Ultimate history of Wayne Bennett, from early life to playing days to coaching
Wayne Bennett’s ability to reinvent himself has kept him in a NRL coaching role – and the public spotlight – for decades. This is the story of his rise. SPECIAL REPORT
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“I’m not the KGB, but I have to know what makes the guy tick.”
Almost four decades after disclosing how he’d pick apart NSW Origin coaching counterpart Ron Willey, Wayne Bennett is still getting inside the minds of the rugby league world.
The veteran mentor, who in 2023 led his sixth NRL side, the Dolphins, to a fast start to the season, has seven grand final wins and a string of other accolades to go with his reputation as the ultimate mind master.
While leading the Maroons in 1986, Bennett gave an early insight into how he dissects rivals, shepherds his own players and leaves punters confused and amazed in equal measure.
Decades on he’s still doing it.
This is the story of the rugby league gladiator whose chief weapon remains a deep dive into the psyche.
EARLY LIFE
Born January 1, 1950 in the small township of Allora near Warwick, Bennett came from a working-class family.
When Wayne was 11 his alcoholic father deserted the family, leaving his mother Patricia to care for the couple’s five children – Wayne, Michelle, Gretta, Robert and Dwight.
In 1999 Bennett reflected on his childhood which saw him enter the workforce early.
“As I grew into adulthood I made sure I didn’t look down on anybody, regardless of their situation, because of what I’d experienced,” he told Australian Story.
Those events also resulted in Bennett becoming a non-smoker, non-drinker and non-gambler.
“I had enormous pressure on me in those years because my friends wanted me to drink,” he said.
“I didn’t know any other way to thank my mother for what she’d been through.”
At age 15 Bennett started work as a police officer, splitting his time also playing junior league in Warwick.
There he fell in love with South Sydney, a club that clinched four titles in five years from 1967 to 1971.
“As a young kid in Brisbane, I loved Ron Coote and John Sattler (Souths legends),” Bennett recalled in 2021.
“I knew all about the great South Sydney teams and the premierships they were winning.”
League has been in the blood ever since.
PLAYING DAYS
After rising through the ranks in Warwick, Bennett lined up for Brisbane Rugby League clubs Past Brothers, Ipswich and Souths through the early to mid 1970s.
He was selected in nine games for Queensland between 1971 and 1973, coached by Bob Bax whom Bennett has since hailed as a major influence on his career.
In 2018 Bennett explained the impact of those early experiences.
“The first thing I realised was the footy team was important to the town. And the second was the mateship,” he said.
“My Dad came to see me play once. I came off and he wanted to give me a lecture.
“I thought I’d played pretty good but he was into me. So I told him to get f***ed, and I started running.
“I still remember him chasing me out of the Warwick Showground.
“I never took advice from him from that day about how I should play football, or live my life. I was 10.”
Rugby league icon John Sattler in 2020 described Bennett as “ a very fast young fullback” during their playing days in maroon.
Bennett also played two tour matches for Australia on the 1971 trip to New Zealand.
“When I was 21, I got picked in a train-on squad for the emerging Queensland team and they put us in camp for two months at Suncorp Stadium,” he said in 2018.
“It was a turning point in my life. I had so much confidence after that. I played for Queensland that year and got picked for Australia for an eight-day tour of New Zealand.”
Within a few years, however, bigger things awaited.
FORAY INTO COACHING
By his own admission, Bennett fell into coaching.
“I have no bloody idea why I became a coach,” he said with a laugh in 2021.
“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.”
As well as coaching the Queensland Police Academy’s under-18s from 1975 to 1977, Bennett took over as Ipswich boss in 1976 before moving to Souths and Brothers in the BRL.
He took a break from coaching after the birth of his three children but returned in 1983 to lead Souths Acacia Ridge under-16s.
He also worked as the Police Academy’s fitness instructor.
Bennett then assumed Souths’ top role and took them to defeat in the 1984 grand final against Wynnum-Manly.
A year later, though, he got his revenge against a Seagulls team featuring Australian captain Wally Lewis, and Maroons centre Gene Miles.
In 1985 Souths secretary Jim McClelland hailed “Wayne’s record in developing young talent is second to none”.
Bennett also detailed his thoughtout approach to coaching.
“I deliberately try to keep things pretty low-key because that works best for me, even though not everyone agrees with the idea,” he said in 1985 ahead of the grand final.
With his stocks rising, Bennett took over from Des Morris as Queensland Origin coach in 1986 and, despite a series whitewash defeat, he was retained for two more years.
Bennett’s love of the “mental dossier’’ – one compiled for NSW counterpart Ron Willey in 1986 – also illustrated his alternative coaching methods.
“I’m not the KGB, but I have to know what makes the guy tick,’’ Bennett said.
“I’ve gone back about 10 years into his coaching career, investigating his style and the patterns he frequently uses.
“It has been a matter of talking to players and coaches who have been associated with him and also watching videos of some of his teams.”
Somewhat surprisingly Canberra was able to poach Bennett for the 1987 NSWRL season, leading them to the grand final alongside co-coach Don Furner.
“I went to Canberra in 1987 because Don Furner was at the end of his coaching life,” Bennett said in 2018.
However a homecoming awaited.
FIRST BRONCOS STINT
The birth of Brisbane’s NSWRL club proved timely for a local coach whose reputation was growing.
Operation: Get Benny Back was launched.
Gary Balkin, a founding father of the Broncos franchise, acknowledged the club had a tough time prising Bennett back to Brisbane.
“He loved a lot of those boys (at the Raiders). A lot of them were from his Souths side in Brisbane – players like Mal Meninga, Peter Jackson … Gary Belcher. They turned out to be Queensland and Australian fixtures,” Balkin said in 2014.
“He’d brought them up from kids but he had to turn his back on them to come back to Brisbane.
“But Wayne could see history with the Broncos and he could also look after his family the way he wanted.
“He ended up costing us much more than we thought we would have to pay.”
Fellow Broncos founder Paul Morgan in July 1987 was forthright in his views on Bennett as the club’s coach: “He’s coming home. Forget about any alternatives, we haven’t any.”
Even The Courier-Mail in 1988 desribed Bennett as “one of the most astute league brains in the country”.
Armed with a rep-heavy line-up, Brisbane’s initial campaigns were mixed.
However Bennett only enhanced his reputation for being able to make the tough decisions, including the sacking of Wally Lewis in 1990.
“Sitting opposite Wayne Bennett, I couldn’t possibly have imagined what was coming: “I’m taking the captaincy off you”,” Lewis recalled in 2020.
“Silence. The news hit me like a sledgehammer.
“You could hear the clock ticking on the wall. I said nothing. I had nothing to say. I had no inkling at all this would be Wayne’s way of dealing with another end-of-season fade out by the Broncos.”
Bennett explained his motives in 2008.
“His ability to captain the team was without question. But at the same time I could see this distance growing between him and the young people we had to bring through, and I knew it wasn’t the chemistry we needed,” he said.
The move would both define Bennett’s legacy and ultimately prove successful, as the Broncos would claim the 1992 crown.
World Club Challenge glory and further premiership delights awaited within 12 months, as the Brisbane guru established himself as the best in the business.
Despite regular finals appearances, the Broncos would have to wait until the breakaway Super League competition of 1997 to claim their next grand final win.
Doubts about the legitimacy of this title were somewhat put to rest with the unified 1998 victory, as well as the dominant 2000 triumph.
After pulling no punches in the infamous mass staff sacking in 2005, Bennett etched his legacy with an unlikely 2006 grand final win over the more fancied Storm.
However within two years that bond showed its first signs of cracking.
Despite being made a life member of the Broncos in 2007, his refusal to make an acceptance speech showed the depths the relationship with the club had fallen to.
MAKING THE MOVE
Stung by the secret, proposed move to the Roosters in 2005, the Broncos and Bennett relationship was tellingly strained, culminating in the coach’s resignation in February 2008.
On March 31 Bennett announced a three-year deal with St George Illawarra.
In 2008 the internal bickering that ultimately led to Bennett’s exit was revealed.
“The bottom line to all this is that Wayne thought he could control Bruno (Cullen) when he was chief executive and get his way like he always used to,” one club source said at the time.
“But Bruno surprised him. It was a case of two stubborn old hard heads clashing and neither prepared to give way.”
Despite his disappointment at the fashion of his exit, Bennett in 2014 explained how the saga played out.
“I couldn’t look back and wish I was still in Brisbane. I made a choice not to be here but there was only one team in Brisbane so when I left, I had to go somewhere else and coach,” he said.
“We just got on with life as a family and as a unit we have made it work.”
After a high turnover of talent at the Dragons, the club impressed for much of 2009 before being knocked out of the title race by the Broncos.
In 2010 he led the club to a second straight minor premiership and this time they got the job done in the decider, a 32-8 victory over the Roosters.
In March 2011 Bennett confirmed he would leave the Dragons at the end of the season; within a month he announced his four-year deal with the Knights.
After missing the finals in 2012, Newcastle went within one win of the 2013 grand final.
However by 2014, with owner Nathan Tinkler walking away, Bennett announced he would also leave the club.
A Broncos reunion loomed.
SECOND BRONCOS STINT
Amid much fanfare, Bennett returned to coach Brisbane for 2015, with star fullback Darius Boyd again following his close mentor.
Initially things seemed at peace.
The Broncos would finish second on the ladder, only a late Cowboys try denying Bennett another title in a gut-wrenching 17-16 golden point defeat.
“I really struggled after that loss,” Bennett reflected in 2021.
“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.”
Despite consistent campaigns over the coming seasons, the Broncos again axed Bennett in December 2018 amid an ongoing dispute with club officials.
“You don’t get the chance to say goodbye to anybody when they sack you and they tell you not to come back to the building”, Bennett said at the time, with more details to later emerge.
“But that’s all right. That’s all fine. We’ll all get over it. I was happy to be sacked. Just leave it at that. I was happy.”
Broncos CEO Paul White labelled the situation untenable given Bennett was already set to swap with South Sydney counterpart Anthony Seibold for the 2020 season.
“I made multiple phone calls and unfortunately I had to communicate the decision over voice message and email,” White said of the Bennett sacking.
“You might ask was that disappointing? Yes, it was. But such was the nature of this whole issue, it was important we had it resolved, particularly before the players return (for pre-season training).”
Broncos great Steve Renouf in 2018 rejected any suggestion that the way Bennett’s second stint ended detracted from his legacy.
“There’s no way that’s true,” he said of the man who defined the club’s long history.
“The legacy is too big, and even if you do look at the second stint it wasn’t that bad.
“They should have won that (2015) grand final. They nearly did it and to do that in his first year back is a feat in itself.”
In 2021 Bennett opened up further on his departure.
“I didn’t want to go into another role at the Broncos,” Bennett said.
“I felt I had more to offer as a coach and no-one will retire me.”
HEADING SOUTH … AGAIN
The Bennett and Bunnies partnership started well, with only a 16-10 preliminary final defeat to a gritty Raiders side stopping them from a grand final appearance.
In February 2020 Bennett confirmed would be leaving South Sydney as coach at the end of the 2021 season, with long-time assistant Jason Demetriou his successor.
Again the Rabbitohs’ run came to an end in the preliminary finals, this time 20-16 to the Panthers.
By 2021 the club would go one better, though, this time reaching the grand final only to be edged by heavy favourites Penrith 14-12.
Bennett’s 10th NRL grand final appearance also looked to possibly be his last game as a head coach.
However confirmation the Dolphins would join the 2023 competition gave him another shot at the NRL. Not that he saw the end coming.
“If you mention retirement with me, you will do it at your peril,” Bennett said in November 2022.
“I’m not talking about retirement. I’m talking about doing two years and who knows what happens after that.
“I went to South Sydney on a three-year deal and I did my three years.
“But I kept coaching, I’m now at the Dolphins, so don’t start talking about retirement, because it can bite you on the arse”
OTHER COACHING ROLES
Bennett’s impact on the world of rugby league extends well beyond his NRL achievements.
He coached Australia in 16 Tests across two stints (1998, 2004-2005) as well as having an on-off association with the Queensland Origin side.
He led the Maroons in 24 matches across four stints (1986-1988, 1998, 2001-2003, 2020), as well as taking charge of the 1997 Super League Queensland side.
Bennett played a key role in the early days of the NRL All Stars match, steering the NRL side to two wins from five matches across 2010 to 2016.
Ironically after overseeing Australia’s first series loss in 27 years in 2005, Bennett would in 2008 be hailed as the true mastermind behind New Zealand’s World Cup upset of the Kangaroos.
Advising coach Stephen Kearney, Bennett was labelled by former Kiwi boss Graham Lowe as the deciding factor in the nation’s shock title.
Against much criticism, Bennett took the reigns of the England Test team in 2016, ultimately guiding them to an unlikely 2017 World Cup final defeat to Australia.
His 2019 appointment as Great Britain coach proved a disaster, losing all four Tests on their tour of New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
PUBLIC IMAGE
Through it all, the premierships and tough times, Bennett continued to enhance his reputation among his players.
Master mentor, ultimate motivator and “second to none”, as Broncos legend Steve Renouf said in 2018.
“Wayne was the main player in building the club. Nobody since has come close,” Renouf said.
“I’m not taking away from the founding fathers or (first CEO) John Ribot, but Wayne was the one who really built the new club.
“Wayne had a way of taking those young boys and turning them into men. I know he made me a better person and a better man.”
Wendell Sailor was another to sing the praises of Bennett’s coaching style.
“As a coach he will always be remembered as one of the all-time greats,” he said in 2018.
“He was the best there was and he’s still got it. Every now and again you’d think, ‘Surely he’s had enough’, but he’s just as keen now as he ever was. The game never left him behind. He’s always coming up with something new.
“Everyone knows he’s a great coach but it’s what he does outside football that makes him special. That’s going to be his legacy, the influence he has had on his players that is going to last forever.
“I remember one year I’d lost my dad, Steve Renouf had lost his dad, Brad Thorn had lost his dad and Kevvie Walters’ missus was dying from cancer and somehow he managed to bring us all together. He made the team our family.
“He’s always been there for me, and it wasn’t always easy.
“You look at someone as a football coach and you can see all the games he’s won but for me the main thing he’ll be remembered for is teaching us how to navigate life.”
Discipline, it seems, has long underpinned Bennett’s success.
“I’ll see then if pretty hefty fines are needed,’’ Bennett said in 1988 when quizzed about his side giving awy too many penalties.
“We’re not talking $10. It’s three figures plus.
“I’m sick of giving silly penalties away, three or four a match.”
Even when star player Allan Langer was at the peak of his powers he wasn’t immune to tough love from a coach who was still beating players in fitness tests when in his early 60s.
“Mate, we just have to be on time … otherwise I am dead,” Langer said once about being late to training.
Bennett told Australian Story in 1999 of his approach to players, and more specifically people.
“It’s what you’ve got to offer that’s important to me – I don’t care about your background,” he said.
That was evident when working with South Sydney’s Hollywood co-owner Russell Crowe.
“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,” Bennett said in 2021.
“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.”
Bennett’s influence reached well beyond the bounds of football.
In the wake of fellow coach Paul Green’s death in 2022, Bennett challenged all men to speak up about their troubles.
“Let us know, because when you open up and talk about your problems, you’ll realise that you’re loved and cared for much more than you give credit for. Talk to someone you trust, but please just talk to someone. Have that conversation,” he said.
PERSONAL LIFE
For all his decades in the spotlight, Bennett has maintained a relatively low-key private life.
Bennett married Trish Bennett in 1974, having three children together – Justin, Elizabeth and Katherine.
In 2014 Bennett opened up about the strength of his wife, who cared for their two disabled children, Katherine and Justin, while the coach was in Sydney and Newcastle.
“I couldn’t have done all this without her support,” Bennett said.
“Trish and the family didn’t want to see me staying at home and not being happy and not being challenged. Like myself, they would naturally prefer me to be at home, but they were happy for me to go because they knew it’s what I wanted to do.”
However after 42 years the pair made headlines in 2016 when it was revealed Bennett walked out on Trish and their two disabled children to begin a new life with Dale Tynan, a secretary he met during his coaching stint in Newcastle.
One family member said at the time: “Trish can’t believe it, she is very disappointed. But she’s resilient. We are doing everything we can to support her and the kids and that’s all that matters right now.”
He opened up further on the drama in September 2023.
Bennett released a statement confirming the breakdown of his marriage.
“As an NRL head coach and thereby a public figure, I today inform you about a personal matter and the fact I have separated from my wife and the family home some time ago,” he said.
Former Broncos player Ben Ikin, now the club’s head of football, endured a rocky relationship with his father-in-law after marrying daughter Elizabeth.
The couple have four children together – William, Joseph, Grace and Isabella.
“Trish is very similar to Wayne, they are just tough, practical people, they don’t whinge and complain,” Ikin said in 2014.
“They will be the first to tell you they’ve had some challenging parts of their life, but they’ve had a really great journey too with a lot of fantastic memories.”
In 2002 Bennett released his biography, Don’t Die with the Music in You.
His second book, The Man in the Mirror, was released in November 2008.
His brother, Bob, coached the Papua New Guinea national team.
FOOTY BATTLES
CRAIG BELLAMY
The duo have a long association dating back to Bellamy’s days as assistant coach at the Broncos.
However, in the eyes of the public at least, the relationship has slid further south over the years, culminating when Knights player Alex McKinnon suffered a devastating injury against the Storm in 2014.
“I make an issue of it because of my responsibility to the players,” Bennett said at the time of Melbourne’s tackling technique.
“Nobody is more consistent, or does the grapple better, than Melbourne. I don’t care what the friendships are, I will continue to back my players as I always have.”
Bennett had previously attacked the Storm’s tackling style in 2007, and the pair have often exchanged subtle sledges in the media over the years.
ANTHONY SEIBOLD
Given the accrimonous coaching swap of the pair, it was inevitable they would cross paths again.
In 2019 Seibold kickstarted the feud when questioning the Broncos culture he inherited.
“Sometimes you swim in a pot of honey and sometimes you are swimming in a pool of s***,” he said.
In August 2020 Bennett slammed Seibold amid claims the veteran had started planning his Rabbitohs future while still in Brisbane.
“It is absolute bull****,” Bennett fired.
Broncos chairman Karl Morris in 2020 claimed Seibold would take two years “to sort out the issues he was inheriting”.
Bennett wasn’t happy.
“It was my intention to remain silent, but if the Brisbane chairman or any other person at the Broncos wants to make false assertions, I will set the record straight,” Bennett said.
“The chairman must be oblivious to the running of the club – if the roster was so bad, why would Anthony Seibold take the job?
“I have no doubt he thought he could win a premiership with this Broncos roster.”
GORDEN TALLIS
There have been multiple broadsides – almost all from Tallis – over the years but it can all be traced back to Bennett’s decision to bench his retiring skipper in the 2004 finals series.
“I think — and you can ask Gordy this one — that’s where it started and it hasn’t ended,” Broncos great Steve Renouf said in 2016.
“The thing with Gordy, he’ll call (out) anyone. He just happens to call (out) Wayne on a lot of his calls. He doesn’t always agree. That’s OK. Everyone’s got their opinion.
“Gordy’s just a bit more outspoken about some of the decisions Wayne makes.”
Tallis has since fired public sprays at Bennett, ranging from player selection to the coach’s decision to skip watching the Dolphins’ trial matches in February 2023.
IVAN CLEARY
The feud was ignited by, according to some reports, the fact both coaches were gunning for the Panthers role for 2019.
It exploded two years later when Bennett’s Bunnies faced Cleary’s Penrith.
On the back of assertions from Bennett that the Panthers employed illegal blockers during play, Cleary claimed “some coaches” try to influence referees via media comments.
“This is probably not the forum to talk about it but the NRL has got to make a decision about whether they are going to allow coaches to deliberately manipulate referees and try influence them,” he said at the time.
“Coaches do it because they can. We get fined afterwards but pre-game it is pretty much open slather.”
However Bennett was having none of it.
“I didn’t start the conversation publicly,” Bennett said.
“I said nothing publicly. This happened three weeks ago. I sent some information to the referees for clarification.
“So I wasn’t going public with anything until Penrith started to come out and they started the public statements.
“ … He was the one that came out and started mouthing off.”
The pair were at it again in 2022 when Cleary accused Bennett of trying to poach his players to the Dolphins, a fact Bennett said his rival better get used to.
BRIAN SMITH
The relationship has understandably thawed in recent years since former Roosters, Knights, Eels and Dragons boss Smith left the coaching ranks in 2012.
“Of course, I respect what he has done. How can you not?,” Smith once said.
However it wasn’t always as cordial.
It started in 1992 when Smith’s St George side lost the decider to Bennett’s Broncos.
The following season, when the two sides reached the grand final again, league folklore tells us that Bennett embellished a tip sheet on the Broncos players that he had apparently received from a Dragons insider.
Brisbane won. Halfback Allan Langer infamously sang “St George can’t play”.
“I was cranky with him (Bennett) about the stuff that went on in the lead-up to and post the 1993 grand final,” Smith said in 2010.
“It caused a lot of aggravation for my family and the people around me.
“I was entitled to be mad about it. The tip sheet and ‘St George can’t play’ stuff. All that stuff.
“Not all of it came directly out of Wayne’s mouth. But I felt I was entitled to be mad about it. He was entitled to go along with it.”
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Originally published as Ultimate history of Wayne Bennett, from early life to playing days to coaching
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