NRL 2021: Josh Mansour opens up on Penrith Panthers exit, Wayne Bennett relationship
Most people rarely see Wayne Bennett crack a smile, but Josh Mansour reveals he’s actually a practical joker behind the scenes.
NRL
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Sometime in Mudgee this weekend, Wayne Bennett will feel a tap on his left shoulder.
Which is where, instinctively, he will turn.
Only nobody will be there.
“Get him every time,” Josh Mansour grins, referencing that gag older than even Bennett himself.
“Maybe it’s because Wayne is so tall.
“Or I’m so short.
“But that tap on the shoulder from the opposite side … I get him every time.”
Which surely comes with some risk, right?
“Oh, Wayne stirs me more than I do him,” South Sydney’s newest winger continues. “Especially on the training field.
“Which is funny because before signing here, we’d never had a meeting, a coffee, nothing.”
You never spoke once with Bennett before inking the deal that saved your NRL career?
“Didn’t speak with Wayne at all,” Mansour reveals. “Only after signing my contract, we had a brief chat over the phone.
“I said ‘ah, do we need to catch up or anything?’.
“Wayne just said ‘nah, I’ve heard enough about you’.”
Which is where Mansour expected said conversation to finish.
Yet the premiership coach, he had one more thing to say.
“Before hanging up,” the winger continues, “Wayne goes ‘Although if you think you’re going to come here and be a joker, you won’t last long’.
“That was our first conversation ever so I was ‘ahhh … haha … ummm …’, which is when he added: ‘Only I can be the joker’.”
At which point, Mansour’s heart started beating again.
“And ever since, we’ve kicked it off,” the 30-year-old says. “It’s always something I’ve wondered about: Why do players love Wayne Bennett so much? What makes him so special?
“Now, I know.”
Which matters for Mansour.
Big time.
Especially when only four months ago, via text, and just 48 hours after playing in an NRL grand final, he was invited to a meeting where, you now know, Penrith coach Ivan Cleary and GM Matt Cameron revealed his services were no longer required.
Which to be fair, is how modern sport goes.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
But still, it doesn’t make receiving that empty cardboard box any easier.
Or not for a Panther who, seemingly tattooed to that club he represented for nine seasons and 158 games, also owned the type of standing that, when re-signed in 2018, saw him receive a fireworks display — yes, fireworks — as he walked, suited up, onto Panthers Stadium before a Thursday Night Football game.
“Gus’s idea,” Mansour recalls, referencing former club boss Phil Gould. “He’s the best.
“I was out injured and, for that announcement, walked onto the field as the boys were coming off, having just finished warm up.
“So here I am coming out, fireworks exploding everywhere and Jimmy Maloney, he just looks at me and says ‘what the f... is going on?’.”
Yet that same fireworks deal, for three more years, never even reached its conclusion.
“Which was tough,” Mansour admits.
“When I first received that text from Ivan to go for coffee, I was really hungover.
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“It was only two days after the grand final, late in the afternoon and I remember showing my wife and asking ‘is this weird?’.
“She said no, but still it felt wrong.
“So then I contacted a couple of the boys, but they all said the same thing, that I was overthinking it.”
Yet he wasn’t.
“Arriving next morning (at the cafe), I’m thinking it’s me and Ivan,” he continues. “But then, I see Matt rock up at the same time and I know. Straight away, I know.
“I couldn’t get out of there quick enough.”
So as for next time you see them, most likely in Round 11?
“If we all cross paths again, no hard feelings,” Mansour insists. “I had a great ride there.
“But if you ever asked how my time at Penrith would end, I never thought it would be like that.
“To suddenly find out I wasn’t wanted, I really questioned myself.
“Wondered ‘Is it me? Is it my playing ability? What’s wrong?’.
“With all that going through my head, I was also trying to reaffirm to myself that I was playing well, that I do belong in the NRL … that I’m worth it.”
Asked how quickly reassurance arrives following a Bennett contract offer, Mansour replies: “Instantly”.
Better, he’s back at the Bunnies.
A club where this most recognised of NRL faces not only earned U/20s Player of the Year, or a crack in the 2011 Charity Shield, but also showcased a fight that has typified so much of his life.
“When I was first here trying to break into the NRL, it was Nathan Merritt and Fetuli Talanoa on the wings,” says the Bunnie returning for Saturday’s Charity Shield match against St George Illawarra in Mudgee.
“Then it was Dylan Farrell, Kane Morgan, Jimmy Roberts — all while I’m watching on going ‘ah, am I next?’.
“It was ugly.”
Still, Mansour fought.
Just like when punted by the Panthers before Christmas, or when his ACL went in England with the Kangaroos; like when continually overlooked as a Canterbury junior, dropped to reggies in 2019 or even after copping those five facial fractures which, from a stray boot, almost saw him lose an eye.
Which sounds a little like another Bennett recruit, doesn’t it?
“Funnily enough, I’ve always wanted to play with Benji Marshall,” he says.
“And when my management was talking to Wests Tigers, I was really disappointed he wasn’t going to be there. Yet a few weeks later, here we both are at Souths … rugby league moving in mysterious ways.”
Quizzed on that ability to endure, Mansour says: “From my childhood, I guess.
“Growing up in Housing Commission with a single mum, nothing was easy.
“Life wasn’t easy.
“Mum struggled to put food on the table and even to this day, she still lives there.
“While I’ve tried to get her out, she will never leave because it’s who she is. And she’s happy.
“So (that fight), it’s embedded in me.
“I’ve always wanted to prove I’m worthy enough.”
Which is how it is again now.
“For sure,” he insists. “With change, you feel like you have to prove yourself all over again.
“And that’s where the challenge lies.
“But it’s funny how things can work out, especially coming full circle to South Sydney.
“A club where, and this is hard to explain, but I’ve always had a connection.”
Enough perhaps, to earn a fireworks display for your NRL debut in coming weeks?
“Ah, no,” Mansour grins. “I don’t think that’s ever happening again.”
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