Rugby league is marking its 100th year in Australia. When it came to naming Australia’s Team of the Century, as part of the celebrations, the choice of coach for this mythical side was unequivocal. Jack Gibson was often referred to as a “supercoach” or “master coach”, whose methods and philosophy transformed the game both in Australia and here in Britain.

Gibson was a student of coaching and training methods in other sports who imported many of his ideas from American football after time spent with the San Francisco 49ers during the 1970s. He pioneered techniques, many of which are standard today throughout the National Rugby League in Australasia and Super League in England and France, from computer and video analysis of players’ performances to scientific fitness testing, even to the use of mascara under players’ eyes to reduce the glare from floodlights.

He was one of sport’s great innovators and Australian rugby league’s most successful coaches, who led Eastern Suburbs in Sydney to Premiership titles in 1974 and 1975 and the Parramatta Eels to three successive titles from 1981 to 1983.

The timing of his death in a nursing home after a long battle with dementia was in keeping with his sense of occasion, coming 90 minutes before Australia’s 28-12 victory over New Zealand in a centenary international on May 9, when players and their descendants in Australia’s Team of the Century were presented to the crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

The Australia team wore black armbands as a mark of respect for Gibson, who was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to rugby league in 1988. He was equally well known for his sardonic one-liners, especially in television commentary on Channel 9, for which he earned a cult following. “They’d boo Santa Claus, this mob,” he said of a State or Origin match crowd in Brisbane.

A fearsome forward in a career with Eastern Suburbs, Newtown and Western Suburbs, Gibson combined playing with working as a nightclub doorman, including a period at the infamous Thommo’s Two-Up School, an illegal Sydney gambling den. He began coaching Eastern Suburbs in 1967, but his outlook was transformed while at the St George club in Sydney when he saw a motivational film featuring Vince Lombardi, the celebrated American Football coach with Green Bay Packers.

Lombardi’s one-liners became Gibson’s stock in trade; American Football a sport that rugby league could learn and develop from. With help and guidance from Dick Nolan, coach of the 49ers, Gibson soon earned success with his fresh thinking. “The thing about Jack was that he was always willing to learn. He was always looking for any little thing to give his team an edge,” Terry Fearnley, a former team-mate and coaching assistant of Gibson’s, said.

The same year in which he won his first Premiership title with Eastern Suburbs, his team beat St Helens, the British champions, in the inaugural World Club Challenge in 1975. He subsequently led Parramatta to the most successful era in their history, famously declaring after their first Premiership title in 1981: “Ding dong, the witch is dead.”

In 16 seasons of coaching over a 21-year span, his teams made the end-of-season play-offs 11 times, based on a philosophy of building each club he served from the front office to success on the pitch and developing his players as people, not just as athletes.

His eldest son, Luke, who had struggled with schizophrenia, died in 1988 of a drug overdose. A year later, Gibson took up his final coaching appointment in charge of the New South Wales State of Origin team.

His tally of five Premiership titles was surpassed in 2006 by Wayne Bennett, the Brisbane Broncos coach, who said of Gibson: “He’s the most influential coach the game has ever had. He changed the face of our game and brought us out of the dark ages into a credible place in sport.”

He is survived by his wife, Judy, and five children.

Jack Gibson, OAM, rugby league coach, was born on February 27, 1929. He died on May 9, 2008, aged 79