But as Betham and others involved with Anderson at the Warriors detail in a recently published book, not every player who has spent time under the new Eels boss appreciates his abrupt style. While he took the Warriors to the finals for the first time in 2001 - his inaugural season as an NRL coach - and repeated the feat the following two years, his reign in Auckland ended with his having lost support of the club's large contingent of Polynesian players.

"People often talk about the quiet Island boys who don't speak out, who don't have the power … well they had plenty of power because they were one of the reasons why Daniel was gone," Betham says in the new biography about his career as a league star and boxer, Monty Betham: Baring My Soul .

"Daniel had a lot of love for them early on and everyone likes feeling the love, and when they got it from the coach they'd want to give it back to him by performing. But that relationship slowly got eroded.

"Their spirits were low because they didn't like being spoken to the way Daniel was speaking to them. Every other word was the f-word and it was delivered with so much anger and intensity."

If the Eels want a brutally honest coach who wears his heart on his sleeve, the image painted of Anderson suggests they have the right man. For most of his tenure at the Warriors and the four seasons he spent in charge of St Helens, the 41-year-old former Parramatta lower-grade mentor got the best out of his players.

After taking the Warriors to the 2002 grand final, he went one better in England when Saints won the 2006 premiership. He also oversaw Challenge Cup victories in 2006, 2007 and 2008 and a further two Super League grand final appearances.

His half-time tirade in this year's premiership decider has been well publicised after an animated Anderson was captured by the dressing-room cameras laying down the law to the St Helens players. It was a tactic he had employed with success at the Warriors during a game against Penrith in 2001.

After leading 12-0 early, the Warriors went to the interval trailing 26-12 and according to Betham and former Warriors chief executive Mick Watson, Anderson delivered one of his briefest but most effective half-time talks - saying "f--- you" to each of the 17-man squad and then "f--- the lot of you" before walking out of the room.

"I walked in at half-time … [it was] f--- you, f--- you, f--- you. We were down and out. It was terrible," says Watson, who left the ground in disgust and listened on his car radio as the Warriors staged a remarkable second-half comeback.

Betham defended Anderson's speech, saying: "Hey, it worked. Sometimes he'd swear at one or two of the boys but the rest of us would get 'you're doing well' or 'keep doing that'. But not that time. We all got the serve and we all responded."

Another half-time "speech" by Anderson in the 2002 grand final against the Roosters did not go down as well.

"He never addressed us at half-time," former Warriors forward Kevin Campion recalls. "He brought a tape recorder in, said 'Boys I want you to listen to this' and then walked out. It starts playing 'Welcome to the 2002 grand final, the Warriors versus the Broncos' [sic] … I flipped out and thought 'what is this?'. I was just going 'turn that s--- off', I was screaming 'what the f--- is this?' That half-time speech goes down as one of the worst things I have ever heard - it was just ridiculous."

Betham described his former mentor as "a stickler for detail and very technical".

He also describes Anderson as a good communicator and man manager, although on one occasion he had giant prop Iafeta Paleaaesina in tears after telling him he was being shipped off to the Newtown Jets until he lost weight and got fitter.

"To this day he is still the best coach I have ever had."