Wayne Bennett reveals what really happened when he left Canberra
Ahead of Friday night’s blockbuster NRL preliminary final, Wayne Bennett opens up about the true story of how his coaching career kicked off at Canberra.
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It was the day the Canberra Raiders told Wayne Bennett to “f--- off”.
But don’t worry, Bennett didn’t take it personally, then or now.
Bennett is forever indebted to tonight’s preliminary final opponents that gave him his big time coaching start way back in 1987.
While Bennett has spent all week trying to come up with a plan to deny the Raiders a chance to play in the club’s first grand final since 1994, the now 69-year-old opened up about a phone call 33 years ago from the Raiders’ inaugural coach Don Furner that changed Bennett’s world forever.
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“Don Furner gave me an opportunity and I am eternally grateful to him,” Bennett recalled about their co-coaching relationship that led the Raiders to the club’s first grand final.
“He was a great coach. He had much more knowledge than I did.”
Bennett never imagined he would ever coach in the then NSW competition before Furner sought him out at the end of 1986 after Bennett had coached Queensland in State of Origin.
There were moves afoot at the Raiders by then assistant Allan McMahon to oust Furner when one of Bennett’s mates from Queensland mentioned the young coach who had already won premierships in the Brisbane competition.
“I was only 37,” Bennett said.
“I was a career police officer, and I was a happy career police officer. I didn’t go into coaching for any other reason than people kept offering me the job.
“Anyway, Les McIntyre was the boss at Canberra at the time and Les was quite an administrator, he was the reason why the Canberra Raiders got into the competition.
“And as a result of that blow-up (between Furner and McMahon), Les being a really loyal bloke, said to Don, ‘Listen, you’ve got one more year but you have to bring a young coach here to work with to take over when you leave’.
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“So a very good friend of mine, Frank Dolan, rang me up one day and said, ‘Listen, my mate Don Furner has just rang and asked if I would recommend someone to coach down there. And I told him you were the best young coach going around’.
“As it turned out Mal Meninga had turned up (in Canberra) in ‘86 as well, and Gary Belcher, and I had coached those guys at (Brisbane) Souths. So I am sure they were instrumental in helping.
“But anyway, I got a call from Don and he asked if I would come down and work with him for 12 months and stay on as coach after he retired. That was the deal we did.”
But the problem was in 1987 the Brisbane Broncos were also given the green light to enter the national competition and their foundation chairman Paul ‘Porky’ Morgan also wanted Bennett.
Morgan turned up at Bennett’s Canberra home with his suitcase and refused to leave until Bennett agreed to coach the Broncos.
“That was a traumatic time,” Bennett recalled. “I wanted to go and coach the Broncos.”
But McIntyre was less than thrilled when he found out.
“Les said, ‘You can f--- off, Wayne’,” Bennett said.
“It was halfway through the season. But to Don’s credit he didn’t want me to go. And he went and talked to Les and the players. The players had a vote if I would stay or go, and the players wanted me to stay unanimously.”
So Bennett stayed and together he and Furner made club history, taking the Raiders from equal second last to the grand final in one year.
Bennett still rates Furner up with the legendary Brisbane talent scout Cyril Connell and rugby league Immortal Bob Fulton as the three greatest eyes for rugby league talent he has ever worked with.
“They just knew what talent was,” Bennett said. “And they could see things most guys never see.
“Don gave me some great advice. Two things he said to me I have never forgot.
“One was never tell a player he can’t play. He’d say, ‘Say to him, there is a place for you, it might not be here with us but there is a place in the game for you somewhere’.
“And the second thing was never replace a player unless you have a better player to come in. I built a lot of teams off that advice.”
Asked for how much longer he plans to keep coaching, Bennett, who turns 70 on New Year’s Day, said: “As long as I am enjoying it.”
He says “there is no magic” to making sure teams are ready for big games like this.
“It is just getting them to the place where they all want to play and not have them play their game before they get there,” the seven-time premiership winning coach explained.
“It is ridiculous to say it is just another game of football because it is not.
“But you just manage it.”
Originally published as Wayne Bennett reveals what really happened when he left Canberra