NRL 2024: Wayne Bennett defends his time in Newcastle ahead of Dolphins vs Knights clash

As Wayne Bennett’s Dolphins prepare for a do-or-die clash against Newcastle for a spot in finals, the super coach has hit back at claims he left the Knights in crisis when he departed the club.

Wayne Bennett has slammed suggestions he ruined Newcastle and declared the Dolphins fear no rival as the super coach prepares to pull off an epic finals fairytale.

Bennett is on the brink of one of his greatest achievements – his Dolphins will qualify for the finals in just their second season if they beat the Knights in Sunday’s blockbuster at Newcastle’s McDonald Jones Stadium.

Both are locked on 28 competition points.

The eighth-placed Dolphins (+7) are just ahead of the Knights (-48) on percentages and victory for Redcliffe in the very final game of the 2024 regular season will propel Bennett’s troops into the playoffs and be sweet vindication for the NRL’s expansion project.

For Bennett, the last-round epic before a 33,000-sellout – which could represent his 48th and final game as Dolphins coach – has an explosive personal edge.

The 74-year-old returns to Newcastle with vivid memories of his three-season coaching stint in the steel city from 2012-14, a period of turbulence that included a brilliant finals campaign, the Alex McKinnon tragedy and an explosive showdown with former owner Nathan Tinkler.

In the final months of Tinkler’s wild reign in 2014, the one-time coal billionaire attempted to take over a halftime speech from Bennett to blast Knights players. Bennett kicked a drunk Tinkler out of the sheds. The pair never spoke again and Bennett quit Newcastle at season’s end.

Wayne Bennett has hit back at claims he left the Knights in crisis when he departed the club at the end of 2014. Picture: Mark Evans

Against that backdrop, Bennett returns to Newcastle a decade later, determined to plunge the dagger into the Knights with a Dolphins outfit he believes can be the giant-killer of the finals.

The NRL Hall of Fame coach bristled when asked if the Dolphins would be making up the numbers in the playoffs.

“I don’t know why you ask me that question,” Bennett snapped.

“I don’t know if you guys do your homework, but we have matched it with the top teams all year.

“We have not been outplayed by the top teams.

“The Storm is the only team that got among us and that was two weeks ago (winning 48-6 in Melbourne).

“We will have to wait and see, we aren’t in the finals.

“We are sitting on the verge of the finals because the potential got us there, so I can see why they have the potential to play well (in the finals) if they play well (against the Knights), it will be another stepping stone for them.

“We don’t fear what’s in front of us, it’s just a case of getting our game right and playing to our capabilities.”

Bennett has also hit back at suggestions the Dolphins cant match it with the top teams. Picture: NRL Photos

There is a view the Knights still haven’t fully recovered as a club from the tumultuous Tinkler-Bennett regime.

After the seven-time premiership winner left at the end of 2014, the Knights won three consecutive wooden spoons under Nathan Brown, leading to accusations that Bennett handed over a club in crisis.

Bennett won 34 of 75 matches in Newcastle for a 45 per cent success rate. Tellingly, he coached the Knights on a remarkable charge to the 2013 preliminary final, knocking out the Storm before losing to eventual premiers the Roosters to fall one game short of the grand final.

It remains Newcastle’s most successful season in 23 years since their 2001 premiership victory.

Brown famously hammered Bennett for having to “rebuild” Newcastle, but the Dolphins mentor hit back at critics who claim he hit the eject button with the Knights in a mess.

“The critics never get anything wrong,” he said.

“It’s all in the record books what I’ve done.

“If they don’t want to look at it, that’s fine, but they might provide some of the answers to the rubbish they talk.

“The bottom line is I took Newcastle to within one game of a grand final.

“Some people forget very quickly.

“I had guys like Beau Scott, Willie Mason and Jeremy Smith and they all bought in.

“Despite what happened (with Tinkler’s dramatic exit and McKinnon’s neck injury in 2014 that left him a quadriplegic), it was a good time.

“I have no regrets about my time at Newcastle.”

Bennett has reminded his critics that he took the Knights to within one game of the grand final in 2013. Picture: AAP

Asked about returning to Newcastle to face a hostile pro-Knights crowd, he said: “It’s a great place to play. They are a great rugby league town and they love their rugby league there.”

During Newcastle’s golden 2013 finals charge, Bennett extracted more than the sum of the team’s parts and he has done it again with this Dolphins unit.

By rights, the Dolphins could have finished with the wooden spoon this season. Injuries have decimated the club. Queensland Origin workhorse Tom Gilbert didn’t play a single minute after snapping his ACL in pre-season. Marquee off-season recruit Tom Flegler played just four games due to shoulder nerve damage, while big guns Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, Herbie Farnworth, Jeremy Marshall-King and skipper Jesse Bromwich all had periods on the sideline.

But it is a tribute to Bennett’s coaching, and a measure of the Dolphins’ fighting spirit, that Redcliffe remain in the finals race.

Bennett insists he has no tricks up his sleeve ahead of the Knights clash, praising the likes of Herbie Farnworth. Picture: NRL Photos

Can the super coach conjure one final magic act to make history for the Dolphins?

“I have no tricks this week,” he said with a wry grin.

“I’m really proud of this group of men. Guys like Max Plath and Herbie Farnworth, they are the guys you want in your footy team.

“We go down there (to Newcastle) in our second year and there’s so much at stake for both clubs.

“I’m sure the viewing audience will be huge. It’s great for rugby league and it’s been my life rugby league, so I’m very happy with that.

“I knew before I took the job what I was in for at the Dolphins. I had been through this at the Broncos in the early years (1988-91) and it has gone exactly the way I thought it would go.

“I knew what the teething problems would be.

“The similarities are very much the same to our early years at the Broncos. We won early games in the season, played well, then lost our way, because it’s about building a club and that’s the parts you go through, you go through the good, bad and the ugly.

“I’m just really pleased for the game what the Dolphins have brought over the last couple of years.

“I won’t be thinking about that (the finals). I just have a job to do on Sunday and we’ll see what happens for the Dolphins after that.

“I’m honestly not thinking that this could be the end.”

Originally published as NRL 2024: Wayne Bennett defends his time in Newcastle ahead of Dolphins vs Knights clash