What really happened between Wayne Bennett and the Newcastle Knights

In the wash-up of the Dolphins’ 40-6 win over Broncos last Saturday night, Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga peeled off in commentary for Fox Sports an often-forgotten statistic about Wayne Bennett.

“History tells you the only time that he hasn’t made the finals in two consecutive years is when he took over the Broncos in ’88 and ’89,” Meninga said. “Those sides were virtually Queensland sides. But this is an even better contribution by Wayne.”

History remembers Bennett’s lowest coaching moment from his tumultuous three seasons at Newcastle, in which he missed the finals in 2012, lost the preliminary final to the Roosters in 2013 and missed the finals in 2014 before hightailing it back to Brisbane at the urging of News Corp boss Lachlan Murdoch.

Bennett has coached against the Knights several times since his messy departure, including a qualifying final victory in 2020 when he was coaching Souths.

Nevertheless, this Sunday’s final-round shootout for eighth place at McDonald Jones Stadium will awaken memories of how, according to one club great, he “rolled up the circus and left a piece of dirt”.

The players are unlikely to feel it but the fans and the dozens of former players on hand for “Old Boys Day” certainly will.

The Jets want Wayne Bennett as their coach should they get a licence for 2028.

Centre Dane Gagai is the only Knight who remains from Bennett’s time in Newcastle and told NRL.com earlier this week they were still close.

Gagai also admitted he was playing with a “chip on my shoulder” because critics have been asking if’s time for the 33-year-old to retire.

Bennett has carried a sizeable chip on his shoulder for most of his life, spurred on by critics who tell him he can’t do things — like the Dolphins reaching the finals in his second and final year in charge.

The victory over the Broncos and Kevin Walters, one of his former players, proved a coaching mismatch.

Heading into the match, Bennett had been accused of being distracted by his impending return to Souths next season. Dolphins chief executive Terry Reader denied this was the case, but Bennett would have welcomed the remarks because he thrives on proving people wrong, even when he has nothing left to prove.

Wayne Bennett took the Knights to a preliminary final in 2013.Credit: Wolter Peeters

The victory showed that Bennett is still the master manipulator of young men, especially when preparing them for big games.

During the week, he ordered his players not to say too much in the media, then revealed a raft of positional changes an hour before kick-off – including halfback Isaiya Katoa moving to the bench and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow to the centres so that Trai Fuller could work his magic at fullback, which he did.

It was clear only minutes into the contest that one team had eyes on the finals, the other Mad Monday.

An ugly inquisition is being played out in Brisbane about why the Broncos have plummeted this season after almost winning last year’s grand final against Penrith. It’s the same as it ever was: whenever the Broncos have any sort of success, players’ egos are quickly inflated in a city that treats them like royalty.

Allan Langer, a former premiership captain and now assistant to good mate Walters, says they should have won more premierships in the 1990s but failed to do so because of off-field distractions.

Bennett wanted to stay at the Broncos because of the young crop of talented players coming through and many fans must wonder how many premierships could have been secured if he had remained.

One of the few places he hasn’t succeeded is Newcastle, who he joined as part of billionaire mining magnate Nathan Tinkler’s revolution.

When I interviewed him for the book, The Wolf You Feed, he was scathing about the culture he inherited.

Alex McKinnon and Wayne Bennett at a press conference for the Rise for Alex Round in 2014.Credit: Kate Geraghty

“I didn’t realise what I had walked into,” he said. “I’d spent 24 years at the Broncos and Dragons and they were high-performing clubs that had standards with players who wanted to win premierships. That didn’t exist at Newcastle. I’ll get criticised for that statement, but I’m telling you: I know. If I had known what it was like, I wouldn’t have gone there. Because I went there to win.”

Knights players and officials from that time were unhappy with the way Bennett and his staff acted like fly-in, fly-out workers, barking instructions with no care for what had been achieved before they arrived.

“They waltzed in, rode in on their high horses, saying this is what we’ve done at the Broncos and Dragons,” one senior player told me. “I was like, ‘Hang on, we’ve got a bit of history here.’”

While reaching the 2013 preliminary final was a remarkable achievement, the club eventually unravelled as Tinkler struggled to pay the bills and his relationship with Bennett broke down.

When Tinkler tried to address the team at halftime during a match against the Broncos, Bennett barked at him in front of the players to shut up and sit in the corner and “don’t f---ing move”. They haven’t spoken since.

Tinkler’s dwindling fortune eventually prompted the NRL to revoke his licence, but the toughest times came when Alex McKinnon suffered a catastrophic spinal injury in early 2014 against the Storm. Few people give Bennett the credit he deserves for keeping the team together — or even on the field — throughout that horrific time.

Yet there is lingering animosity in the Hunter about Bennett’s time at the club.

While he counts the eight wins from the Knights’ final 11 matches that season as “my finest coaching year”, others recall him bailing out of the last year of his contract and leaving the club encumbered with an ageing roster better suited to winning an over-30s competition.

While Bennett insists “we all got paid”, others tell you they were most certainly out of pocket. They suspect Bennett got his money up front, although he denies this.

What mostly hurts the good people of Newcastle is that Tinkler and Bennett promised hope for a club that had punched above its financial weight but never delivered.

It’s unlikely any of this is relevant to Knights coach Adam O’Brien as he prepares to face Bennett and the Dolphins this weekend. You can’t imagine him saying something like, “This is the bloke who didn’t want anything to do with this club. He ridiculed it. He abandoned it. He thought he was too good for it.”

But if the roles were reversed, Bennett would.

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