NRL grand final 2021: Wayne Bennett weighs up ‘a number of options’ for future
Wayne Bennett has felt the sting of another grand final loss - but Souths’ brutal defeat to Penrith will always sit second in the supercoach’s heartbreakers.
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Wayne Bennett has declared “I’m not finished yet” after the supercoach’s dream of a fairytale farewell from South Sydney were dashed by Ivan Cleary’s Panthers on Sunday night.
Bennett’s hopes of snapping an 11-year NRL title drought on home soil at Suncorp Stadium were spoiled by Penrith as the Panthers avenged last year’s grand final loss to Melbourne.
The historic first Queensland grand final was one for the ages as Penrith secured a 14–12 win to claim the club’s third title and first since 2003.
The Panthers were deserved premiers after dominating Souths for most of the game and if not for the Rabbitohs’ courage the result could have been much starker. But that won’t ease the pain for Bennett and his Bunnies.
Bennett, 71, has now lost his past two grand finals in the most heartbreaking of circumstances, with his seventh and last premiership coming with the Dragons in 2010.
It has been 4018 days since he last coached a team to premiership glory.
Bennett will hand over the Rabbitohs’ coaching reins to Jason Demetriou next season and return to Brisbane to live.
He will embark on a coaching hiatus and does not know what or where his next job will be.
Bennett is expected to be appointed head coach of Queensland’s expansion franchise in Brisbane, but the 17th NRL team is not due to launch until 2023.
That will mean Bennett has to wait 18 months before coaching his next game in the NRL, a long time to stew on the anguish of 2021.
But Bennett has no plans to retire, vowing to press on in his pursuit of an eighth premiership.
“I wasn’t looking for a fairytale ending, I’m not finished yet,” he said.
“I haven’t made any choices yet. I’ve told you a thousand times, when I know what the plan is I’ll let you know.
“There’s something formulating in my mind but I won’t say.
“I have a number of options on the table but I don’t know what I’ll do.
“Today is not a good day, tomorrow will not be a good day to make decisions. I’ll sit on it for a few weeks.
“I respect Souths enormously for what they’ve done for me and I won’t do anything without talking to Souths first.”
After being unceremoniously sacked by the Broncos in 2018, Bennett went to Redfern on a three-year mission to deliver Souths its first title since 2014.
While the Rabbitohs have made the final four in all three seasons, a premiership would have been the ultimate vindication for Bennett after the Broncos attempted to push him into an early retirement from head coaching.
But the master mentor fell agonisingly short in a game that had it all.
If Cody Walker’s pass wasn’t intercepted by Stephen Crichton and Adam Reynolds’ conversion attempt late in the game had not missed by a whisker it may have been a different result.
After delivering Brisbane’s six titles in his first stint at Red Hill, Bennett was at the helm when the Broncos fell to North Queensland in the epic 2015 extra-time thriller.
This time, it was the Panthers that delivered the dagger to Bennett in his record 10th grand final appearance.
“It’s not far behind (2015),” Bennett said of the pain.
“We at no stage had this game won. We were always in it, we were never out of it.
“In 2015 we had the game won and that hurts more.”
The Rabbitohs went into the game as outsiders.
They flew under the radar until week one of the finals when Bennett produced a coaching masterstroke to beat Penrith and set up a saloon passage to the grand final.
But it wasn’t to be. Bennett’s search will go on and just what his next move is remains to be seen.
BENNETT: WHY I’D PICK CODY WALKER OVER WALLY LEWIS
— By Wayne Bennett
Most people know Russell Crowe as a movie star, a tough guy who fights lions and bank robbers, taking home Academy Awards. I know him for his passion for his footy club, the South Sydney Rabbitohs. And I love it.
I love the way he’s always wanting the club to be better on and off the field.
There’s nothing that goes on here he doesn’t know about, and he has a great sense of the 113-year history of this foundation club. The man known as Rusty gives me a few suggestions about coaching but they’re only suggestions and life rolls on. He’s passionate about loyalty to the players and loves to see the kids brought up in the South Sydney area make first grade and play their careers at Redfern.
That’s why, win or lose, he’s going to hurt when our halfback and captain Adam Reynolds walks off on Sunday and heads north to the Broncos. No one wanted Adam to go.
But there’s salary caps and hardcore business decisions to make at all the great sporting organisations and for all the great sportspeople. When I came to Souths three years ago the then boss Shane Richardson said ‘Wayne we just want you to coach’, and I’ve gotta say that’s all I’ve done here.
Coaching is all I do and everything I do. I coach Cody Walker and Alex Johnston, and don’t the players love him, Alex Johnston. Mark Nicholls, Damien Cook, Cameron Murray – a good core of players.
Sam Burgess. Such a dynamic person. John Sutton, he was different but owned the changerooms and I didn’t have much to do with GI because while he retired we made sure his influence remained.
As a group they needed a change and the change was me. I made Adam Reynolds captain because I’d coached against him and admired his coolness. Again, he was South Sydney. Played in all the good local junior sides.
“Hey Adam, what high school did you go to?” Matraville High. He went to Matraville High. Played in an Under 20s grand final. And in SG Ball he was a year younger than everyone else but his coach Craig Colman still made him captain.
I remember looking at him in the early days and thinking despite all you’ve achieved still no one truly knows how good you are. Same with Cody Walker. He’s been in the area a long time and the locals always said he was like one of the Ellas, the fourth Ella brother.
I remember trying to get him to Brisbane. He was born with magic hands and movement. Can play great structured and can play off the top of his head.
Doesn’t matter. To me Cody Walker epitomises South Sydney: Indigenous, the flair, he loves the game – he’d play for nothing that bloke. I know I coached the King, Wally Lewis, but if I had to pick the best five-eighth I’ve ever coached I’d find it very hard not to pick Cody Walker.
He has two kids and Adam (Reynolds) has four. They remind me of how I was brought up in the bush, where your father played rugby league on Sundays and they’d all have a drink on the Friday night.
Come straight from work to training and then the pub to tell their tall tales and laugh a lot while the kids played touch out the back in the dark.
Damien Cook, he’s been important too. He’s been to a number of clubs and played goodness knows how many positions but he’s the hooker here no question. He’s a responsible guy, Damien, well-mannered and well groomed. I remember seeing a group of them at the Dally Ms the other night and being so proud.
Image is important to Russell and it’s important to me.
I want to tell you about Mark Nicholls, our front-rower. He epitomises what makes teams. Unsung hero.
Mark turned up at Souths, I sort of raised an eyebrow and said to Sam Burgess, who’s that? Sam said, ‘don’t worry about the bald bloke, coach, he can play’. We made him stand-in captain in the last competition round, and the players loved it. They think the world of him.
He’s not a journeyman anymore. He’s found a home. You need people like Mark Nicholls to make football teams and South Sydney gets it.
People like Latrell Mitchell. He is South Sydney. You need players happy to be here, not just in footy but in life.
Dane Gagai. He’s found his niche. And then there’s Benji. He has come to ride the wave with the rest of us. At the Rabbitohs even Benji Marshall is just one of us, part of the team.
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