Wigan Warriors icon Sean O'Loughlin loving life in coaches' box with 'improvement' commitment made

The legendary loose forward brought down the curtain on his illustrious playing career, which spanned almost two decades, at the end of the 2020 season.

Upon his retirement from playing, O’Loughlin then joined the club’s coaching staff and has since committed his long-term future to the club alongside fellow assistant Tommy Leuluai and head coach Matt Peet, with the trio having signed contracts until at least the end of 2030.

O’Loughlin, who works primarily as Wigan’s defence coach, has helped Peet’s side achieve monumental success in recent times, with the Warriors winning the last six major trophies on offer to them.

“It’s always nice when you’re winning stuff, the environment is always great to be around, but it is the group of boys that make it,” O’Loughlin told Wigan Today.

“Me and Tommy are quite realistic as well, we know we are young into the coaching environment, we know we’re trying our best but we know we’re not the finished article, we know we’ve still got loads to improve on but I think the luxury we have here is working week in, week out, with good players but with players who are receptive to being coached as well.

“The players are always looking to get better, they like having conversations with you about the game, so it’s just a good place to work. I was lucky enough to have a foot in both (the playing and coaching) camps before I retired from playing, having spent a couple of coaching years with the academy and that sort of thing whilst I was still playing, so I knew it was going to be a graft, I knew it was going to be hard work, so that didn’t surprise me, but maybe just with how well we’ve done.

“We aren’t naive enough to think we’re coaching the perfect way, and that’s the way we do stuff. We know it goes hand in hand, we’ve got a good group of coaches here that work hard first and foremost but we discuss what we’re doing, we don’t just do it because we’ve done it before, we try to change things if its needed, we look to get better in areas, exactly like the players do.

“We enjoy the success, but we don’t think we’re the bee’s knees either. We know there are improvements in us and in the team, and we’re enjoying that challenge of trying to keep hungry for the trophies and also trying to keep things fresh and relevant.”

O’Loughlin also praised the contribution John Duffy has made since arriving at the club as transition coach in October 2022.

“Duffs is someone who has got a vast amount of knowledge for a young coach,” O’Loughlin added. “He has been a head in a lot of places, he has great bits of advice for us and ideas, so we’re not getting carried away with what we’re doing.

“We don’t think we’re doing anything different compared to anyone else, we just feel like the team is in a good position culturally, but also as staff, you challenge each other and ask questions of each other and try to get better and if we keep doing that and we keep improving, then hopefully success ties in with that as well.”