Wayne Bennett can’t lose in coaching saga but Anthony Seibold is under siege no matter how it ends

Wayne Bennett is sitting back smoking his pipe. By contrast, Anthony Seibold has arrows flying at him from all directions.

Anthony Seibold speaks to the media.

• REELING: Souths rocked by Bennett shock

• MEETING: Three-minute chat decided Bennett future

The Great Coaching Circus may have one last spectacular somersault to come but through the maze of possibilities, one fact is clear.

Wayne Bennett is the most formidable foe there is in the game of rugby league politics.

Bennett has as many critics as fans these days and his life is sprinkled with undignified moments, such as hiding in a coffee house toilet to avoid the media on the weekend soon after meeting with Broncos chairman Karl Morris.

Wayne Bennett hides at a cafe in Brisbane.

But of the two clubs and two coaches involved in the coaching swap with Anthony Seibold, Bennett alone is assured of a winning outcome thanks to his ability to sit like a stone-faced poker player knowing he has a joker up his sleeve — a contract to coach the Broncos next year.

The Broncos claim Bennett will stay in 2019 — the rumour mill says otherwise.

Either way, Bennett is smoking his pipe.

If Bennett stays in Brisbane he will relish guiding an emerging team with premiership potential, all the while knowing he can have the occasional pot shot at the club’s hierarchy, which effectively cannot sack him because he is going at the end of next season anyway.

Wayne Bennett has played the perfect political game. Picture: Annette Dew

If he goes to South Sydney he will pick up a second wage and instant goodwill from the likes of the Burgess boys whom he jelled with in camp recently with the England team.

Even in accepting the deal to go to South Sydney in 2020, Bennett still gave young Seibold a clip behind the ears, signing with the Rabbitohs with such haste it happened before Seibold had talked turkey with the Broncos.

Given he had parted with Souths by the time he talked money with Brisbane, Seibold was effectively in limbo and it weakened his bargaining power because he suddenly needed the Broncos more than they needed him.

While Bennett cannot lose, Seibold, by contrast, has arrows flying at him from all directions and he will need to be a strong man to get through it.

Anthony Seibold is under serious pressure.

The shamelessly ambitious Seibold may have the keys to the kingdom of Brisbane but must tiptoe through a minefield before he puts them in the front door. He is caught between two groups of angry players — the current Souths team if he stays in Sydney and the Broncos old boys.

Souths players are reportedly off him following his defection to Brisbane, so much so that his position at the Rabbitohs coach is deemed by some to be untenable.

No matter whether he arrives in Brisbane this or next year, Seibold will be greeted by a Broncos old boys network angry that Kevin Walters did not get the job.

There will be no honeymoon period for Seibold in Brisbane, where the Broncos are premiership-hungry after a 12-year drought and anything less is a failure of sorts.

Significantly, the bar was not initially as high for the only other two men apart from Bennett to coach the club, Ivan Henjak and Anthony Griffin.

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Originally published as Wayne Bennett can’t lose in coaching saga but Anthony Seibold is under siege no matter how it ends