Spooner comes full circle with Trillo Metals Men’s Canterbury Bulls coach appointment

After wearing the jersey with pride in the early-2000s, Sean Spooner has been announced as Walter Wilson’s Trillo Metals Men’s Canterbury Bulls head coach successor for their 2026 NZRL National Premiership campaign.

Spooner joined the Trillo Metals Men’s Canterbury Bulls as an assistant to Wilson last season as the team reached the NZRL National Men’s Premiership final.

“Canterbury Rugby League (CRL) is entering an exciting new era with the appointment of head coaches for its two senior representative teams,” CRL CEO Malcolm Humm says.

“Sean Spooner played an integral role as assistant coach to Walter Wilson during the 2025 campaign and now steps into the head coaching position after serving a strong apprenticeship within the programme.

“CRL is excited to see Sean bring his own vision and leadership to the Trillo Metals Men’s Canterbury Bulls as the team prepares for the upcoming season.”

Spooner follows in the footsteps of the likes of Wilson, Andrew Auimatagi, Brent Stuart, Gerard Stokes and Gary Clarke to have represented Canterbury as a player and head coach.

He is set to join Auimatagi as the only ones to have done so during the Bulls era.

“It feels really good, I’m pretty excited about the challenge ahead,” Spooner says.

“I know it’s going to be a challenge, but I’m more than willing to put my hand up and hopefully continue on the good work that we did last season – just keep building and building, and creating a culture everyone’s looking forward to the being a part of.

“You think about all the coaches that have coached the Bulls, starting [in 2000] with Ged Stokes, so to have my name up with those guys is a real privilege and something that I’m not going to take for granted or take lightly,” he enthuses.

Spooner is part of a select group of players to turn out in 300 CRL premiership matches, playing for Papanui Tigers, Hornby Panthers and Riccarton Knights in a two-decade career.

The local legend’s rapid development as a coach included becoming a highly-valued part of the Knights’ coaching staff – under his former Panthers mentor, Brent Ringdahl – as the club stormed to its first grand final line in 21 years last season.

“I learned a lot of under Brent, as a player first but then obviously last season he put a lot of things into my head that really put things in perspective.

“I fed off all the information that he gave me during pre-season and then applied that to the team throughout the season. Our guys bought into their own values after that and pushed forward from there.”

Following on from his prominent role in the Knights’ watershed season, Spooner helped the Trillo Metals Men’s Canterbury Bulls through a dominant round-robin run in the southern section of the NZRL National Men’s Premiership.

The campaign ended with a convincing defeat to Counties Manukau Stingrays in the final, but reaching the decider was nevertheless the culmination of two years of immense progress under Wilson.

“From a team perspective, I learnt a lot from Walt,” Spooner explains.

“He really gave me a lot of good information and good learnings, Walt and Kevin Te Hau. We just fed off each other … the whole set-up was really good and I feel what we did in the national comp was great for Canterbury Rugby League going forward.

“I really enjoyed it and it’s something I obviously want to continue on to this season.

“We want to really nail down a certain style that suits Canterbury Rugby League and suits the players that we’ll be selecting. That gameplay will really be reflective in the performances when we play in the national competition.”

Players’ availability for representative football has been an obstacle in more recent times, but the region’s best have increasingly put their hands up for selection again over the past couple of seasons.

Spooner is confident the core group that has driven the Trillo Metals Men’s Canterbury Bulls’ improvement, along with the promising tyros that have broken into that arena, will pull on the jersey again in 2026.

“Especially the experienced guys, we have to have them – they’ve been in the red and black for a long time now, and we’ve got to make sure that we get those younger guys in there to feed off those experienced guys.

“That way we can continue to progress and build on all the good work that we’ve done.”

The collaborative approach of CRL’s local club coaches has been of significant benefit to the Trillo Metals Men’s Canterbury Bulls – and something that Spooner will look to foster.

“I’ve got a good relationship with a lot of the coaches: (Linwood’s) Andrew (Auimatagi), we played against each other for a long time; (Eastern’s) Jarrod Race, we caught up at the Roosters academy, which I’m a part of with (Hornby’s) Archie Jacobs; and there’s Ray (Hubbard) from Papanui and ‘KT’ (Te Hau) from Halswell.

“It’s good that we’re all on the same page.”

Canterbury Rugby League congratulates Sean on his appointment and wishes him every success in the role.