NRL 2020: Broncos would be best served with a Kevin Walters-Wayne Bennett coaching team
If ever the Broncos need to go with a coaching option that illustrates a commitment to the future while drawing on the success of their past, it’s bringing back two club legends.
Opinion
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The Broncos interview process to replace Anthony Seibold is expected to heat up this week.
The two-horse race should take no less than a day to complete. But then again, this is the Broncos, who have a habit of missing the start, throwing their head and losing sight of the winning post.
Kevin Walters and Paul Green are the only two contenders. Pencil a line through Craig Bellamy and don’t rule out the old stager Wayne Bennett.
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The Broncos haven’t. Just last week, the Broncos commercial department sat around estimating the value of Bennett coming home to work beside Walters.
At last count they were at over $2 million in potential commercial opportunities.
Let’s unpack that in a minute.
Even though Green will present a double-page resume with instructions attached on how to win a premiership, Walters is the firm favourite for the job.
Walters has earned respect of the game’s best talent, many of them past and present Broncos, during his tenure as coach of the Queensland State of Origin team since 2016.
Walters has the support of the Broncos’ “Old Boys” and, above all, the battered Brisbane board can’t afford to ignore the rotten apples pinging off the office windows from upset fans.
They want one of their own.
Appeasing the masses is a dangerous way to make major business decisions, but overthinking it hasn’t worked at the Broncos — as we witnessed with Seibold.
Forget the obvious fairy tale story of Bennett riding back into Brisbane, but if ever the Broncos needed to consider an option that illustrates a commitment to the future while drawing on their success of their past, it’s appointing Walters coach and Bennett overseeing the football department.
If South Sydney didn’t have a ready-made replacement for Bennett in 2021 in current assistant coach Jason Demetriou, you could forget about it. But Demetriou is ready, which is why the Rabbitohs’ clever succession plan provides Bennett with the opportunity to head home.
The knock on Walters is that he has never coached in the NRL. Bennett working alongside him, signing players, keeping the more troubled players heads-on, offering a soft or firm hand when required, is the ideal back-up for Walters.
It’s disrespectful to think Walters isn’t old enough and wise enough to be his own man. He could tell Bennett to “nick off” if he needed, too.
But is it wrong that the Broncos are testing the public’s sentiment before pushing on the idea that includes using their most successful coach in their most obvious time of need?
Bennett shouldn’t be viewed as a threat, but another arm to resurrect the stressed-out Broncos. Is he seriously going to knife Walters in the back, in the hope of taking over as head coach at the age of 75?
Trent Robinson, Ivan Cleary and Bellamy understand the importance of surrounding themselves with quality individuals. Take a look inside the Roosters, Panthers and Storm coaches’ boxes and you’ll quickly realise that if you surround yourself with excellence, you’re a fair chance of achieving it.
All three are either generating future NRL coaches or already have.
There were a number of reasons why Bellamy rejected a four-year mega deal from the Broncos in 2018, not the least of which was he felt he still had premierships to win at the Storm.
But the unspoken truth was that after more than 15 years in Melbourne, where he’d gone to work each day without so much as a double-take from the locals, the thought of turning up to Red Hill, under the glare of the press pack that trails the one-team town Broncos every day, was excruciating.
But Bennett, 70, knows how the Brisbane media work — and he embraces it.
He also has ‘support’ from chairman Karl Morris, who despite his differences with Bennett, has gone public with his acceptance that the Broncos choosing to ignore potentially bringing back the supercoach, would not be smart.
The elephant in the room is board member Darren Lockyer and Bennett’s son in-law Ben Ikin, who is striving to become the Broncos CEO.
Lockyer and Bennett haven’t spoken since the coach’s exit from Red Hill in 2018. Bennett felt Lockyer didn’t do enough to keep his former coach from the firing squad. Yet the champion playmaker has always held out hope that time would heal their wounds.
As for Ikin, he isn’t a fan of the idea of Bennett — or anyone — being appointed as a coaching director.
Ikin is right, it’s an unpopular model in the NRL, rarely implemented.
And due to a breakdown of their relationship, he isn’t a great fan of Bennett the man either.
If Ikin is successful in his pitch for the job - we should learn by the end of this month - that will crush any hope Bennett has of heading north.
Bennett isn’t finished. He wakes every day thinking about rugby league - not lawn bowls. He has no interest in quitting or drifting off into retirement.
Walters has spoken openly about his hurt at the current state of the Broncos. There’s genuine love and care for the joint - which is a vital ingredient for success in any job.
Bennett can’t come out and declare the same while he’s working at Souths.
But Bellamy gave a telling insight into Bennett’s passion for the Broncos during a podcast this year which sits on the Melbourne Storm website.
Bellamy was asked what he learned from Bennett during his time as an assistant at the Broncos in the early-2000s.
“The biggest thing I took from Wayne is his love for the Broncos — his love for the club,‘’ Bellamy said.
“He loved that club.
“He had a great care for the club and a great care for the people inside that club and his relationships with current players and players from the past … I thought that’s what made it a tremendously strong club.’’
Originally published as NRL 2020: Broncos would be best served with a Kevin Walters-Wayne Bennett coaching team