RIGHT from the beginning, Paul Michael White knew where he stood with Wayne James Bennett.

The year was 1984 and White, the kid from the Queensland bush town of Charleville, 683km west of Brisbane, had stars in his eyes when he applied for a cadetship with the Queensland Police Academy.

He was 18. And the centre of White’s fixation — and motivation to uphold the law — was Bennett. Sergeant Bennett. Brisbane State League coach. The Queensland Police Academy’s fitness instructor. The man who had taken the Queensland Police under-18s team to the 1983 premiership.

A rugby league fanatic, White had found his vocation nestled beautifully around a sporting and life mentor.

He walked into the Academy and shook hands with Bennett. The sergeant was 34.

“Wayne looked at me and said: ‘What’s your name,” recalls White with a grin.

“I said, ‘Paul White, sir”. I reckon Wayne knew something about me but he was keen to put everyone in their place.

“I was 18 and full of hormones and I probably thought I was better than I was.

“In those days, you were called by your surname at the Academy.

“Wayne said, ‘Right White, where do you come from? I said Rockhampton, sir.

“He said, ‘White, there’s only two types of people who come from Rockhampton, p**fters and poets … and I haven’t read any of your poetry’.

“That was classic Wayne. It took me a while for the penny to drop. I had no idea what he was talking about.”

Fast forward 35 years and White is equally bemused as he sits in his basic office as the chief executive of the Brisbane Broncos, perched on the top floor of the opulent $27.2 million high-performance centre he helped establish via two years of high-level government lobbying.

Throughout his office sit books that represent signposts of White’s mindset, ambitions and spiritual objectives.

The Real Madrid Way sits foremost on his desk, a tome dedicated to the cultural values of the behemoth of Spanish football.

Another is Ego is the Enemy, a fitting title that could easily encapsulate — and chillingly describe — the most toxic saga in Broncos history last season which triggered political bloodletting and the ruthless sacking of Bennett, the only premiership coach the club has known.

White and Bennett were once footballing brothers.

Now they are blood enemies.

In a quiet moment, White looks across the lush training turf Bennett traversed countless times at Red Hill and wonders how on earth he found himself pulling the trigger on the man he idolised for three decades.

“In his quiet times, Wayne wouldn’t be happy with what’s happened,” White says.

“I know that. Last year was testing for us all at the Broncos.

“But I had a job to do as CEO. I owned it (sacking Wayne). I accepted it.

“I still care about Wayne. I know somewhere, deep within him, Wayne would care about me.”

Few that know White and Bennett have been able to succinctly frame, and explain, what seemed an unbreakable, lifelong friendship.

Their love of rugby league was shared but they could be diametrically opposed.

With his words, Bennett was, and is, economical. White is effusive. Bennett, the son of an alcoholic father, doesn’t drink alcohol. White likes a beer, and was known to puff on the odd cigarette as a policeman while chatting to criminals.

It was his strategic charm offensive, the mentality being to catch a crook, you had to think like one.

But Bennett and White’s life values were symbiotic. Both crave being challenged. White starts each day with cold showers to push the body and mind to do something it would prefer not to do. Bennett has never forgotten a man he called Brother Bible, a teacher who constantly challenged him to be better.

“We both enjoy training and being active,” White says. “At the academy, Wayne would also get in and train with us and I really admired that. I picked up that work ethic from Wayne.

“Wayne always cared for the individual, he never over-complicated things. To some extent, that’s a good thing. You never had to have lengthy discussions to know where you stood with Wayne.”

When White was appointed Broncos CEO in October 2010, Bennett, who was coaching St George Illawarra at the time, was ecstatic.

“There was no one happier than I was when Paul got the job at the Broncos,” Bennett recalled when he returned to the Broncos in 2015.

“Off the field he is a very honest, very kind person, someone who, if he can help someone, he will.

“I’ve known him since the police academy. I knew he would get the job done.”

Such was White’s commitment to Bennett, he got the job done so well it put him on an explosive collision course with the Broncos board.

In March 2016, White sat down with Bennett to shake hands on a two-year contract extension. Bennett was already contracted until the end of 2017, but he had the hot hand after steering the Broncos to the grand final in his first season back on his Red Hill throne.

White personally brokered a $1.8 million upgrade for Bennett. The supercoach was now locked in until 2019.

When White fronted the Broncos board to formalise the extension, the Brisbane executive arm scrutinised the deal. They were unhappy with some elements of the deal and quizzed White on why Bennett, aged 66 at the time, required another lucrative extension when he was already secured for 18 months.

White explained Bennett had lost none of his drive, passion, sharpness and sagacity. The board rubber-stamped Bennett’s upgrade, but the move also triggered a strategic succession plan for who would eventually replace Brisbane’s greatest coach.

When the Broncos were knocked out of the 2016 finals race by their grand-final nemesis, the Cowboys, Brisbane board members began some preliminary discussions about viable candidates to one day succeed Bennett.

Enter Kevin Walters.

Knockin’ on Kevin’s door

Affectionately known as “Kevvie”, the Broncos legend had a virtual blood right to the Brisbane coaching post. Despite his tempestuous history with Bennett, who famously sacked Walters as his assistant in 2005, the pair had an enduring father-son style relationship.

However complex their ties to the outside world, there was a simpatico between Bennett and Walters. No matter the saga, no matter the drama, the duo, like father and son, the granite of their DNA forged by premiership successes during Brisbane’s golden years, were impervious to any ruction.

Significantly, Walters had a powerful political ally, and personal friend, in White.

Walters was in charge of the Queensland Origin team when Titans coach Neil Henry was sacked in August 2017. Privately, Walters was interested in applying for the vacant Titans post but, on September 4, he officially ruled himself out after consulting some trusted associates.

In the space of two weeks, Kevvie had gone cold. What changed? Had someone got in his ear?

One month later, after Walters opted to stay loyal to the Maroons, Bennett received a phone call. It was Walters. He spoke to the supercoach about a return to the Broncos.

In his heart, Bennett didn’t want Walters back. It was nothing personal. Bennett was happy with his assistant coach Jason Demetriou, who did a fine job the previous season devising systems as Brisbane’s attack coach.

But Bennett was also cognisant of private discussions between White and Walters. White was keen for Walters to be back at the Broncos. Reading between the lines, suspecting a veiled succession plan was now in place, Bennett assessed the bigger picture and nodded his head. He even publicly endorsed Walters as his eventual successor.

“I’m not going to go on forever, so can Kevin be the next coach of the Broncos? Certainly he can,” Bennett told The Courier-Mail in October 2017.

“Somewhere down the track, when I’m gone, hopefully Kevin or Jason will coach the Broncos.”

Initially, there were some teething issues. Demetriou was in charge of Brisbane’s attack, the area Walters presided over when he helped the Broncos to the 2015 grand final before resigning as Bennett’s right-hand man to take the Queensland Origin job.

Reluctant to cause internal bad blood, Demetriou accepted a switch to defence coach, handing the attacking reins to Walters.

In Bennett’s eyes, three was a coaching crowd. But he sensed it was now a race in two for the Red Hill hot seat.

What the veteran coach didn’t see coming was the Walters bombshell.

After just 163 days as a Broncos employee again, Walters tendered his resignation — 48 hours after a dismal Round 4 home loss to the Titans.

White was shocked and shattered. Brisbane’s succession-plan armour had a chink in it.

Asked why Walters left, White’s voice is tinged with uncertainty and disappointment.

“You have to ask Kevvie,” he said. “In a perfect world, I would have liked him to stay, but there were challenges with coaching the Origin team as well and maybe Kevvie had his own reasons.

“Personally, I wanted to see him hang around and I told him that, but I can’t speak on his behalf.”

At the time of his departure, Walters said a trip to Melbourne to promote the upcoming Origin series rammed home the demands of coaching the Maroons. But after two seasons in charge of Queensland, he would have had an acute understanding of that when he agreed to a Broncos renaissance.

Beneath the fluffy PR spin, the reality is Walters began butting heads with Bennett on a tactical level.

Having spent three years as an assistant to Storm super coach Craig Bellamy between 2011-2014, Walters had become indoctrinated in the Melbourne way. They were the NRL’s benchmark team. No team trained harder. No team played smarter.

With the Broncos mired in the longest premiership drought in their history, spanning 12 years, Walters sat down with Bennett. He believed Broncos players were in a comfort zone and needed to train harder. He wanted Brisbane to adopt a Melbourne-like mentality if they wanted to be the best.

It was a fair argument. Bennett, however, railed against the idea. He told Walters Brisbane would always be the Broncos and play like the Broncos.

Walters, feeling he had outgrown the role of a club assistant, concluded he had to escape the Bennett shadow.

Amid the fallout, it was suggested Walters’ pain was amplified by whispers White had urged him not to apply for the Titans job. As a sweetener, White allegedly promised Walters he would succeed Bennett as Broncos coach.

The promise was said to have been made on the back deck of White’s inner-city home. Four weeks after Walters refused to chase the Titans job, he was suddenly back at the Broncos.

Today, White addresses the rumour for the first time. Did he promise Kevin Walters the Broncos job?

“Definitely not,” White said.

“I cannot give any promise to anyone about a job at the Broncos.

“We are a publicly-listed company. We have obligations to shareholders. No individual can make such promises.

“I haven’t read anything specifically, but yes, I have heard the rumours (that he promised Walters the Broncos job).

“As Wayne Bennett would attest, I wanted Kevvie back at the club, but no promises were ever made to anyone.

“At the time, Wayne wasn’t sure if it (Walters returning as his assistant) was needed but he accepted my judgment call.

“I can’t tell you if Kevvie was looking at the Titans job, but coaches are always looking for opportunities.

“Ultimately, judgment calls are made by the individual. Coaches must own their decisions.”

When he walked out of Red Hill, Walters’ coaching cards had been marked.

During a testing time for the Broncos, White had appealed for Walters to dig in and not quit. He quit. The succession plan was unravelling. Walters now faced a huge fight to reclaim high-level Broncos support … and for Bennett, the battle of his coaching life was about to begin.