WAYNE Bennett tapped away on his mobile phone, then hit the send button.

Over and over.

He only stopped when Brisbane’s entire squad had received a personal text message that, in the coach’s eyes, would finally set the record straight on the Broncos coaching soap opera.

For a 68-year-old, Bennett was surprisingly tech savvy. He had even mastered the use of emojis. So an 89-word text message, sent to the likes of Anthony Milford, Tevita Pangai Jr and Matt Lodge – Broncos players some 40 years younger – was not beyond his technological capabilities.

“I’m committed to you for 2019 and excited with what we can achieve together,” his message said in part.

“Have a good rest for us to have the best possible season. Have a fire in the belly for 2019.

“Coach.”

The text message was sent on September 25, exactly a month before Bennett and Seibold later agreed to contracts to coach South Sydney and Brisbane respectively for the 2020 season.

But Bennett was honouring his Red Hill swansong. His communique to the players was his tangible commitment.

There would be no eventual swap with Seibold. Not in Wayne’s World, even if other influential forces in the NRL universe were hoping the planets would align for an immediate transfer.

It was against that backdrop of obligation to his Broncos players that Bennett was summoned for a meeting ... ironically, via text message.

The sender was Karl Morris, the Broncos chairman Bennett had come to loathe.

MORRIS V BENNETT: THE BATTLING BRONCOS

As individuals, Morris and Bennett were the human versions of the North and South Poles. Morris was a rugby man. Bennett loved rugby league to his core. Morris was a successful stockbroker wealthy enough to be a major backer of Wests cricket, with associations in the most powerful echelons of the Catholic church.

Bennett had the blue-collar touch with a penchant for cows.

Bennett felt Morris was out of his depth at the Broncos. Morris couldn’t have cared less of Bennett’s opinion. As one of Queensland’s most powerful men, Morris wasn’t seduced nor intimidated by the Bennett aura.

If he had to partake in his sacking, he would.

For now, sackings could wait. First, sanity needed to be restored to Red Hill.

The Broncos saga had become vaudeville. After five months of bickering, brickbats, claims and counter-claims, Bennett appeared to have lost his marbles.

On November 22, just 24 hours after returning from the UK where he coached the England team in a Test series against New Zealand, Bennett turned Brisbane training into an episode of Australia’s Most Wanted.

Refusing to be photographed, he hid in his office. He watched his players train through a glass window, a prisoner in his own palace. Then came the piece de resistance: Bennett fleeing training by hiding in the backseat, like a fugitive, as a getaway car sped past a convoy of cameras.

Bosses at News Corporation, 69 per cent owners of the Broncos and publishers of The Courier-Mail, were increasingly concerned.

The meeting with Morris was touted as the moment the unfathomable could occur: the super coach to be given the bullet.

The seminal moment had seemingly arrived.

Bennett walked in and sat down to face Morris.

“What’s the meeting for Wayne?” Morris began.

Bennett was instantly annoyed.

“You called the meeting,” he fired at Morris. “I have a text from YOU calling the meeting.”

And so the titillating, tortuous tap dance began. All that was missing was the jingle from the Benny (Red) Hill Show.

Bennett upped the ante. He had intel. He intimated Morris was backstabbing him.

“Why have you been going to Sydney talking about a swap with Souths,” he snapped.

“It’s not about that,” Morris replied emphatically. “We’re just talking with Seibold.”

Bennett wasn’t totally convinced, but he had more vexing issues on his mind – such as whether Morris would tear up his contract.

Morris said the club’s position hadn’t changed. The Broncos were happy to honour Bennett’s deal for 2019.

Talk about an anti-climax. The pair exchanged a cold handshake. The meeting was over in around three minutes, Bennett and Morris seemingly finding a solution without a concrete conviction they had truly arrived at the final answer.

South of the border, Seibold was attending to his own bushfires. Not only did he claim to have compelling evidence Bennett was undermining him by contacting Souths players, he faced the potential prospect of losing the dressing-room.

When Seibold returned to Souths training on November 7, the squad’s spiritual leader – Sam Burgess – was allegedly filthy.

He felt Seibold had abandoned the squad after just one season.

Seibold has always maintained he left on positive terms and regards several players as friends, including Damien Cook, whose wedding the coach attended.

“Not once have I gone to Souths and said I wanted to leave,” he told The Courier-Mail on December 1, one week after the Morris-Bennett meeting.

“Everything else has been taken out of my control. My complaint is not about Souths. It’s about Wayne ... he’s playing games.

“I’m sick of Wayne carrying on.

“I just want clarity and so do the players. I feel for the players at both clubs. It’s a joke.”

RICHO: ANTHONY MADE THE WRONG CALL

If anyone at Souths had any reasonable justification to be irate at Seibold, it was Rabbitohs general manager Shane Richardson.

When Michael Maguire was sacked by Souths in 2017, it was Richardson who recommended taking a punt on the unproven Seibold as his successor.

When Souths tabled a three-year extension last year to Seibold worth almost $3 million, it was Richardson who waited and waited while Seibold vacillated.

And when Seibold opted for a job interview at the Broncos, it was Richardson who was left to sweat and scramble, secretly hatching a Plan B safety net with Bennett as he was about to board a plane for a Fijian holiday.

“I told Anthony’s manager, ‘I feel this is a game of musical chairs ... and I’m not going to left without a seat’,” he recalls.

After 26 years of negotiating in the grimy, dog-eat-dog world of the NRL, Richardson has learned to roll with the punches.

He applies pragmatism when assessing Seibold’s reluctance to jump at a contract upgrade.

“I’m not dirty on Anthony Seibold,” Richardson says.

“Looking at our squad and our great club, he has made a decision I believe is the wrong one, but I don’t wish ‘Seibs’ failure at the Broncos.

“I was always confident ‘Seibs’ would stay, but I must admit I started to worry from about July.

“Things were progressing well, then all of a sudden the negotiations halted. I got a feeling then it was going to be a struggle, but I never gave up hope.

“I guess I still believe in Santa Claus.”

BENNETT GOES HUNTING BUNNIES

Indeed, with Christmas on the horizon, Seibold suspected Bennett was talking turkey with his Rabbitohs stars. He fired an email to Souths management alleging Bennett was discussing contracts with Alex Johnston and Cook.

There were also allegations Bennett privately changed a pre-season camp Seibold had planned at the Australian Institute of Sport, prompting a Souths staffer to hold off paying a deposit.

After all, Bennett had direct access to Seibold’s players.

A month earlier, during England’s Test series against the Kiwis, Bennett sat wedged between Souths big boppers Tom and George Burgess on the back seat of the British team bus.

Bennett, curious about Souths’ training methods with one eye on Redfern in 2020, asked the Burgess brothers what the Rabbitohs were doing for pre-season.

“We’re going to the AIS,” came the reply. “What are you guys (the Broncos) doing?

Bennett said: “We’re going on an army camp. And when I get to Souths (in 2020), we won’t be doing the AIS, we’re going bush.”

Some insiders at Souths feared Seibold had become “paranoid” about Bennett. The Souths coach was wary of any information leaks.

Asked if Bennett interfered with, or attempted to sabotage, Seibold’s plans at Souths, which included negotiating with Rabbitohs players, Richardson offers this assessment.

“Wayne wasn’t trying to undermine Seibold,” he said.

“We never had plans for Wayne to be at Souths in 2019.

“To be honest, I was the one who got Wayne to ring Damien Cook and Alex Johnston.

“Both of them were under contract for 2020, but we had to negotiate new contracts and I didn’t want them to think the new coach coming in (Bennett) didn’t want them beyond 2020.

“The bottom line was Anthony did panic. He wanted to move and he wanted to go to Brisbane.”

Unfairly for Seibold, he had become collateral damage, a pawn caught in a toxic political stoush between Bennett and his beloved Broncos.

As the first week of December approached, the cold war had to end. CEO Paul White and Bennett hadn’t spoken in months. Broncos staff weren’t enjoying coming to work. December 3 was viewed as a key date for Brisbane and Souths to ramp-up pre-season training.

News Corporation executives, always hopeful sanity would prevail and a seamless transfer between Seibold and Bennett could take place, now wanted a swift resolution

It was always Bennett’s belief he was bulletproof. But as he dug deeper into his sense of morality, termination suddenly became a stupefying, yet very real, possibility.

WAYNE HURLS A FINAL GRENADE

Friday, November 30 represented D-Day. The Big Switch was on. Even Bennett, worn down by months of brutal in-fighting, was privately ready to trade places with Seibold.

Two days earlier, Bennett contacted News Corporation chief Michael Miller.

He advised Miller he was ready to go, but there was just one final matter of importance – the treatment of his ancillary staff.

Broncos assistant Jason Demetriou and high-performance chief Jeremy Hickmans faced a meagre payout if Bennett walked.

Bennett then phoned Neil Monaghan, News Corp’s appointee on the Broncos board.

“My staff are being treated badly here,” he explained. “It’s not acceptable. If you can’t look after my staff, I’m not going.”

They negotiated for 24 hours. Contractually, Brisbane staff were only entitled to a four-week payout. A more attractive severance package was tabled. When key Brisbane, Souths and News Corp stakeholders went to bed on Thursday night, they were convinced the war was over.

Except Bennett.

On Friday morning, the super coach was still not satisfied his staff weren’t being hung out to dry. He called Miller and Monaghan. He then phoned Richardson. He texted Morris, then reluctantly rang White.

At 12pm, after calling his own press conference at Red Hill and leaving a media throng guessing for two hours, Bennett finally stepped up.

“I have been terribly consistent with my stance and nothing has changed,” he said.

“I am staying and honouring my 2019 contract, which was always my plan.”

The shock was palpable. Bennett had seemingly gone rogue.

It was Bennett’s final mortar attack, the force of which torpedoed a planned unveiling of Seibold as Brisbane’s new coach at a press conference just four hours later.

As Bennett strode defiantly back to the sanctuary of his office, he may as well have been walking the Green Mile.

The next morning, he phoned Richardson again.

“What do you reckon they (Broncos bosses) will do,” Bennett asked.

“Mate, they’re going to sack you.”

White, fed up with Bennett’s antics, usually woke to weekend mass but December 2, 2018 was Bloody Sunday.

Attempts to contact Bennett went unanswered as Brisbane’s foundation coach spent the day at Southbank with his son Justin, without his phone.

White left a voicemail to inform Bennett he had been terminated.

At 3.30pm, White fronted the press and publicly delivered the bullet to his Police Academy mentor, Sergeant Wayne James Bennett.

“It was unfortunate the relationship between Wayne Bennett and this club came to this,” White said.

“We offered Wayne a long-term deal to remain with us, but the relationship between the Broncos and Wayne has changed to the point it is no longer workable.”

Bennett returned to his Yeronga home at 4pm, oblivious to the most explosive chapter in Broncos history. His partner, Dale Cage, scanned her phone. He learned of his sacking on social media.

By 6pm, he quietly slipped into his pyjamas – free of mind, conscience clear – ready to close his eyes and put the Broncos to bed.