“You blokes don’t listen,” Wayne Bennett said on Sunday. We were listening, all ears, but what he was saying was absurd. Use your “common sense” and “think about it”, he said, and when we did, all his pouting remarks seemed even more ridiculous.
Sam Burgess is a favourite son of South Sydney. He is a favourite footballing son of Bennett. He is a legendary Rabbitoh. He’s been one of Bennett’s assistant coaches until serious and potentially criminal allegations of domestic abuse, drug use and club cover-ups have triggered investigations by the NRL Integrity Unit and NSW Police Force.
He has stood down from his assistant coaching role at the Rabbitohs. It’s not like the janitor has gone missing: part of the furniture has been removed from Redfern, a key member of the club. An influential and popular figure. A close mate of the players. One of those players is his brother, for crying out loud. There has been no impact on his brother?
For Bennett to say Burgess’s abrupt and dramatic departure makes no difference … pull the other one, supercoach. It plays Glory, Glory To South Sydney.
Nah, Bennett says, no impact. I’m tempted to think it’s having a positive impact, perversely or otherwise, when it comes to Bennett’s day job of getting his players to win football games. Us against the world, and so forth. A galvanising impact is still an impact worth noting.
I thought Bennett would have praised his players on Sunday for overcoming an obviously difficult week for the club and its personnel by lighting up ANZ Stadium against Newcastle. Apparently not. The win was nothing out of the ordinary. Business as usual, according to Bennett, despite the single greatest scandal in rugby league this year.
Rather, Bennett acted like he was shocked when the topic was raised in his post-match press conference. He became indignant. What was he expecting, a round of how-good-is-Cody-Walker questions? The Burgess-related moments of his discussion with reporters went like this.
Question: “Wayne, it had been a difficult week for obvious reasons, but clearly the boys managed to put that aside?”
Bennett: “You blokes don’t listen. That’s what probably annoys me more than anything else. I said two days ago it had no impact on the team. It still hasn’t. It won’t.”
Question: “It’s hard to ignore the headlines, though? They’re there.”
Bennett: “I’m just telling you. I coach the team. I know what’s going on in the organisation. It was never going to have an impact on the team.”
Question: Along the lines of, how good’s Cody Walker?
Bennett: Along the lines of, very good!
Question: “Wayne, why were you so confident everything that’s happened this week was never going to have an impact on the team?”
Bennett: “Common sense would tell you that. I’m not going to go into detail about it. You think about it.”
I’ve done as requested. I’ve used my common sense. I’ve thought about it on Sunday night and through most of Monday. I understand Bennett has little time for the media. I understand his belief that reporters are troublemakers with agendas. I understand he thinks interviews are tiresome and to be endured. I understand a “no comment” might have been warranted; his players had been advised by the club to do so. I understand Bennett wasn’t even coaching the club during the events of 2018, when Burgess allegedly committed domestic violence and the Rabbitohs’ doctor, Andrew McDonald, allegedly orchestrated a cover-up of drug use.
If so, Bennett could have said so. Let’s leave it to the relevant authorities, et cetera. But to pout and act like the issue was neither here nor there for players who had played alongside Burgess, who had won a premiership with him, when it was centred on such a core member of the Rabbitohs organisation, that was the ridiculousness of it.
Of course it had an impact on the players last week. Of course it had an impact on the coaching set-up. Or was Burgess’s coaching role so meaningless that his absence left no hole? Of course it had, and would continue to have, a personal impact on the players and staff who know him best.
The partners of current players would likely have been, and perhaps still be, friends with Burgess’s ex-wife, Phoebe. At the top of the list of Burgess’s closest mates was Bennett himself. He has been affected on a personal level for absolute starters. That’s just common sense.
A no comment from Bennett? Fair enough. Understood. Let’s wait for the investigations to be completed. But to act like the issue was water off a duck’s back at Souths … he picked the wrong time to roll his eyes and suck his teeth and play the victim, as if it was unfair to be asked about a serious situation facing his club. Asking for common sense, Bennett needed some of his own.
We know there’s been an impact. A negative impact was improbable when it came to on-field performances. The wheels were never going to fall off the wagon regarding the premiership campaign. It was more likely to galvanise the players, bringing them closer together, making them rally around Burgess, making them want to keep or restore pride in the Rabbitohs’ jumper, narrow their focus, do it for their besieged mate, any or all of that stuff.
I would have thought Burgess’s brother, Tom, would have felt an ever-so-slight pinprick of impact. His brother is no longer at training. His brother is no longer in the locker room. Bennett says otherwise. Deny, deny. Glory, Glory To South Sydney.
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