Clip shows Dolphins coach Wayne Bennett is not who we think he is

Vulnerability is never something that’s been associated with NRL super-coach Wayne Bennett, but an emotional clip shows who he really is.

Wayne Bennett we hardly knew ye.

The super-coach’s true self — the one that lies fiercely guarded under his thick skin — has been captured like never before in an emotional clip released on the eve of the Dolphins’ debut in the NRL.

The rugby league world has been guessing for more than 40 years who the real Bennett is — and now the game is getting it’s closest look in behind the scenes footage captured in Stan’s soon-to-be-released Dawn of the Dolphins documentary.

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The 73-year-old has shown rare emotion when fronting the cameras for the series and briefly lifts the curtain on the character beneath the bravado of his famously grizzly exterior.

He says in the episode he changed his mind about wanting to participate in the series right up until his first interview — motivated predominantly by his introversion.

“Every time... I’m fighting it just sitting here with you,” Bennett said when asked about his camera-shy personality.

“I probably made my mind up some time a couple of hours ago that I didn’t really want to talk to you today.

“I was going to keep everything pretty short, pretty sharp, which I have done. But I have given a bit of myself.”

It is the vulnerability he shows in the clip that stands out the most.

“I don’t like giving myself publicly. It’s not who introverts are,” he says.

Wayne Bennett speaks on Dawn of the Dolphins. Photo: Stan publicity.

“All my life I’ve fought it. But I won the battle with it, because I wouldn’t be able to coach if I was introverted, you’ve got to be able to communicate.

“I can’t tell you the (number of) days, and the moments in a day when I have to fight with myself to talk to somebody - not because I don’t want to talk, I just don’t want to talk right there and right then and I don’t want to have that conversation.

“But I have to have it, and I have to do it.

“Does it worry me that someone says, ‘you don’t talk much Wayne’... none of that worries me. I talk to get my message across and after that I’m just going to shut up.”

Bennett has been held with esteem unparalleled in modern-day rugby league on the back of seven premierships.

A sneak peak of the documentary series shows Bennett’s famous “aura” is still there — despite suggestions the Broncos icon has lost his “aura” as seen by his failure to land a single superstar to play for the team in its debut season.

He’ll prove it is still there if he is able to guide the Dolphins to be competitive this season — with the club widely tipped to take out the wooden spoon.

In recent years, people close to Bennett have attempted to share who he really is — none have totally captured it.

The old fox has still got it. Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images.

“Wayne definitely has an aura about him and I strongly believe that his ability to get the best out of individuals is second to none,” Broncos great Corey Parker said in his autobiography.

His son-in-law — and Broncos football operations boss — Ben Ikin also recently tried to explain it.

“Despite the fact he looks like a grumpy old man on the television, Wayne Bennett actually makes the work environment a fun place to be,” Ikin wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald.

“He might be serious about his footy, but he has never taken himself too seriously, always allowing the characters in the group to be themselves. This ensures that his players are laughing as much as they are sweating, and like most things we do in life, the more we enjoy ourselves the better we’ll perform.”

The same can’t be said for his famously fickle press conference demeanour.

Bennett has taken down countless reporters like they were nothing with one-word answers and death-stares.

Bennett has previously been described as a master media manipulator — but the latest clips show that is only part of the story.

Wayne Bennett is in the middle of his toughest assignment. Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images.

Long-term rugby league scribe Steve Mascord wrote the definitive rundown of how to interpret Bennett’s press-conference behaviour — and immediately you can see the genius in his work.

Mascord’s piece from 2010, when Bennett was at the Dragons — known as the Wayne Bennett for Dummies guide — reported Bennett has eight simple principles he uses to control how his team is reported on.

Here is a truncated version:

1. When his team wins he says very little to ensure his players get the attention.

2. When his team loses he gives expansive answers and happily discusses side issues to deflect attention from his players’ performance.

3. When his team plays poorly he will only praise players in need of a confidence boost.

4. The first questions of a press conference always get a short answer so he can show who is in charge.

5. Bennett is on first-name basis with at least one local reporter. Unknown reasons.

6. Unless contractually obliged, Bennett only does one-on-one interviews with the ABC — all other digital media miss out.

7. Bennett gives up a lot of his time to help journalists working on feature stories. But he won’t go anywhere near providing on-the-record quotes for a journalist chasing a news story.

8. Once a year Bennett tells his club it’s time for his annual one-on-one media day when he holds court. It’s normally a distraction at a time in the season when his players are under pressure.

Exactly who the real Wayne Bennett is, the world will never definitively know — but his latest appearance has added an important piece to the puzzle.

– The Stan Original Documentary Series Dawn of the Dolphins premieres each Monday from March 6, only on Stan

Originally published as Clip shows Dolphins coach Wayne Bennett is not who we think he is