Wayne Bennett does not understand what it takes to be Kangaroos coach

IN an explosive column for the Courier-Mail Test coach Mal Meninga has slammed Wayne Bennett’s attitude after the Broncos coach was overlooked for the Kangaroos job.

Image ©Licensed to i-Images Picture Agency. 24/10/2016. Liverpool, United Kingdom. Four Nations launch. England's Coach Wayne Bennet, join's other players and coaches from the Four Nations Rugby League teams during a press conference at Liverpool FC, Anfield, Liverpool, before the tournament starts on Friday 28th October. Picture by Andrew Parsons / i-Images

IF Wayne Bennett wants to take my job, he will have to quit his post at the Broncos to do it.

Wayne’s year-long, persistent and ongoing objection to my appointment as Kangaroos coach and his obvious frustration at being overlooked for the job, seem to have been born out of his own lack of understanding about what the role actually entails.

Yes, coaching the Kangaroos in rugby league matches — like the Four Nations opener against Scotland — is a big part of my job.

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But it is only a part of my job, not the only part.

The vast majority of my role is spent working on the game itself, not on the team.

My time is divided between the Kangaroos, Jillaroos, Junior Kangaroos and Australian Schoolboys teams, as well as re-establishing the standards and culture around playing for your country that had been allowed to erode over time.

Meninga was chosen for the Test job ahead of Bennett.

My role also involves laying the foundations and pathways for players who aspire to play for Australia, creating strategies and structures to return international football’s credibility and relevance, lifting the profile of international league and contributing to the commercial aspects of all those elements.

These are all critical and time-consuming tasks. Would I be able to do all of those things and coach an NRL club at the same time?

No, and nor would Wayne or any other coach in the NRL.

It is a job well beyond formulating a game plan and running training sessions.

My beef with Wayne is not that he wanted the Australian job. I have no problem with ambition.

What disappoints me is that, as a grown man and a professional, he should be able to accept the decision once it has been made.

Mal Meninga says he doesn’t have a relationship with Wayne Bennett.

It does annoy me that he is in the background chipping away, trying to undermine my authority and my position with the Australian Rugby League.

Maybe it is just a tactical ploy, hoping if he gets under my skin then I will take my focus off the job at hand. It’s not working.

When Wayne says he doesn’t want my job, or that we are friends who will embrace after a game, it is just not true.

I’m a man of my own convictions. I’m not looking for approval from Wayne, nor am I trying to impress him. He’s not my mentor. I don’t care what he thinks about the job that I do or the results I achieve.

I don’t think he rates me as a coach, but that’s OK.

I think Wayne believes I have done a good job with the results I have achieved, but because I don’t coach every weekend I am not what he considers a “genuine” rugby league coach.

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I have a different view to Wayne about what is required from a coach at representative level, and it is a view that the Queensland Rugby League and Australian Rugby League now share.

Wayne was obviously an important part of my life when I was a young man — first at the police academy and then in football with Brisbane Souths and Canberra.

He was an influential part of my life and I am very thankful for that.

But when Wayne walked out the door at the Raiders in 1987 to coach the Broncos, our relationship ended. We went our own ways and haven’t had any sort of relationship for many years.

I know there is a perception that he and I are friends and I guess that is a part of the reason for doing this column — to set the record straight.

We’re not enemies, but we’re not friends either. There’s no bad blood — there’s just no blood at all. There is no relationship there.

We don’t talk. He runs the Emerging Origin program for Queensland, which he set up and I think is terrific.

Meninga and Bennett will come head to head during the Four Nations.

But even while I was Queensland coach, that program had little to do with me. It existed before I was coach, it worked well, so we kept with it.

We go back a long way. But we don’t cross paths any more.

I am glad that Wayne is coaching England. His presence, and the return of Sam Burgess, has given the Four Nations series a terrific boost in profile.

Should we come together after a game, I will shake his hand the same way I do with any other opponent.

But I also hope as England coach, he can now focus his attention on his own team and worry less about what Australia and the Kangaroos are doing.

We don’t care what England do or think. Hopefully one day soon he will feel the same way about us.

Originally published as Wayne Bennett does not understand what it takes to be Kangaroos coach