Wayne Bennett for coach of the Immortals

The fact that Bellamy has learned the finest arts of coaching from two of the NRL's Master-Class of Coaches(Wayne Bennett & Tim Sheens respectively)had, of course, aided him in the successes he's had throughout the years(Bennett's Man-Managerial approach & Sheen's technical prowess). But in his defence & to his credit, it takes a special individual to blend those traits together & utilize them effectively. And Craig Bellamy has well-proven that with remarkable & commendable results!! The talk & focus, with regards to the "Holy Trinity" is both legitimate & bogus, throw the likes of Inglis, Hoffman, Crocker, Finch, J.Smith etc in there, while we're all at it. There's no question, they all have played pivotal & integral parts in & of his coaching contributions to the success of the Melbourne Storm. But he is & has been equally, if not more pivotal to their successes both individually & as a playing group aswell. Week-in, Week-out, the Coach is responsible for mapping out team-strategy, player-welfare, development programs, recruitment strategies etc etc. And like both his predecessors before him(Bennett Sheens before him)Bellamy has proven & maintained that he is a Remarkable Coach, writing his own chapter on his own terms, successfully, i might add!!! *But of course, Wayne Bennett is & should be the logical choice as Master-Coach of the Once in a lifetime IMMORTALS Rugby League Team!!!*

Provan's non-playing record as a coach is actually very impressive. He coached Saints for one year (was it 68 or 69?), took Parra from wooden spooners to great heights in 1975 in his one year at the club. The won the preseason, made the Amco Cup final and then won two midweek playoffs against Balmain and Wests to make the semis, where they duly knocked over Canterbury. They were beaten the next week against Manly. In 1978 he took a young Sharks team to the GF where they were dudded in the first drawn game and overwhelmed in the replay.They also made the semis the next year, his last as a coach.

Exactly. And apart from some core players Bellyache rebuilds every year anyway

Johns really didn't deserve it, and I think every NSWelshman knows that deep down. It could have been different if they waited a decade or two, but no, they had to give it to the NSWelshman because Sydney is trying to give the blues a boast because they've hit a bit of a rough patch. Not to mention channel 9 simply wields too much power (really, one live game for the next 5 year in the internet age? Is the NRL that out of touch or is it just channel 9 calling the shots?) and its all bias media garbage either ways. Ookies right, and no matter how much the immortals is a cool concept and is something that we all want to have, we have to admit it’s a commercially driven entity. Seriously, check out the Rugby League Week website - http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/rlw/ - notice anything? Suggesting the immortals concept has integrity, would be suggesting channel 9 does. Something, non-commercial needs to be created to honour our greats. Simple as that.

I think you get more ignorant with every post that you make. For starters you bag out Sydneysiders for not turning up to league matches, and you use the fact that the Swans and Giants draw bigger crowds than some Sydney teams. HELLO?? 9 Sydney rl teams, 2 Sydney AFL teams. Individual AFL crowds should be four times as big as individual NRL crowds in Sydney. As for Joey. You talk about glorifying a "drug cheat" (not above, but I've seen you talk about it before). Pills are not performance enhancing for starters. In fact quite the opposite. Secondly, the only difference between Andrew Johns' off-field behaviour and the other 7 immortals' is that Joey's indiscretions are well publicised. It would not shock me at all if at least one of the other Immortals had tried recreational drugs in their life. But I can say for a fact that Joey was not the first NRL player to use recreational drugs, and he certainly will not be the last. And appart from anything else the Immortals is about on-field only. ON FIELD ONLY ON FIELD ONLY ON FIELD ONLY!!!!!!! How many times do I have to say it????? ON FIELD ONLY ONFIELD ONLY ON FIELD ONLY. I don't care if Joey killed someone. Immortality is judged solely on on-field performance. You just can't accept that Joey is better than Meninga.

The immortals should be scrapped. Just have hall of fames and each state can have their own immortals. Nobody takes it serious now after Joey was promoted ahead of others more deserving. Sydney has bigger issues, like getting crowds at least above AFL giants level. What do they get, 2 and a dog.

Who signed them and turned them into superstars? Isn't that the job of a coach?

Wayne Bennett would not look out of place as an Immortal, especially if he wins a premiership at the Knights during his tenure there. But I don't think they would ever make a coach an immortal. The whole immortals concept is based around on-field achievement and nothing else (hence Andrew Johns' off-field behaviour rightfully did not count against him). I don't think coaching would count as an "on-field achievement". I wouldn't be opposed to someone becoming an immortal because of coaching achievements, and i think if anyone deserves to be the first Immortal coach it's Bennett. But I doubt it would happen.

Provan wasn't a coach. He was a captain-coach yes, and he played in all of St George's 11 consecutive premierships, and was captain coach in 62, 63, 64 and 65. But he didn't "coach" the team in the same sense that Wayne Bennett does. Regardless, if you are going on premiership victories alone for a coach/captain-coach then Bennett still beats Provan 7-4.

".......... (although the Maroon blood in me..........)." Careful Robz, people will get the wrong idea!

Very true, I think when the storm picked him up from North Devils in Brisbane he was a second rower with a pretty hard reputation

I have never been able to split Bennett and Gibson as greatest coach (although the Maroon blood in me would tip me Benny's way if I absolutely had to make a choice). Bellamy is probably the best coach right now but I don't think he will ever truly equal Bennett/Gibson over the long term. But when we talk about the role of the Big 3 in his success, it is important to realise that Cronk was never a halfback until Bellamy put him there. He played his schoolboy and Qld club footy at lock, but Melbourne needed to fill a halfback spot and Bellamy had the foresight to throw Cronk the jersey and develop him - so all credit to him on that one.

is this oikee with a new name? "Had arguably the greatest side of all time" Well that pretty much defeats the entire argument of him the best coach...

Sorry,Rick not Robert.

Hard to argue with your points there Chris :)...........In my honest opinion the Brisbane comp was a hard talented one.Plus we had a smaller pool of players to draw from. I think they just lacked the professional touch that the likes of Gibson and co brought to the table with coaching. Bennett made up for that in spades

But still equivalent to first grade in the history books. He also won a BRL title as a coach as well. I think that he is the true mastermind of Queensland recent success in Origin. It is Bennett that the emerging Qld players meet at the start of the year and his idea to have a full time coach etc. This conversation he has with Richard Fidler is fascinating - as a player in a Queensland state squad they would sleep at night in the Lang Park dressing rooms: http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/04/15/3192500.htm

Cheers, it's a very very good in depth look at coaching etc

Wow, nice find. I hadn't seen that. Not included in the article is the quality of teams he coached. Brian Smith would've won premierships with his (near) Origin sides, though his work at Saints was high quality.

If where judging coaches on GF victories solely then the 1st coach picked is Norm Provan.Had arguably the greatest side of all time and duly won about 12 straight.Benny took the Knights challenge,brought the guts of his premiership winning Dragons with him and done nothing that Robert Stone didn't do...thus far.

He played A grade in the brisbane comp, like most other players who came from Queensland then played for Australia pre Origin days. Rod Morris, Greg Veivers, Mitch Brennan, Gene Miles, Wally Lewis etc etc . It was the pretty close to the same quality as the Sydney comp