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Forgive me for publicly denouncing the integrity of a legend, but I don’t trust Wayne Bennett as far as you could boot the frail old fellow at altitude.
After breathing lightning over the opening rounds, the unstoppable title charge of his Broncos had plugged in the turf a month ago following a ton of losses.
Frankly, they were ready to be respectfully consigned as another easily-digestible feedbag of finals fodder, just like all of those before them that you cannot recall.
But after quietly straightening up and flying right with a few encouraging wins, my fraud firewall has begun screaming. It’s detecting heavy readings of con-like activity, and frankly, I’m suss.
This whole timeline is beginning to stink of the classic Bennett chicanery that precedes one of his thousands of against-all-odds tales of triumph. You know the ones; the ones that make you do a little wretch.
So the question must be asked: are we be in the midst of another of his famed ruses?
We must not be complacent. I urge you to all be alert and aware. When it comes to fleecing the public, the Brisbane coach is the Nigerian email scam of rugby league.
Too often have we fallen into the trap of believing his adverse position. Then once lured into the web of his harrowing narrative, we foolishly begin to believe he’s actually under siege.
Before you know it, we are wiring him $1 million of doubt. After this, it’s only a matter of time before he absconds in the middle of the night with our passports and trophy.
I’ve seen this suspicious behaviour from him before. Without fear of contradiction, I can categorically say he’s definitely up to something.
Bennett has inexplicably shunned the services of Kevin Walters and opted to instead defer to a mysterious guru from New Zealand, a man who at last check had never coached Queensland.
When pressed on the reasons why, Bennett delivered a response so uber-cryptic and undecipherable that he successfully communicated with a small civilisation in the cosmos.
You don’t need a psychologist to diagnose this as conduct not befitting of a coach with marbles intact. That’s because the Bronco maestro wants us to believe that he is literally bonkers – and frankly, I’m having trouble resisting.
Yes, this all amounts to one thing: the Broncos and their coach are openly mocking us.
They know exactly what they are doing and the bounteous rewards at their destination. Just look at James Roberts; he’s already partying like it’s 1992, ’93, ’97- heck, like it’s the entire nineties.
Sure, Brisbane’s resurgent three-game winning streak has been against lowly opposition. Their form is more hard-nosed than spectacular, and they are eons from matching the competition’s front-runners. But enough facts.
Where the concerning changes lie is in the detail.
Firstly, the bloody-minded hunger is returning. How else do you explain Corey Parker’s desire to head-butt someone in the studs? It shows the team is ready to cast-off the fisherman-style of defence they adopted post-Origin where there was too much catch and release.
In addition to this, Anthony Milford and Ben Hunt have steadily improved with a critical tweak to their game plan, which focuses specifically on the pair of them not playing like shit.
If you are looking for two canaries in the mine shaft, these are your tweeties.
Have the Broncos timed their upwards trend perfectly? Like nobody actually believes but says it anyway, could they be the first team in the NRL that sneaks a premiership from outside the top four?
Are they set to earn a chance to prove their golden point surrender in last year’s grand final was no fluke?
For those who doubt the veracity of these claims, let me remind you of how Bennett back-doored us all in 2006 with an eerily similar run of events, filled with trademark death knells which I’m certain he somehow self-imposed.
Following a strong opening, his Broncos side lost five consecutive late in the season, crumbled in the first week of the finals, trailed 20-6 at halftime in the grand final qualifier, and then beat a side who’d lost four games all year in the decider.
He’d also sacked Kevin Walters a year earlier. No, seriously. I wish I was making this stuff up.
No doubt, Friday night will provide a stern test for this pie-in-the-sky theorem when the Broncos face up to Melbourne.
Craig Bellamy’s men will give a surefire indication as to whether Bennett’s slump has been a sham. They are the auditors who verify premiership claims down to the last cent. As we all know, nobody knows bookkeeping better than the Storm.
Either way, let this serve as a warning.
Do not trust Bennett under any circumstances. Until we have conclusive evidence that he’s forgetting his own name and needing a colostomy bag, the ‘senile old man’ act is just that – an act.
He may look like he has his hands full poaching footballers to play for England, but this man has a reputation for underhandedness so prominent it can be seen from the moon.