NRL 2021: Benji Marshall opens up Wayne Bennett, golf and what’s driving him to play on

When Benji Marshall met Wayne Bennett for the first time, he copped a spray that 11 years on is still driving the NRL’s oldest player.

Benji Marshall, not so long ago, was playing golf against anyone who would give him a game.

It started before Christmas. After being walked by Wests Tigers.

With Marshall, already a keen white marker, suddenly whacking his way around various Sydney courses five, even six days a week. At the time, he thought little of said obsession. Much less, what was driving it.

“But I was missing competition,” rugby league’s oldest player said. “Missing the drive that comes with competing against another person.”

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Benji Marshall is enjoying his time at South Sydney. Picture: Toby Zerna

So for roughly 10 weeks as an unemployed leaguie, Marshall swung clubs. Challenging his mates, his handicap, whatever, didn’t matter, so long as he could find a contest within his day. But still, it wasn’t enough.

“Because I was also missing the physicality,” he said.

“Missing the chance to be taken out by an angry front-rower; or that guy who whacks you just after you’ve passed the ball. I even missed the wrestling sessions.

“So now, yeah, I know why I’m back.”

Seated this particular morning in the Redfern Oval grandstand, another Bunnies training session in the bank, 36-year-old Marshall is talking League Central through what, by our count, is his fourth resurrection as an NRL star.

Indeed, it has now been eight years since, on these same pages, we first wrote a farewell piece to rugby league’s version of the Highlander — that warrior who cannot be killed — to thank him for a career that, as he disappeared to Super Rugby, was defined by, but in no way limited to, the Benji Step, ’05 grand final flick, even those five shoulder reconstructions nobody thought he would return from.

Yet each time, Marshall did. Just as this Whakatane product survived even when his career was seemingly done at Wests Tigers.

Or then again at St George Illawarra. After which, of course, Wayne Bennett first gave him one last hurrah in Brisbane. Before Wests Tigers called him home. Then again, let him go.

Which brings us once more to Bennett.

Benji Marshall and Wayne Bennett hit it off when they worked together with the Kiwis at the 2010 Four Nations tournament.

That winningest of NRL premiership coaches who, 11 years ago, walked into New Zealand’s first team meeting for the 2010 Four Nations tournament and, looking directly at the Kiwis’ gifted No.6, said “stop trying to score every time you touch the ball”.

“Which I loved,” Marshall recalls. “First meeting, Wayne walks in and goes around the room, telling every single player what they need to be better at.

“Straight away, that resonated with me.

“I remember him getting to me and saying ‘stop trying to score every time you get the ball’.

“I’d never worked with Wayne before but thought ‘yeah, OK, awesome’.

“And right throughout that tournament (which the Kiwis would eventually win, defeating Australia 16-12 in the final), we just got really close.”

A truth proved by South Sydney’s NRL season opener. When Marshall, coming off the Bunnies interchange bench against Melbourne, not only played a key hand in two tries, or proved himself every inch rugby league’s newest ‘super sub’, but gave Souths fans, even in defeat, a reason to believe.

Better, this surprise round one talking point proved, despite the early chatter, he isn’t simply at Redfern to make up numbers, mentor young teammates or play the replacement role come State of Origin time.

Benji Marshall has reunited with Wayne Bennett at South Sydney. Picture: Adam Yip

“No, I’m here for me,” Marshall says simply. “That’s the truth of it.

“Although what comes with that too is all the other stuff I can bring.”

So as for what Bennett still sees in this ageing playmaker — sorry, utility — that others don’t?

“He probably feels sorry for me,” Marshall jokes.

Yet what we hear is, just like him in those Kiwi sheds so many years ago, you’re one of few people willing to tell the coach if he’s erred.

“Oh, Wayne’s hardly ever wrong,” this newest Rabbitoh laughs when the question is put.

Yet be it with Bennett, or Bunnies teammates, you now have a reputation for calling spades shovels, right?

“That’s hard to put into words,” Marshall continues, “without sounding like I think I’m better than others. But when it comes to a team winning and being successful, you have to be able to butt heads over things you don’t agree on. And I’ll never do that publicly.

“But one-on-one, I’m not shy about having honest conversations.”

Then after a short pause, Marshall adds: “Wayne also knows for me, this isn’t about the money. And he understands when someone is desperate to play, they show that on the field.”

Asked if he would already be four years retired without South Sydney’s coach, who first saved him from the scrapheap with that 2017 Broncos deal, Marshall continues: “There’s a fair chance, yeah. But I’m also a guy who, when I set my heart on something, keeps going until it happens. I won’t give up.”

Although over summer, while chasing something he couldn’t quite find on too many golf courses, Marshall came closer to quitting than ever before.

“I was resigned to retiring,” he admits

“But it was actually my wife Zoe who said one day ‘why don’t you give Wayne a call?’.

“I said, ‘nah, I’m not calling Wayne’. And she said ‘well, you can’t tell everyone to live their dreams if you’re going to stop’.”

So Marshall, he picked up the phone. But as for Bennett saving him?

No, as always, Benjamin Quentin Marshall has saved himself.

“And my longevity, it’s the one thing about my career I never get embarrassed talking about,” he says. “Before turning 23, I’d had five shoulder reconstructions. And with each one, people were continually saying ‘you’re only one more injury from never playing again’.

“But here I am now, after 19 seasons, still going.

“So that’s what I’m proudest about. I should never have played this long.”