Frank Lawler's reign: from the woes of Coronation Oval to Newcastle RL premiers

Lawler announced his retirement at the Pickers' annual general meeting and he will be replaced by team manager of the past three seasons John Gorman.

The former Pickers player, whose mother and father had both played key administrative roles at the club in the 1990s, guided the club through a tumultuous period which included a hellish 18 months at Coronation Oval while the Maitland Sportsground was rebuilt, the demise of the Maitland Leagues Club and the forging of links with financial saviour Club Maitland City.

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While the 2020 President's Cup win, 2021 minor premiership and club championship and 2022 triumphs which included another minor premiership and club championship were the highlights, the move to Coronation Oval was the toughest time.

The omens about the enforced move were not good from the start.

Following an emotional farewell to club favourite PJ Ellis and the old Sportsground, the Pickers first game at Coronation midway through the 2016 season was a disaster - the Kurri Kurri Bulldogs thumped them 50-6.

"The season at Coronation nearly killed us," Lawler told the Maitland Mercury this week recalling the toughest 18 months of his presidency.

"We couldn't get people to pay to come in. We couldn't get crowds and if we did people would sit over on the far side of the ground with an esky full of beer in their own car.

"We were down 70 to 80 per cent on everything over there and it really nearly put us to the wall.

"The players hated training there, let alone playing there. So many players had shin soreness and those sort of things from just running on it."

The woes of Coronation Oval were compounded with the Maitland Leagues Club struggling financially,

"The Leagues Club had always battled to be honest and I think that in 2018 when they eventually went into voluntary administration they were still giving us the same grant they were giving to us 20 years ago," Lawler said.

"That's no disrespect to them as they were probably giving as much or more than they could. But we were just not in the player market.

"Coronation and no money there wasn't too much going for us.

"For me, and again no disrespect to Maitland Leagues Club, the first big part of the puzzle that started to help us move forward was Maitland City coming on board.

"It gave us financial security."

Round one of the 2018 season was a day to remember with the Pickers thrashing Cessnock 36-0 in their return home to the Maitland Sportsground.

Maitland-raised Super League star Luke Dorn took the Pickers to the finals in 2018 and 2019 and resurrected real pride in the side.

The next part of the puzzle came with the appointment of Matt Lantry as coach for the 2020 season.

"It almost never happened, Matty and I had a conversation towards the end of 2019 and I think we were both in different places. We went away and he was going to stay at Wests and I was still looking for a coach," Lawler said.

"I remember one day I rang (club secrtary) Andrew Carraro and asked if Matty had signed with Wests yet. He said he would give him a call we got together and it was all done that next day.

"It was just meant to be."

Lawler said building the squad for 2020, Lantry's only request was to bring four players from Wests - the Langbridge boys, Pat Mata'utia and Chaddy O'Donnell - to make us competitive with the boys we had.

"It's why it really irks me when people say we tried to buy a side, because Chaddy had won the under-17 grand final here with us, both the Langbridge boys are Central Coast boys and Pat's from Beresfield anyway," he said.

"Out the blue I got a phone call from Brock Lamb to say that he was over the NRL stuff and he wanted to come home. He was never on our radar to get him.

"We had the nucleus of a good side. We already had Sammy Anderson, Buttsy (Jaden Butterfield) and Gary Anderson. Matty was pretty happy with the squad we had.

"Then COVID hit and we didn't know if we were going to get any footy or not."

Lawler said one of his proudest achievements was to field a team in the 2020 President's Cup which was set up with doubts about any football being played across the state.

The demise of the NSW and Q-Cups meant the return of his son Matt Soper-Lawler from the Knights and the arrival of Jimmy Taylor and Faitotoa Faitotoa.

"We knew had a good squad, but we didn't know if we were good enough to go to Sydney. We thought why not and the rest is history," Lawler said. "We only lost one game by a point and won the title. We haven't lost too many games since."

Among the returning players from the Knights was Lawler's son Matt Soper-Lawler who played in the 2020 President's Cup win and was the Pickers player of the year in their 2022 Newcastle RL premiership season.

Matt was among 11 Maitland raised players in the 2022 grand final, something which had motivated Lawler from his own playing days when he was forced to leave Maitland to achieve his goal of playing finals.

"I first came into grade in 1986 and played a few years here. I went down in 1996 to Wests. One of the reasons I did that was that in my time I was never going to get the opportunity to play in a grand final," Lawler said.

"Maitland were never in the position that we were going to be able to compete for a grand final.

"I left here to go and do that and that's probably one of the greatest things now that kids don't have to leave here to do that.

"We are not going to win comps here every year, but we are certainly going to be competitive enough to be pushing for them every year and that's all we've wanted."