be brilliant for rugby league in this country as we are one of the smaller sports and we’re constantly battling for attention.
‘Sports Personality is one of those institutions you grow up with. It is a marquee event, so to have any sort of mention there would be unbelievable for the sport.’
