NRL 2023: Wayne Bennett reveals why he sacked Kevin Walters from Brisbane Broncos
It was the sacking that almost ruined a 35-year friendship. In an exclusive interview, Wayne Bennett reveals why he made the call to cull Kevin Walters from the Broncos in 2005.
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Wayne Bennett has opened up about the day he sacked Kevin Walters and why one of the toughest calls of his career was designed to make his long-time apprentice a better coach.
The 35-year relationship between Bennett and Walters has had all manner of twists and turns and their decorated careers will collide in Friday night’s historic Dolphins-Broncos blockbuster at Suncorp Stadium.
It is a coaching clash that seems unfathomable. Bennett heading up new expansion franchise the Dolphins. Walters calling the shots at a Broncos club Bennett never wanted to leave.
For more than a decade, ‘Kevvie’ was Bennett’s champion five-eighth during Brisbane’s glory years when the Walters-Allan Langer scrumbase combination kickstarted a dynasty that saw the Broncos win six premierships between 1992-2006.
But it was the most explosive chapter in their epic journey - Bennett sacking Walters as his assistant at the Broncos at the end of the 2005 season - that has ultimately proved the making of Kevvie the head coach.
At the time, Walters slammed Bennett, saying he was sacked because “clearly I’m not a yes man”.
But his termination sent Walters on a life-shaping coaching odyssey that took him from France and Ipswich to Melbourne and Newcastle before a sliding doors moment gloriously swung open for him to ascend the Bennett throne at Red Hill.
Bennett’s unbeaten Dolphins are primed to ambush the Broncos and continue their fairytale start, but regardless of the result on Friday night, the super coach will always value his unbreakable bond with Walters.
“We have been on a long, long journey and Kevvie knows how I feel about him,” Bennett told News Corp ahead of his showdown with Walters in the inaugural Battle of Brisbane.
“I still remember the conversation I had with him in 2005. It wasn’t pleasant. I said to Kevin, ‘You aren’t going to get any better being with me, you need to go to other places and learn other things and work with other coaches’.
“He got those life experiences we all need and you don’t get them when you want to stay in a comfort zone.
“I told Kevin he needed to take himself out of the comfort zone at the Broncos.
“He was great friends with Craig Bellamy (Melbourne coach), so he did the hard yards as a coach. He went to France, Ipswich and came back and worked for the Storm.
“Then he came back and helped me in my last year at Newcastle.
“It was a tough season in 2014 at the Knights, then I went back to the Broncos (in 2015) and I felt it was the right time for Kevin to come back. We made the grand final at the Broncos the following year (2015).
“Even when he went to coach the Queensland team the next season (in 2016), I supported him enormously to get that job.
“I’ve always said, ‘Have the courage to follow your dreams’ and Kevvie has made a lot of sacrifices to get to where is now as coach of the Broncos.”
There is a view that the ructions of 2005 has created tension between the pair, a situation amplified by Walters clinching the Broncos top job just three years after Bennett was himself sacked in the Red Hill civil war of 2018.
But Bennett set the record straight on his relationship with Walters.
“There is no issue. I am proud of Kevin and always will be,” Bennett said.
“Kevin will always be my friend and I will always be there for him. Have we always agreed on things? No we haven’t, but we have been great friends and we have done some remarkable things together.
“We’ve got a long history together.
“I saw Kevin play as a kid. I remember going to Ipswich one night, I saw Kevin, ‘Alf’ (Langer) and Kerrod Walters all play together in a game and I couldn’t believe how good they were. They were 16 and 17. They were just outstanding.
“Alfie got a lot of the headlines at the Broncos because he was a genius, but Kevin Walters was a bloody wonderful player.
“He did anything for the team. He never resented any selection decision I made. He was so team oriented it didn’t matter and, as a coach, that’s what he has brought to the Broncos team today.
“Kevin’s mantra is that everything is for the team.
“He had a long-term goal to coach the Broncos and while he went through some pain to get there, it’s a credit to him that he got the job and he’s now in the third season there.”
When Walters first succeeded Anthony Seibold at the Broncos for the 2021, he was not afraid to reach out to Bennett, who had continued his career as a rival coach at South Sydney.
“We still talk occasionally,” Walters said.
“I wouldn’t say we lean on each other. He wouldn’t lean on me too much (laughs).
“He doesn’t come to me for too much advice and I don’t go to him.”
Asked if there is animosity between the Dolphins and Broncos, Walters said: “I can only speak on our behalf and Wayne and I are still mates.
“There won’t be any animosity. There’ll be a lot of pride from both camps.
“That’s no different to any other week and what we’ve seen from both clubs in the opening rounds.
“There’s plenty to play for, regardless of who the opposition is.”
Bennett said the tragic death in 1998 of Walters’ first wife Kim, who battled breast cancer, helped strengthen a bond that will not be affected by the derby result on Friday night.
“Kevin is a very caring person,” he said. “He has had to battle through personal tragedy to get where he has got to in coaching and his football career as well.
“We play each other on Friday night but it won’t be about me or Kevin. Neither of us are those type of blokes. We have done too much together. We have been through a lot of battles together over a long period of time.
“We are just two coaches out there doing our job. It won’t be about him and it won’t be about me. It will be about the two teams we are coaching and that’s it.
“We will always be friends and that will never not be the case with us.”
BRONCOS CEO: TRUTH OF BENNETT’S SACKING
Broncos chairman Karl Morris has opened up about the sacking of Wayne Bennett and hailed coach Kevin Walters for steering Brisbane out of one of the darkest chapters in the club’s 35-year history.
Bennett will look to mastermind a Dolphins fairytale in Friday night’s derby blockbuster against Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium - five years after being sensationally sacked by the Broncos club he never wanted to leave.
As Bennett attempts to plot Brisbane’s demise, he will have vivid memories of the explosive Red Hill civil war of 2018 that led to his termination as Broncos coach, eventually putting him on the path to a new expansion chapter with the Dolphins.
Morris in his embryonic stages as chairman of the Broncos when he made Bennett an offer in 2018 few at Brisbane believed the super coach could refuse.
With the super coach off-contract at the end of 2019, Morris formally suggested an “elegant transition” that would see Bennett shift into a new role of his choosing, tantamount to a job for life at the Broncos.
But Bennett’s desire to soldier on as a head coach put him on a toxic collision course with Broncos bosses, who subsequently brokered a straight swap with South Sydney’s Anthony Seibold.
Now Bennett returns to Suncorp in charge of Brisbane’s fresh new competitive threat in Queensland’s NRL turf war and Morris says the Broncos board have no regrets over the decision to part ways with the super coach.
“That was a call by our CEO (Paul White) at the time,” Morris said.
“As a board, you either sack or back your CEO and we backed the CEO.
“Paul wanted a certain coach - he was thinking for the longer term of the club.
“In hindsight, you can say we wish we did things differently, but at the time Paul White had a particular view of putting in a long-term succession plan and he felt it was the right time for Wayne to go.
“The CEO is the one who determines the hiring and firing and strategy of the club.
“The board was given a pretty clear view on what the CEO felt about the strategy around the coach.
“Some things could have been done differently, but we tried to manage the process in the most professional way that we could.”
The Broncos and Dolphins will come face-to-face today at The Courier-Mail’s highly-anticipated Battle lunch at the Gambaro Hotel in Caxton Street, which is being co-hosted by the NRL.
Walters will attend and be interviewed by Yvonne Sampson from Fox Sports, but Bennett has opted to send his assistant Kristian Woolf.
Of Bennett’s return to face the Broncos in charge of the Dolphins, Morris said: “It’s great for the rivalry. It’s Redcliffe versus Brisbane. With Wayne there it sets up a great rivalry going forward.
“Look, we have a 30-year headstart on the Dolphins.
“History shows when you have two teams in close proximity, it usually benefits both.
“We are Brisbane. They are Redcliffe. We will continue to be the strong brand in Brisbane.”
While Seibold’s two seasons were a disaster - the Broncos crashed to their first-ever wooden spoon in 2020 - his successor Walters has gradually presided over a regeneration of the glamour club.
Brisbane went within one win of the finals last season and Morris says the Broncos’ flying 3-0 start to the 2023 campaign is evidence Walters has injected the very quality he pledged to instil - unity.
“Kevvie has done a great job bringing stability to the club and harmony in the dressing room,” Morris said.
“Kevvie has brought a lot of enthusiasm and energy, but it is really a team effort. When you have good leaders and good CEOs, they attract good people to be around them and that has happened at the Broncos.
“We went through some tough times and we needed stability.
“If you look at the best sporting teams around the world, you have stability of the whole vertical of the club, whether that’s ownership, coaching, management, players, it’s stability and longevity of those vertical layers.
“Bringing in stability and taking a long-term view is starting to bring us some success.
“The team really gets on well and they are playing for each other.
“Kevvie wears his heart on his sleeve, but he has put together not only a team, but depth in the roster to make us a premiership contender.”
Walters has served as an assistant to Bennett at the Broncos and Newcastle and lauded the influence of the NRL’s seven-time premiership-winning coach.
“He likes to keep it very simple – stick to the basics of the game and defend well,” Walters said.
“That’s been the trademark of all his teams over the years.
“They’ve always been good with discipline and defend well.”
Originally published as NRL 2023: Wayne Bennett reveals why he sacked Kevin Walters from Brisbane Broncos
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