Country bus driver Wayne Bennett to coach Brisbane at annual Legends of League tournament

A Gerringong bus driver named Wayne Bennett has been plucked from obscurity to coach the Brisbane Broncos, with his namesake not available for the annual Legends of League tournament in Newcastle.

Gerringong bus driver Wayne Bennett with a young Ashton Sims.

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So you ask Wayne Bennett if the rumours about him coaching Brisbane are true.

“Oh, absolutely,” the old coach said late on Thursday. “And I’m happy to chat about it.

“But first, you’ll have to let me do the school bus run. I’m just parked outside Gerringong Public now … so you’ll need to give me a bit more than an hour.”

Which we did.

Understanding that with apologies to Latrell Mitchell, there is no better story in rugby league this weekend than Bennett coaching his beloved Broncos in the annual Legends of League tournament.

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Gerringong bus driver Wayne Bennett with a young Ashton Sims.

And, OK, so the yarn comes with a slight twist.

“Because I’m told the other Wayne, he’s away coaching England,” our man says. “So a call went out from the organisers to get a similar replacement … and they found me.”

Which is why, aged 73, and charged with driving school buses around the South Coast town of Gerringong, Wayne ‘Pee Wee’ Bennett can today be announced as head coach of the Broncos for the Legends of League event at McDonald Jones Stadium, Newcastle.

Something of a stalwart in the Group 7 region, Bennett will oversee a strong squad of Brisbane Old Boys which, set to play in front of an estimated 10,000 fans, includes the likes of Wendell Sailor, Lote Tuqiri, Scott Prince and Tonie Carroll.

Wayne Bennett was unavailable due to England duties. Picture: Kai Schwoerer

Elsewhere, cult Bronco Julian O’Neill is flying in from Papua New Guinea, where he now works, to be part of the popular Nines event, while Ashton Sims has also switched from the Barbarians team to rejoin the bus driver who coached him to an Under 14s premiership.

“And I’ve been lucky enough to coach all the Sims boys,” continued Bennett, who will make an eight-hour round trip to be involved in the day. “Coached Rod Wishart back when he was a young bloke too.”

And as for how you went with a future Kangaroo winger in your bush team?

“Yeah, we won a couple of premierships,” the coach laughed. “Then years later, I ended up coaching his son too.

“But that’s just how it seems to go down here.

“There’s a few blokes who I’ve now coached both them and their sons.”

As part of a unique marketing ploy, organisers of the Legends event yesterday revealed how, after initially chasing the ‘other’ Bennett for the Broncos gig — and discovering he was on Test duty with the Poms — they then decided to scour NSW for any footy fan who boasted the same name.

Incredibly, they found one.

“Although I still can’t believe it’s really happening,” Bennett conceded after his afternoon bus run was over. “But now that I’ve got you ringing me for an interview … I guess it has to be true.”

While better known among Gerringong locals as ‘Pee Wee’, the coach conceded his name does occasionally draw strange looks – especially when parents new to the club bring their kids to training for the first time.

“After training is done, they always come up to me and say ‘ah, excuse me, is your name really Wayne Bennett?’,” he said. “So I always tell them that it isn’t.

“I just look at them and say ‘oh, no, no, no … it’s Darren Lockyer’.”

Originally published as Country bus driver Wayne Bennett to coach Brisbane at annual Legends of League tournament