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Mal Meninga wants clubs held to account in his role as NRL coaches association chairman after the worst year for clipboard holders in the game's history.

NRL coaches association chairman Mal Meninga wants club managements to be held accountable after the worst year for clipboard holders in the game's history.

Anthony Seibold's exit on Wednesday marked the fifth coach to go this year, already the most to walk mid-season despite being just 15 rounds in.

That figure tops the four who walked mid-season in both 1994 and 2014.

Making matters worse is that 2020 was originally expected to be a year where coaches could be given an easier run, given the ongoing effects of the pandemic.

That was highlighted best by Stephen Kearney's axing from the Warriors with more than two years left on his deal, while his team was unable to even live in their home country.

Dean Pay is the only coach to go in the final year of his contract, with Paul McGregor and Paul Green both having more than a year to run when they left their clubs.

Seibold meanwhile had a whopping three years and two months left on his five-season deal.

"It's concerning in the fact clubs are making decisions in the harshest climate our game has ever endured," Meninga told AAP.

"Obviously in clubs success is paramount.

"But the ease of getting rid of coaches really concerns me.

"After all the club made the decision to employ those people. When is the hierarchy or the leadership of the club become accountable for it as well?"

Meninga's comments come after McGregor claimed following his St George Illawarra exit that people were too quick to see the negative sides of a game where only one team will lift the trophy each year.

Meninga's concerns also extend beyond the head coaching roles, but to decisions that he believes impact on the welfare of many others in the game.

The rugby league immortal is worried that new coaches rarely keep on the majority of football staff, often bringing their own people in with them.

Canterbury are already expected to clear the decks for Trent Barrett and Meninga claims the changes often go well beyond the assistants to everyone in the football department.

"Seibs as the example, he gets a good payout. The rest of them get a good payout," Meninga said.

"But what happens to their staff? All of a sudden they are without jobs.

"A new coach comes in, there has been a cultural failing, so he doesn't want to use the current staff.

"Who looks after those guys? How do we transition them back into employment, especially in these times?

"In effect, decisions made by board and management have put people's livelihoods in jeopardy as well."

Ideally, Meninga wants to get to the point where more assistants are promoted to the top job at their own club, keeping the current staff alongside them.

The coaches' union want to set up more professional and personal development for those staff, expanding opportunities inside and outside the game.

But at the moment Meninga admits the association is also on its knees, set up only earlier this year and quickly feeling the effects of funding drops from COVID.

CEO Kelly Egan has already left, but regardless Meninga said more had to be done to protect coaches and their staff.

"We're talking about livelihoods," Meninga said.

"Every time you sack a coach there are the repercussions and ripple effects."