NRL 2023: Wayne Bennett’s greatest feuds ahead of his 900th game as a first grade coach
You don’t rack up 900 premiership games as a coach without making enemies along the way. Wayne Bennett has more than his fair share. Here are his biggest feuds..
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As Wayne Bennett reaches the 900-game milestone as a first grade coach, it has become apparent there is only one thing he loves more than winning – picking fights.
Bennett’s book of feuds over the past 40-plus years is so long it deserves its own library.
He has fallen out with some of his closest confidantes and rugby league’s biggest figures over the years and many of those relationships are beyond repair.
Here are 10 of Bennett’s greatest feuds.
ANTHONY SEIBOLD
They don’t get much spicier than Bennett’s very public spat with Seibold.
It started in 2018 when the Broncos started making moves to push Bennett out of Red Hill, believing he was reaching his use-by date as an NRL coach.
Then coaching South Sydney, Seibold was anointed as the chosen one by the Broncos and believed a smooth transition would take place.
They must have forgotten who they were messing with.
Bennett made life so difficult for Seibold he eventually went to the media, claiming his family was being hurt by Bennett’s actions.
Bennett was sacked and swapped jobs with Seibold at South Sydney, leading the Rabbitohs to the 2021 NRL grand final.
He hasn’t stopped prodding Seibold since.
DARREN LOCKYER, PAUL WHITE AND KARL MORRIS
The great Red Hill civil war of 2018 claimed many casualties.
Among those were some of Bennett’s longest friendships.
Lockyer won four premierships with the Broncos, all under Bennett, and remains Brisbane’s greatest player with 355 games.
But Bennett wiped him after believing Lockyer, a Broncos board member, didn’t fight for him when moves were being made to push him out of the club.
Former CEO White first met Bennett in the police ranks decades ago and they held a tight bond. That too is now dead.
Chairman Morris was at the helm of the board that offered Bennett an “elegant transition” into a different off-field role.
The three of them have been wiped by Bennett.
“I had no doubt in my mind I would be at the Broncos in 2019 because of conversations I had with Darren Lockyer, the CEO Paul White and chairman Karl Morris,” Bennett said in 2020.
“Those three guys all gave me assurances I would see out my deal in 2019, but I wouldn’t be there in 2020.
“That was fine with me. I understood their position on that. In the end, they sacked me.”
GORDEN TALLIS
Bennett and Tallis should be best buddies given their golden years at the Broncos, but the Raging Bull saw red over his finale at Red Hill.
The super coach sensationally benched Tallis for his final Broncos game in Brisbane’s historic knockout semi-final against the Cowboys in Townsville in 2004.
Relegated in front of his very own Townsville people, Tallis was filthy and has never forgiven Bennett for benching him in Brisbane‘s 10-0 defeat.
Adding to the feud, when Bennett was being targeted to coach the Cowboys in 2009, Tallis was a member of the North Queensland board which ultimately opted against signing him.
A Cowboys faction felt Bennett was too old to keep coaching. More than a decade later, the 73-year-old is still going strong with new franchise the Dolphins.
WALLY LEWIS
Sacking “The King” Lewis as Broncos captain in 1989 remains one of the biggest calls in Bennett’s coaching career.
To this day, Lewis is regarded as one of the greatest rugby league players of all-time and had no inkling he was going to be axed as Brisbane skipper.
“The news hit me like a sledgehammer,” Lewis wrote in his autobiography.
Lewis played nine games for the Broncos in an injury-riddled 1990 season before leaving Brisbane to finish his career at the embattled Gold Coast Seagulls.
While it has been more than 30 years, the captaincy drama remains the lowest point of Lewis’ glittering career.
CAMERON MUNSTER
Once State of Origin brothers in arms, Munster has been struck off Benny’s Christmas card list.
When Bennett inspired an Origin boilover in the opening game of the Covid-affected series in 2020, Munster famously ran behind the super coach in the sheds and humped him as Benny laughed uncontrollably.
Given that mateship, Bennett was convinced Munster would join him at the Dolphins. But when Munster stayed loyal to the Storm last year, refusing to inform Bennett as he boarded a plane to the World Cup in England, the 73-year-old was furious.
Bennett slammed Munster as gutless. Munster hit back, accusing Bennett of being disrespectful. Time may heal wounds, but their Origin bonds have well and truly been broken.
MAL MENINGA
What do you get when two of league’s most powerful figures face off for the same job? Fireworks.
Meninga famously pipped Bennett for the Kangaroos’ coaching job in 2015 and it went down like a lead balloon with Bennett, who was in charge of the Broncos at the time.
Meninga eventually wrote a column for The Sunday Mail in 2016 to address their fractured relationship.
“My beef with Wayne is not that he wanted the Australian job. I have no problem with ambition,” Meninga wrote.
“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.
“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.
“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 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.”
Meninga and Bennett put their differences aside in 2020 to form a coaching dream team which led Queensland to a famous State of Origin series victory.
CRAIG BELLAMY
This is a classic case of master versus apprentice.
Bellamy came through the coaching ranks under Bennett at the Broncos in the early 2000s, starting as his strength and conditioning coach before graduating to an assistant.
It wasn’t long before Melbourne handed Bellamy the head coaching job of the Storm in 2003, kicking off a 20-year rivalry with Bennett.
The Storm and Broncos waged many great battles over the years, with Bennett getting the chocolates in the 2006 grand final.
Bennett has also been a long-term critic of the wrestling tactics brought into the NRL by the Storm under Bellamy’s watch.
The Broncos also famously sounded out Bellamy to replace Bennett at Red Hill in 2018.
Bellamy has notched up an impressive record against Bennett, but the master still has the 2006 triumph over his apprentice.
NICK POLITIS
It takes a brave man to fall out with Sydney Roosters supremo Nick Politis, one of Australia‘s richest men.
Billionaire Politis believed he had pulled off the rugby league coup of the century when he secretly brokered a deal for Bennett to quit the Broncos and coach the Roosters for the 2007 season.
The pair met in August 2006, just months before Bennett’s Broncos unleashed a magical form surge to win that year’s premiership.
It is understood Bennett’s move to Bondi was conditional on the deal being kept a state secret.
But when the story broke in a Sydney newspaper, Bennett reneged, the deal collapsed … and Politis was an angry man for many years.
PHIL GOULD
Two strong personalities. Two great coaches with gargantuan egos. Gould and Bennett are like oil and water. They will never mix.
The rivalry exploded in 1995 when the Super League war broke out. Gould was a staunch ARL man. Bennett bought into the Super League vision and led the Broncos’ breakaway to the rebel competition.
For all their greatness as rival Origin coaches, they only met once in the 2002 series. Fittingly, Bennett and Gould had to settle for a series draw.
Despite the angst, Gould was prepared to bury the hatchet. Gould claimed Bennett had agreed to coach Penrith after talks with the super coach following his sacking at the Broncos in 2018.
Bennett insists no deal was ever done. Penrith went on to sign Ivan Cleary and while it’s proven a masterstroke, Gould will never see eye-to-eye with Bennett.
NATHAN BROWN
Brown will go down in folklore for delivering the greatest single quote in rugby league history.
In April 2018, Brown‘s Knights and Bennett’s Broncos met in round five in Newcastle. The Knights pulled off a stunning 15-10 upset and the epic win emboldened Brown to unleash a stunning personal attack on Bennett.
Brown was already stewing after Bennett, who coached Newcastle from 2012-14, had accused the former Dragons hooker of ripping apart the Knights’ roster.
Brown was aware that Bennett‘s 42-year marriage broke down during the super coach’s time at Knights. It was during his stint in Newcastle that Bennett met his future partner Dale Cage, who was a receptionist to the Knights club doctor.
So when he heard what Bennett had said about his “unbuilding” of the Knights, Brown went below the belt … literally.
“The reality is, when Wayne came to town, if he thought with his big head rather than his little head, I wouldn’t have had to rebuild the joint,” Brown said.
‘HE’LL COACH IN HEAVEN’: INSIDE STORY OF BENNETT’S ROAD TO 900
The Queensland Rugby League supremo who brokered the deal that launched Wayne Bennett’s NRL career has revealed the explosive contract bunfight that almost saw the super coach lost to the Broncos.
Bennett’s remarkable 47-year career in coaching will reach another memorable highpoint on Saturday when the 73-year-old chalks up his 900th NRL game in the Dolphins’ clash with Cronulla at Suncorp Stadium.
It is at the home of Queensland rugby league where Bennett has fashioned a reputation as the code’s greatest coach, winning six of his seven premierships with the mighty Broncos sides during their golden era between 1992-2006.
But QRL chairman Bruce Hatcher has lifted the lid on the political machinations that saw the Broncos’ pursuit of Bennett as their foundation coach in 1988 almost collapse after a bitter contract dispute.
Broncos godfather Paul ‘Porky’ Morgan, who passed away in 2001, finally stepped in to get Bennett over the line.
It was their shaking of hands that put Bennett on the path to coaching greatness in the NRL, which still endures to this day as the foundation coach of Queensland’s newest franchise the Dolphins.
“I will never forget Paul Morgan’s words – he basically said: ‘No Bennett, No Broncos’,” recalled Hatcher, also an accountant who has known Bennett for 52 years and assisted with his financial affairs.
“I actually worked with ‘Porky’ to put together Wayne’s first ever contract with the Broncos.
“It started terribly. Porky had gone overseas and he left it to two of the other Broncos founders (Steve Williams and Barry Maranta) to negotiate the contract.
“In those days, the coach got $1 more than the highest-paid player. It was an unwritten rule of thumb. The Broncos had a view of what Wayne was worth and it didn’t accord with the $1 more attitude of that time.
“At the time, Wayne was an assistant coach at Canberra and he was under contract there.
“Talks weren’t going well with the Broncos so Wayne pulled out and said I’m staying at Canberra.
“I remember having to go back for more talks with the Broncos and they tabled a much improved contract the second time around.
“Porky was a stockbroker at the time. The discussions started in my office and ended up in his stockbroking office. Bennett had just lost an Origin game by one point and he was filthy. We met that day and Bennett said, ‘I’m out, I’m not doing this’.
“Then a few days later, Porky and myself flew to Canberra to salvage the situation and finally Porky got the deal done.
“The point of that story is that Wayne is a man of substance. He has strong principles. He said, ‘The Broncos deal is not good enough so I’m out. I won’t be treated as a mug’.
“It was one of the most important moments in the history of Queensland rugby league – the Broncos moved heaven and earth to get Wayne and it turned out to be the right call.”
The key to Bennett’s longevity as a coach is simplicity and sagacity. His words of wisdom encourage his players to believe and he doesn’t overcomplicate his coaching methods.
When Bennett started at Souths in 2019 after being sacked by the Broncos, he noticed Rabbitohs players such as Adam Reynolds and James Roberts walking into team meetings holding notebooks.
He told the group to chuck the notebooks away. His methodology was simple – most players, in his view, did not excel at school, were not book smart, and were not playing rugby league to be university scholars.
At Souths headquarters, he asked for his room to be right near where the players trained. Bennett insisted the door always stay open, so Rabbitohs players could approach him at any time.
“Wayne’s great skill with the players is he is a great listener,” Hatcher said.
“He knows a lot about the players he coaches. He just doesn’t warm to you for the sake of it, he does his homework and if he assesses you are worth supporting, he won’t desert you through thick or thin. So much in his history indicates that.
“I can’t tell you the amount of times, even as a personal favour to me, that he has happily agreed to talk to a young athlete in rugby union or gymnastics or swimming who is at the crossroads. Every time, they went on to excel after talking to Wayne. He would do it out of the goodness of his heart. He goes above and beyond and he never boasts about what he did for people.
“I can tell you five athletes who turned the corner after talking to Wayne.
“All Wayne has wanted to do is coach so it doesn’t surprise me he has lasted so long.”
Bennett undersells his playing career but he was no mug. Fitness was his forte. He played for Queensland and Australia and Hatcher recalls first meeting the tall, lanky winger at a revolutionary Lang Park camp to help the men in Maroon beat New South Wales.
“I first met Wayne in 1971,” Hatcher says.
“Even though we came from different backgrounds, we hit it off from the word go. I helped him from an accounting, business point of view and we have always had the ability to talk straight and not always agree with each other, but we’ve had the best interests of whatever the topic was at hand.
“The Queensland Rugby League were trying to be competitive with NSW and they felt physical training with Bobby Bax as a coach could help us.
“They picked 20 guys for an intensive Queensland training squad. We got paid 50 bucks a week and slept in the dressing rooms at Lang Park. There were guys like Johnny Lang, Des Morris, Greg Veivers and Wayne was there.
“Wayne was a good runner. A superb athlete. I remember in our Queensland training camps, Wayne would lead the way out in front on our long-distance runs and lock into a pace and it used to give me the shits. We could never catch him.
“He had great stamina as a runner. He had this long stride. We did weekly tests and one was how far you could run in 20 minutes and every week, Wayne went further. He was the best in our group in the long runs. He was unbeatable over the longer journeys.”
Hatcher never expected Bennett, a former police academy graduate, to be a long-serving coach.
“I never saw him as a coach,” he said.
“I remember him coming into my office and saying he was going to become a rugby league coach.
“He was very quiet but was assured in his own way as a person. It’s been interesting watching him develop.
“He had an inquisitive mind and he asked a lot of questions, but he was very reserved, he wasn’t the sort of guy to come out with a big statement and wait for people to challenge it. “He was a very good listener and in his own way he was very respected because he trained hard and asked a lot of questions and by the day, he grew in confidence.
“He read a lot and used a number of mentors. He just had a great passion for learning and to this day, he still keeps learning. That’s why he keeps doing well with the Dolphins. He never believes he knows it all.
“He was a qualified police officer, but he threw it all away to become a rugby league coach and there were no guarantees, but he has become the greatest we have seen.”
The Dolphins have been the feel-good story of the 2023 premiership season thus far and it’s no surprise ARL Commission boss Peter V’landys had one stipulation when the NRL’s 17th licence was granted to Redcliffe’s $100 million operation.
Wayne James Bennett had to be the man calling the shots. He will serve one more NRL season with the Dolphins next year, but Hatcher is not convinced that will be the end for Bennett in the cutthroat world of coaching.
“Only Wayne could have done what he has done at the Dolphins,” Hatcher said.
“They have exceeded expectations, but they are a tough football club.
“Whenever you drove over the Hornibrook highway, you never expected a ballroom dance when you got to the old paceway to face Redcliffe teams.
“They sign hard-edge people who are committed and keep trying and that is the perfect fit with Wayne’s qualities as a person.
“I can’t see Wayne walking away from coaching any time soon. He loves it too much.
“I dare say when Wayne Bennett dies one day, he will be coaching in heaven.”
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