Crawley Files: Broncos’ Wayne Bennett stance could deliver super coach to rivals
Brisbane’s demise since Wayne Bennett’s axing has been dramatic, but if they don’t send their former coach an SOS, things could get much worse. PAUL CRAWLEY reveals why.
Opinion
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Before South Sydney run out for what is potentially Wayne Bennett’s final game coaching at Suncorp Stadium on Thursday night, let’s take a trip down memory lane.
To midway through 2018.
And compare what has happened since to the once perennially mighty Brisbane Broncos, who are in a world of pain right now, and what could have happened in an alternate world.
You know, like the old Sliding Doors.
So, if Bennett hadn’t fallen out with the Broncos powerbrokers who basically wanted to show they had their hands on the wheel and saw a bright new world with a new-age coach instead of an old survivor approaching 70, what would have happened?
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What transpired was that chief executive Paul White was tasked with sacking Bennett and, ultimately, removing him a year early as Anthony Seibold was anointed as The Chosen One.
Seibold was then effectively run out of town within 18 months as the Broncos fell into an obvious downward spiral and confessions from within, and ‘I told you so’ arrows aplenty from outside, that he was the wrong fit.
So, the club calls for old favourite Kevvie Walters to try to bring some Broncos DNA back and salvage the Titanic.
Half a season in and more players are leaving for greener pastures (or been told they have no future at Red Hill), some of their greatest young prospects have been poached (Cyril Connell would be turning in his grave) and the Broncos – the club with a three-decade history of being able to attract players for ‘unders’ because it was THE place to be — struggle to attract top-line stars from outside (although Adam Reynolds will make the move after securing the three-year deal Souths wouldn’t offer their homegrown hero).
White said at the time of Bennett’s axing: “We made the decision in the best long-term interest for the club and for the right reasons, and those reasons are that we believe (Seibold) can be a career coach, he’s got a coaching philosophy which is backed up by systems and structures, he thinks differently about the game, the game is rapidly changing and I believe he’s got the ability to change with it.”
In other words, “sorry Wayne, but we think the club needs to go in a more modern, scientific direction” and “your old school ways don’t fit any more.”
History shows White could not have been more wrong.
The Broncos certainly went in a new direction.
Backwards.
Now. Imagine if …
The Broncos had embraced Bennett’s ‘alternative universe’. That is, the plan Bennett put to the club midway through 2018, when he said that he only wanted to coach until the end of 2020 before transitioning into a football director-type role and helping another younger coach take charge.
Be that Jason Demetriou – who will instead succeed Bennett at Souths – Kevvie, or someone else, the old boy would have happily ridden shotgun with whoever the club settled on.
In this universe, would David Fifita have knocked back the Gold Coast because he wanted to stay at Brisbane so he could play with a hotshot young halfback named Sam Walker, who perhaps may have turned down the Roosters?
Which maybe would have led to Xavier Coates doing the same after the Melbourne Storm came knocking.
And young Reece Walsh – who played alongside Coates in the red-hot Tweed Heads under-18s in 2019 – might have said ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to the Warriors.
These are four potentially generational players all lost to a club that used to pride itself on being the biggest and strongest rugby league powerhouse.
Why? Because the ‘new-age’ Broncos, under the now-departed White and chairman Karl Morris, wanted so hard to show they had what it took to spark a grand new era, yet are now seen as a basket case.
And their fans are stuck in a place called here and what now, their beloved team 15th on the ladder after coming last in 2020 — and being beaten to the punch by clubs like the Titans and Warriors for players like Fifita and Walsh, an embarrassment you couldn’t have imagined possible in decades gone by.
And on the flip side, so desperate is their plight they have had to call on players like Karmichael Hunt to make his NRL comeback 12 years after he last played at the top level, after trying the same ploy with Albert Kelly seven seasons after he left the NRL for England as an enigmatic, unrealised talent.
Then I read last week that the Broncos were closing in on signing Jordan Pereira. No disrespect to Pereira, but I’m just gobsmacked the Broncos are looking at a bloke playing reserve grade at the Dragons when they should have so many wonderfully gifted youngsters in their own backyard.
So, the question is: do the Broncos stay in the real, painful, world, or consider an alternative universe after all?
That is the old master, at age 71, being coaxed back to play a guiding role as the rescue mission takes on a bigger proportion than anyone could have envisaged.
Oh, that’s a fantasy world given all the bad blood still bubbling below the surface?
Maybe.
But if you think Bennett or the Broncos one day making peace is some sort of misguided illusion, take note of what has just happened at Wests Tigers.
Coach of 10 seasons Tim Sheens (2003-12, that’s six coaches ago), who left in extremely acrimonious circumstances, has just agreed to head back to sort out their sorry saga as head of football performance.
By the way, Sheens also turns 71 later this year.
Anyway, as Bennett is about to head into the Suncorp Stadium sheds for perhaps the last time on Thursday, I just thought it was timely to consider what might have been — and what still could be.
He may leave at about 11pm with the door shut tightly behind him, literally and figuratively.
Or another door could still open.
But it might end up being at the NRL’s new Brisbane franchise, set to start up in 2023.
And this is where the Broncos had better be extremely careful.
Because Bennett has already indicated his interest, restating on Wednesday that he has no plans to retire if a job becomes available in Brisbane next year.
One thing is for certain, he would sure have far greater drawing power for players than the current Broncos.
And wouldn’t that see two worlds colliding, potentially leaving the Broncos in a far deeper black hole for many years to come.
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