Nathan Brown has returned for the 2018-19 pre-season with fresh ideas and reassurance following a post-season visit to the All Blacks organisation.
The New Zealand rugby side is a highly regarded team with a winning culture which prompted the nib Newcastle Knights coach to make the trip to New Zealand.
All Blacks visit gives Brown fresh ideas
The club also recently hosted Irish football manager Roy Keane and former Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane.
"They're a winning organisation," Brown told newcastleknights.com.au.
"To get in there is lucky. They're terrific people from the head coach to the kit man.
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"Everyone sort of talks about having a no d*ckhead policy and I suppose they're one of the few organisations you'd probably say live that part.
"A system has been in place for a while that their behaviour and the way they hold and conduct themselves probably comes before anything else."
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Brown was joined by NRL assistant coach James Shepherd and nothing was off limits.
The All Blacks adopted an open-door policy to Brown and Shepherd.
"The only thing we didn't do was pack into a scrum because we didn't want to," he continued.
"The inclusiveness was (unreal). Anything they did, we were a part of. Whether it was team meetings, coaches' meetings, training sessions, functions. We were all in with them.
"They made you feel really important."
The Knights aren't the first NRL side to join the rugby franchise with Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy and Football Manager Frank Ponissi previously spending time with the Club.
Without going into detail, Brown admits there were some similarities between the Knights and All Black which was reassuring but he also left with plenty of ideas.
"There were some really good things that I picked up from there that I see is an area for myself is an improvement," Brown said.
"They have some very experienced coaches.
"It was good to see how they put a message across, how they ran a video session. All those types of things.
"... there's one real good confirmation of how we'd like our organisation to work. Watching how well they do it, it was a nice confirmation that if we keep working hard in those areas, hopefully we an get some good benefit.
"There's definitely some good learnings there.
"For me personally, I got some really good things which I can better myself and hopefully that can rub off on the organisation."
