As well as bringing in Langer, one of the first things he did was sign Briers to replace Iestyn Harris who had just moved to Leeds.
DVDV always struck me as a good guy who had the club's interests at heart. I think he was involved in setting up the scholarship scheme and didn't he put his hand in the pocket to lend the club money when we were going through financial problems. He didn't have an easy job, a lot of stuff happened off the field when he was here and the club felt like a mess - he left just as Andy Gatcliffe was coming in who would ultimately get us run properly.
DVDV got a fair bit of stick from the fans. It definitely felt like the dressing room was cliquey with the Aussies hanging together and the discipline was bad - this was the peak era for stories of players being out in Smiths and stories of debauchery on pre-season tours. I remember reading in one of the players' autobiographies that the problem Darryl had was he was fundamentally a nice guy and when discipline got out of control and he tried to get tough on it it was hard for him to be taken seriously because he'd been too friendly with the players before. Also we were terrible defensively during his time, we always shipped far too many points to be competitive.
But there were good sides to DVDV's time too. In recent years when we've been complaining about the dull rugby played under Price and Powell I tried to think about when we were fun to watch. The best times were the middle of the Cullen era and the second half of the DVDV era (99-01). Toa Kohe-Love and Hunte scored lots of tries and when we had Langer and Briers we were very good at finishing off plays when we were close to the other team's line. We could run up points on even the best teams, we were just defensively too poor to be consistent. He also had the connections and ability to sell the club so we could punch above our weight in terms of attracting big names.
I remember the middle of the DVDV era having a real feeling of hope - we were in a disastrous state when he took over in 97, almost went bust in 98 but midway through the 99 season we were playing great rugby, pushing for the playoffs, had an Academy top of the league and were announcing signings like Langer, Gee and Nikau for 2000. I remember thinking DVDV had transformed the club and we were going to be real competitors. We then completely tanked the end of the 99 season and were never able to consistently get on a good run again despite some great wins at Wilderspool against top teams.
I think by the end DVDV was pretty fed up - every time we seemed to be raising our ambition, it turned out the finances were worse than expected or discipline problems caused issues behind the scenes. The final straw was when we appointed Neil Kelly to replace him and were talking about bringing in Kelly before the end of the season. Langer went home "retiring" only to rejoin Brisbane Broncos and DVDV walked out too.
He was a pretty smart guy and was more than a coach - he'd been CEO of the South Queensland Crushers between coaching Cas and Wire (he brought a young Danny Nutley to us from the Crushers) and he was involved in Queensland rugby league for a while after. He seems to have been very well regarded there.
Time marches on .RIP Daryl.
