NRL Grand Final: Wayne Bennett has been waiting 2,191 days for redemption
Wayne Bennett was left a broken man after the epic 2015 decider, the super coach opens up to Peter Badel on how he exorcised the demons of that defeat.
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Souths super coach Wayne Bennett says he heads into tonight’s Suncorp decider against Penrith ready to exorcise the demons of the most haunting grand-final loss of his 45-year career.
As he prepares for a record 10th grand-final appearance, Bennett opened up to News Corp about the devastation of his most recent trip to the big dance – Brisbane’s crushing 17-16 extra-time loss to Johnathan Thurston’s Cowboys in the 2015 decider.
It is one of the most raw and emotional interviews of Bennett’s decorated career.
Bennett is rugby league’s grand-final talisman.
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The 71-year-old is chasing an eighth premiership.
No other coach has taken four separate clubs to an NRL decider. If Bennett salutes in his final game in charge of Souths, he will become the only coach to win premierships with three clubs after six titles at the Broncos and his triumph at the Dragons in 2010.
But the pain of Brisbane’s 2015 capitulation, when Thurston kicked the Cowboys to a maiden premiership, has cut deeply for Bennett for the past 2191 days.
“You cannot relent for one second in a grand final,” Bennett says ahead of the 2021 grand final.
“That’s what you learn.”
HAUNTED
BENNETT has a formidable strike-rate in grand finals. He has won seven of nine deciders, but will forever rue Brisbane’s late collapse against the Cowboys.
It seemed the unlosable grand final. Brisbane led 16-12 with four seconds remaining, only for Cowboys winger Kyle Feldt to touch down on the full-time siren to send the decider into extra-time.
Thurston then drove the nail into Brisbane’s coffin with his extra-time field goal. Instead of savouring a seventh title at the Broncos in his first season back at Red Hill, Bennett, renowned for his inner-strength, was a broken man.
“I really struggled after that loss,” he says.
“For three or four days, I was in a bad place.
“I didn’t want to face the world. I didn’t want to leave the house. I couldn’t bring myself to go outside.
“I felt I had let everybody down.
“I found it really hard to move on from that game because we had such a good team, we played so well that night … and we had that premiership won.”
As Bennett recalls Brisbane’s gut-wrenching collapse, his words could easily represent a pre-game warning to his Souths troops on Sunday night.
Do not ever switch off in a grand final.
“It was our game,” Bennett continues.
“With two minutes to go, we were on the Cowboys’ 20-metre line and we gave a penalty away, then we couldn’t defend that set of six (tackles).
“We had to make just one more f***ing tackle.
“Forget about what happened in extra-time. We made ourselves vulnerable. We didn’t have to be there. We did enough on the night. We were in front.
“That was a huge disappointment for me. The premiership slipped through our fingers.
“It was very hard to accept. Bob Bax was a great coach and a great friend of mine and he once said, ‘Wayne, grand finals are never won, they are always lost’ and we lost that one in a big way.
“It took me a good five days or so to come to terms with it. But I knew I had to move on.”
HIS SOUTHS BOND
BENNETT grew up in Warwick 130km southwest of Brisbane. His father was an alcoholic and deserted the family when Bennett was 11. It is one of the reasons why Bennett does not drink alcohol.
Instead, Bennett found his passion and escape in rugby league.
Long before he coached Souths, Bennett fell in love with the Rabbitohs via their golden years. He was 17 when Bob McCarthy’s famous intercept in the 1967 grand final inspired the Bunnies to four premierships in five years.
“As a young kid in Brisbane, I loved Ron Coote and John Sattler (Souths legends),” Bennett recalls.
“I knew all about the great South Sydney teams and the premierships they were winning.
“We used to get a game on the ABC sometimes and I would read the Big League magazine.
“Being in Queensland, I didn’t get a chance to watch them too much on TV, but Ron Coote was my favourite player. Michael Cleary was a great winger, and I will never forget Bob McCarthy’s intercept against Canterbury to win the 1967 grand final.”
REDFERN’S ‘SUICIDE’ WATCH
AFTER his sacking at the Broncos in 2018, Bennett had a number of coaching options. He believed he was the right fit at Souths.
Bennett’s Souths contract was worth almost $3 million, but there is nothing flash about him.
As the Rabbitohs train at their Redfern base, Bennett’s eyes often drift across the road to a towering block of drab Housing Commission units. They are 17 stories tall and known as ‘The Suicide Towers’ because of the number of mysterious deaths.
“Every time I go to Redfern training, we have a lovely set-up, but I look across at those Housing Commission units and I think about what kind of battles some of those people have,” Bennett says.
“It always humbles me.
“It reminds me how lucky I am to do what I do. The players feel it, too. There is a great sense of community among the guys.
“A lot of coaches make the wrong decision because they go to the wrong club and it doesn’t suit them. But Souths suits me.
“They are me and we are them. Souths people are working-class Australians. They don’t all live in Redfern anymore but that’s where the traditions were built and Souths probably had the biggest representation of Indigenous players.
“Souths are the working man’s club. They live those blue-collar values. They are typical Australian working people and I love those people. They fight and they battle. They make do with what they have got. They are salt-of-the-earth people.
“I love the history of Souths and what this club stands for. So many of our fans live for this team. I really love the club.”
RUSSELL CROWE
WHEN Bennett arrived at Souths, there was a view he wouldn’t connect with Hollywood co-owner Russell Crowe. Two powerful men. Two strong personalities. It seemed only a matter of time before they butted heads.
“That was rubbish,” Bennett says of speculation he wouldn’t get on with ‘Rusty’.
“I’m a big personality, but I have a great relationship with Russell. He is so proud we are in the grand final. I spoke to him the other day.
“In my career, there are few people I haven’t worked with. I knew I could work with Russell because I wanted the best for his club.
“I said, ‘I will drive it for you, Russell. You don’t have to worry about me’.
“When I go to a club, that’s my whole being, is giving my best for that club and their fans and the game. That’s what I drive. Me and Russell were never going to have any issues.
“I have to give credit to Souths, I’ve done my job and they’ve allowed me to do it, there’s been no hidden agendas.”
GLORY, GLORY?
FOR a man who claims he never wanted to be a coach, Bennett has a remarkable feel for a football team. After Souths lost last year’s preliminary final to Penrith, Bennett knew he had the making of a premiership unit.
Now the Pride of the League is 80 minutes away from a 22nd premiership. If Souths salute, don’t expect Wayne James Bennett to retire three months shy of his 72nd birthday.
“I have no bloody idea why I became a coach,” he says with a laugh.
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t plan to be a coach. As a player, I never set out to be a coach. I was a career police officer, I loved the job.
“I just found myself doing it. I was at the Police Academy, they needed a coach and I put my hand up to do it.
“It can’t be overstated the pressure of grand-final day. There’s no real secret to success in a grand final. We are all vulnerable at this time of the year. You can have an excellent season and just get it wrong on the big day. It can be that simple.
“But I believe in this group of men at South Sydney. I knew 12 months ago we had something special.
“You get to this place, grand-final day, and you want your stars to align. With the exception of losing Latrell Mitchell (to suspension), our stars have aligned.
“There will be a lot of people retiring me this week but it won’t be happening. I don’t know what my next gig will be, I don’t know what it even looks like, but retirement is not on my agenda right now.
“I won’t coach one day past my use-by date, that’s all I know.”
REVEALED: THE 97-WORD LETTER THAT MADE BENNETT SNAP
It is the Broncos letter that delivered the bullet to Wayne Bennett’s coaching career at Brisbane — and the driving force in the master mentor’s quest to win a premiership with South Sydney on Sunday night.
Bennett has opened up about the moment the Broncos formally tried to move him on as a head coach as he prepares for a record 10th grand-final appearance against Penrith in the NRL decider at Suncorp Stadium.
In a polite 97-word letter, written by Broncos chairman Karl Morris, Bennett was informed that club bosses wanted him to remain at the Broncos as part of an “elegant transition” into another job, but the super coach felt he was being railroaded into retirement.
The formal correspondence, sent to Bennett in July of 2018, unwittingly detonated a bitter civil war at the Broncos, eventually leading to the sacking of Brisbane’s only premiership coach five months later.
Now Bennett returns to the big dance with South Sydney emphatically vindicated. As he chases an eighth premiership on Sunday night, the 71-year-old says the Rabbitohs’ surge to their second grand final in 50 seasons is evidence he was never washed-up as an NRL head coach.
“I didn’t want to go into another role at the Broncos,” Bennett said on the eve of his final game as Souths coach in the historic Suncorp decider.
“I felt I had more to offer as a coach and no-one will retire me.
“I know when I am finished as a coach — and I’m not finished yet.
“I can never tell you what their (the Broncos’) motivations were. All they ever told me was they wanted me there (as head coach) for 2019 and they didn’t want me there beyond that period of time.
“They made the decision to move me on. I didn’t. I always stayed true to my contract and what the original deal was.
“The irony is I only planned to go on as head coach for another 12 months (at the Broncos for the 2020 season).
“I had recommended that ‘JD’ (assistant Jason Demetriou) take over from me (in 2021), but now we are here together at Souths.”
As simmering tensions threatened to explode between Bennett and Broncos bosses, Morris tabled what he believed to be a palatable solution.
Morris and Bennett held a high-powered meeting to discuss his future on July 12, 2018.
Later that day, the Broncos chair penned a letter to Bennett offering him another role, in the process bringing the curtain down on his 42-year head-coaching career.
“You have been instrumental in the Broncos’ success,” Morris tells Bennett in the correspondence on Brisbane letterhead.
“The relationship with you should be an enduring one.
“It is my priority to ensure an elegant transition which would include an ongoing role commensurate to your status.
“Once you have had time to consider, I look forward to discussing the way forward.
“It is important to me that you are treated with the greatest respect and that we have a mutually beneficial relationship.
“The 2019 year will be one that celebrates your success. It should be your most enjoyable year.”
Morris was even happy for Bennett to design a position to suit his needs, but the seven-time premiership-winning coach took offence at having an expiry date put on his coaching career.
In the end, Bennett never survived for the 2019 season. He was sacked in December 2018, believing he was backstabbed by Broncos bosses, who held talks with South Sydney about a straight swap with Bennett’s Rabbitohs rival Anthony Seibold.
Bennett’s termination opened the door for Souths to secure the super coach to a two-season deal, which became three years when his Broncos dismissal expedited his move to Redfern for the 2019 season.
Now, while Brisbane have finished last and third-last in the past two seasons and axed Seibold along the way, Bennett has the chance to clinch another premiership on the Broncos’ home ground at Suncorp.
Souths CEO Blake Solly says Brisbane’s loss has been the Rabbitohs’ gain.
“Wayne has exceeded our expectations,” he said.
“I’m not shocked how he has settled in given the time we spent talking with Wayne before Brisbane terminated him.
“Every dealing with him confirmed why he was the right person for the job. Just his values, what Wayne stands for and his principles and the three years with us have been an extension of how he conducted himself in that process.
“We felt confident that Wayne would respect the history of the South Sydney club and would embrace what we were trying to do, not try and detract from it.
“You don’t hire a guy who has won as many premierships as Wayne and try and second-guess what he would do.
“It would be a fitting way for Wayne to finish his last game as South Sydney coach with a premiership.”
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