Brisbane should herald the second coming of Wayne's World

Years ago there was a billboard on Parramatta Road that read, “What would you do if Jesus came to Parramatta?”, under which someone had scrawled something along the lines of, “Move Ray Price into the second row”.

The second coming of Wayne Bennett to the Broncos will herald changes to the Broncos line up unthinkable for the majority of NRL coaches. 

However, Wayne Bennett is no ordinary coach, he is the coach.

Opinions are split in Queensland about whether Wayne Bennett’s return to the Broncos is a good thing or not. Really?! I’m presuming the people against it either don’t support the Broncos or know little about football.

Wayne Bennett is such a good coach that I bet Craig Bellamy secretly wishes he’d come to Melbourne. He is also a very good man. A great man in fact. Anyone who hasn’t yet seen the Australian Story on Bennett should do so.

Bennett encourages people to bring the best out in themselves to achieve their goals. The players who love him are devoted to him. He doesn’t have time for the mug lairs so prevalent among today’s players.

However, it is his results that put him on the top of the coaching pile. Bizarrely, this week people have been calling his record into question.

The first accusation is that the drover’s dog could have made the Broncos successful with their money and talent pool. True, the Broncos do have an average crowd of over 30,000. True, they have a reported turnover of around $40 million a year. And it is true that they are a one-team city.

However, a look at the Broncos without Wayne shows that life with Wayne was a lot better.

In the seasons he has been away, all the Broncos’ massive resources haven’t stopped them missing the finals twice and averaging an eighth-place finish, featuring a dismal 12th last year.

In Wayne’s 21 years as Broncos coach they only missed the finals three times. All three of those seasons – 88, 89 and 91 – had a five-team finals series and were right at the club’s beginnings. In two of them they came seventh and in 89 they tied for fifth but were beaten in a play-off by The Sharks. Under an eight-team finals system like we have now they wouldn’t have even missed those.

Every other season the Broncos made the finals. All their season finishes under his reign saw the Broncos average a fourth-place finish. And let’s not forget that the Raiders side he helped set up subsequently won three titles and were runners-up twice.

The next accusation is that while Bennett did bring the Dragons their first premiership in decades, in reality that St George Illawarra team were probably going to win anyway.

Total bollocks.

In the three seasons leading up to Bennett’s arrival the Dragons finished seventh, thirteenth and sixth. Sure they had some great talent but their performances were inconsistent at best and a shambles at worst.

In the joint venture’s first ten seasons they averaged a seventh-place finish. In Bennett’s three years at the helm they won two minor premierships, won the title, and averaged a second-place finish. Their defence, structure and results improved out of sight under Bennett.

The next accusation is that he has failed to achieve any results with the Knights, and has in fact left them in worse shape than when he arrived.

This is also rubbish. At worst Bennett leaves the Knights in exactly the same state as he found them: broke and mediocre. The six seasons before Bennett arrived in Newcastle their best finish was seventh and included a wooden spoon.

The Knights presently sit 14th, but only last year they stormed home to gain a spot in the preliminary final by beating the 2012 premiers the Storm in Melbourne. While they battled valiantly in the preliminary final, they were beaten by the eventual premiers, the Sydney Roosters. A serious injury to Danny Buderus early in that match really took the wind out of the Knights sails too. However, it was the Knights’ best finish to a season since 2004, and Bennett isn’t being given any credit for that at all right now. 

This season the Nathan Tinkler chaos has destroyed any chance the Knights had. Even Wayne, for all his brilliance, can’t polish a turd.

The decision to bring Bennett back to coach the Broncos was apparently made by a businessman. Roy Masters reported that Bennett talked with Lachlan Murdoch and convinced the News Ltd boss – whose organisation is the major shareholder of the Broncos – that he was the man for the job.

It is hard to believe that Bennett would have made any idle promises to secure a contract, and Murdoch knows that the Broncos winning premierships equates to increased revenue. Bennett, a seven-time premiership winner, has such a strong record of success that his appointment would have been a no brainer for an astute businessman. If Wayne says he is the man for the job, you should believe him.

It’s probably a good guess that Bennett will have carte blanch to create the team he wants. As Wally Lewis found out in 1990, Bennett has little respect for reputation. It’s his way or the highway. I’d expect that while Corey Parker initially made an impassioned defence of current coach Griffin, he will quickly fall into line behind Bennett.

There are certain to be changes in the playing roster. However, when questioned about the possible return of Darius Boyd with Bennett to the Broncos, Sam Thaiday responded, “We’ve already got three fullbacks, we don’t need another one.”

It is very unlikely that Thaiday will have any say in that matter though. Further, none of those three are as good as Boyd at the back. 

While Josh Hoffman is certainly a serviceable custodian, both Ben Barba and Anthony Milford regularly get swatted away like flies in one-on-one tackling contests, are border on woeful under the high ball, and have the worst kick return metres of all the regular NRL fullbacks in 2014. 

Darius Boyd may be unnecessarily rude at times, but statistically he is a very good fullback, and Wayne certainly seems to rate him. I’ll be surprised if Barba is plying his trade at the Broncos in 2015 and Boyd isn’t.

Thaiday may also be feeling some pressure. When Darren Lockyer was still playing, ‘the Hairy Brick’ regularly broke the line running off his captain’s short ball. He made lots of metres and scored lots of tries. However, this year he is averaging in the low 70s for metres gained a match and only has two line breaks and 14 tackle breaks to his name. Both Alex Glenn and Matt Gillett have stats that leave Big Sam’s in the shade.

While there are many detractors, there are also lots of people expecting Bennett to get quick results. Since the retirement of Darren Lockyer, the Broncos have not had a genuine superstar, someone who can lift them a notch above their opposition. A Greg Inglis, Jarryd Hayne or Billy Slater. The missing ingredient is that bona fide superstar. 

However, they could very well secure such a player with Daly Cherry-Evans.

The recent unrest coming out of Brookvale, mixed with the return of Bennett to Brisbane, may be enough to have DCE decide to follow Milford’s lead and head for home – and create the next Brisbane dynasty.

It’d have to be tempting.

Whatever Wayne Bennett orchestrates upon his return, you can bet that the Broncos will once more be a powerful force in the NRL in the very near future.