Rumblings at the Rabbitohs as Bennett takes charge

Firstly, I'm sick and tired of reading these speculative articles that just a journalistic sensationalism of a hit and miss speculative nonsense! As a diehard Souths fan my conclusion are as follows, Bennett was never ever thought of at Souths in 2018 and especially for 2019, Bennett got the job because Souths were put into an aquand and difficult situation and had no other option(s) after the deceptive dog act that Seibold did and left us with. I'm not being disrespectful here and saying that Bennett was a bad choice but, those were the facts. All in all, some of your assumptions are ridiculous e.g. “Cody Walker can anticipate problems with Bennett’s approach to coaching” then this “The Burgess twins have typically not put in the hard yards or met statistical targets early in the NRL season” which might have been true before with the Burgess twins, who were not top notch post our win of the 2014 GF but, they were the main force behind Souths excellent results in 2018 as I'm sure that it won't be different in 2019 for them, especially with Bennett there. All in all, there’s no worries at Souths and I predict that Bennett will chime into his coaching style and get our boys firing as they all the confidence and the respect of what Bennett will do in the future and for the next 3 years in winning a GF. Go the Bunnies bring on 2019!

Don’t kid yourself mate as Corey Allan has been training at Fullback. GI will stay at Centre. Souths Back 5 will be… Allan Gagai Inglis Graham Johnston

I'm not sure why Cody Walker would have a problem with Bennetts style of coaching when he is a similar style of player to the last 5/8 Bennett coached at the Broncos. Also since when do trial matches give any sort of indication as to the year ahead.? I seem to recall a below strength Dogs outfit hammering the Pennies or someone in the trials last year which caused a bit of excitement.

Walter, keep your articles coming as you only get better through experience. You yourself will know where you have got it wrong most of the time, (facts or lack of) as well, you will hear from the readers here. You have been given plenty of encouragement from others here, so take it and do keep submitting your articles. You are always going to find certain individuals who think it's fun to put others down regardless what you have written. Take comfort from the fact that people are at least reading your articles. It takes a brave person to have a go at something that they have had little experience with and then putting it out there to be critiqued. Keep going man!

In my book Bennett gets a free pass for his result at the Knights in 2014. Having one of your most popular players have his neck broken and confined to a wheelchair in Round 3 is uncharted territory for a team and coach. They might have gone a lot worse that year had Bennett not been the coach.

They finished his 3 seasons 10 - 12 - 10 wins and both '12 and '14 were two wins from final appearances. You can dismiss who they beat in their finals campaign all you like and I'll offer the same result by a club that does the same thing every single year. Brown got 8-1-5 respectively for his 3 spoons but apparently that's still Bennett's fault.

Folks - complaining the author doesn't have any "facts" thus degrading his writing. People are allowed to write opinion pieces you know? Now, that said, it helps if the opinion is backed up by something tangible and the thing with opinions on coaching is we (the public/media/social media) only see about 15% of their actual work. We actually don't know what they are like in preseason, and we don't know what the players think of their coach and we don't know what sort of communicator a coach is with his players - we never see any of that (apart from 15 seconds of a dressing room camera at half time during the season). But for example I think it is reasonable to speculate that Bennett will move Inglis to fullback because Inglis fits the mould of Bennett teams historically where the fullback is a solid ball player - not really AJ's strength. AJ is also a below par defender so perhaps Bennett see's AJ going to the wing (have they re-signed Jennings yet?) and an alternate options in the centres.

The Knights came 12th in Bennett's first season, 7th in his second (the year they made the preliminary final, and 12th in his third.

"Bennett himself cannot expect to deliver a premiership in his first season as coach at Souths if his experience at the Dragons (second-year premiership), Knights (nowhere near anything) and return to the Broncos is anything to go by." This might just be the strangest take I've seen all off-season. A premiership in just the 2nd season at the Dragons, a preliminary final in his 1st season at the Knights (losing his captain to injury early in the game) and a Grand Final loss in extra time in his 1st season back at the Broncos. I mean, there's being wrong, and then there's being so embarrassingly wrong that it just becomes...strange. Does any of this mean that the Bunnies will win the comp this year? No. But to suggest they will struggle to do so because it's Bennett's 1st year in charge...bloody hell. The season really just needs to start, doesn't it? Articles like this surely mean summer is coming to a close.

You are telling us that he will be unsuccessful but you have NO facts to back it up. I'm not judging Bennett until we see the Rabbitohs start playing games.

Why a News hack? I know plenty at the ABC and Fairfax who get plenty wrong and deliberately so. Put your biases away, please.

2013 Newcastle made the finals on a 12-1-11 record, beat a Bulldogs team that limped into the finals, got an impressive win in Melbourne, and then had 40 put on them by the Roosters. One good result shouldn't take precedence over the just above average season and the mediocre 3 year stint.

Hope your not a betting man LOL

There are no rumblings at the rabbits. Training sessions are going well. It appears from observers to be more intense and better execution of set plays etc.The bar is set higher with respect to sloppiness in training. I’m expecting similar attack but much better defensively . Which will put us in the frame in 2019

I am pretty sure Bennett ( along with the entire playing group and front office ) fully expect to deliver a premiership in his first season ..... otherwise, why bother turning up ? There's no rebuild going on here . He has an excellent squad to work with and would be well aware expectations are high .

Pretty sure that Bennett tried hard to get Cody Walker to the Broncos around 2017 as the type of halfback they needed to take the pressure off Milford at the time. He might have had a year to run on his contract but ended up extending with Souths. Don't see there being any issues there with him. More likely Qld U20 fullback Corey Allen has been caught off guard as he left the Broncos because of Bennett extending Boyd's contract for 4 years cutting out any hope of him getting that fullback spot. Now Inglis looks like shutting him out at Souths so wouldn't surprise to see him go elsewhere pretty soon. Happy for him to come back to the Broncos & Boyd pull the plug, those hamstrings don't let Darius stretch out any more.

Walter Penninger, you really have no idea, do you?

Ricky Stuart , Michael Hagan and Phil Gould won titles in their first season of coaching 1st grade so I can't see why any coach needs to bide his time to win a title. Experience as a first grade coach and time at a club aren't related to a clubs chance of winning a title. Roster, injuries and players developing during a season are much more important. The Roosters won and players like Radley, Mitchell and Manu gathered a head of stem as the season progressed along with Tedesco emerging as one of the worlds top players. I think Robinson won in his rookie year in coaching as well as well. Bennett may have had an aura of winning the big games but that has long gone and any title win at the Rabbits will be largely on the back of his players being injury free and in great form.

This article is based on a load of nonsense. No where - no where - has there been any suggestion of disharmony or rumblings in the Souths camp. The author wants us to think the Burgess boys don't train well early on so Bennett will have problems with them. The reverse is the reality - Bennett knows them well and has coached them for England and speaks highly of them all. Likewise Walker. It's on record Bennett wanted Walker at Brisbane before he (Walker)signed with Souths. And don't forget Maguire coached him without problem and he is a far harder marker than Bennett. Then there is the notion the Crowe owns 50% of Souths. He doesn't. He has 37.5%, same as James Packer with the members owning 25%. So many facts and assumptions wrong I can't help thinking the author is a News Ltd hack who now have it in for Bennett.