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Opinion

Wayne Bennett leaves clubs in tatters. Are Souths next?

28th February, 2022
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28th February, 2022
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Rome was not built in a day and NRL premierships are not won off the back of just 12 months of work and the recruitment of star players.

While quality footballers are mandatory when it comes to competing consistently for the title, it’s something immeasurable and far less tangible that provides the fuel with which the great teams earn premierships.

Melbourne Storm and Sydney Roosters are current examples of exactly that: teams that have and will continue to be blessed with the service of undoubtedly talented players. Yet they are also clubs built around a much firmer foundation of spirit, unity and culture that separates them in terms of consistent performance.

Both are rugby league clubs that have been built, renovated and maintained in order to achieve long-term success. In essence, both are large-scale succession plans. Despite the departure of a coach or key players, the basis of the football business they transact and their underlying philosophies remain the same.

Penrith now loom as something similar after Phil Gould’s influence helped to set up a successful and reliable junior pathway system that saw the area’s best talent held and the right balance achieved in the playing roster.

With Gould’s arrival at the Bulldogs for 2022, it’s clear the Canterbury board is undertaking a similar journey and realising that the floundering of recent seasons had to stop and that a medium to long-term vision was urgently required.

With Wayne Bennett off to the Dolphins to take on the head coaching role for its inaugural NRL season in 2023, South Sydney’s succession planning will be well tested. History tells us that when the NRL’s most successful coach departs, there are serious challenges to face in the immediate aftermath. After a full three years at the helm, one grand final appearance in 2021 and preliminary finals in both 2019 and 2020, the Bunnies are one of the current powerhouses of the competition.

Across the last ten seasons participation in the NRL finals has been absent from Souths’ resume on only two occasions, and Bennett did all bar earn them a second premiership during that period, with a heartbreaking 14-12 loss to the Panthers in last season’s decider.

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Where the club finishes in 2023 and beyond is interesting to ponder, with Bennett’s track record suggesting that he leaves teams seemingly in far worse shape than they appeared on the day he walked out the door.

After an original 21-year stint at the Broncos during which a glorious six premierships were won, Bennett’s departure in 2009 saw new coach Ivan Henjak take the reins. He would lead the club to its first missed finals series in 18 seasons during just his second year in charge. With Bennett now at St George Illawarra, Brisbane became a shadow of their former selves within two seasons, and Henjak’s papers were stamped soon after.

Wayne Bennett

(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

Contrastingly, Bennett had his Dragons firing from the moment he arrived, claiming two minor premierships and an elusive red and white title in 2010.

With Henjak gone, Anthony Griffin took his place on the hot seat in Brisbane and, after some initial promise in 2011, was similarly dismissed after three further seasons of play in which the Broncos continued to wade in mediocrity.

At the same time, Bennett took up digs in Newcastle and somehow managed to drag the Knights to a 2013 preliminary final despite serious limitations in his playing roster. As the Knights improved, the Dragons collapsed to three consecutive seasons without semi-finals action, and after Bennett’s departure at the completion of the 2014 season, the Knights slumped to three successive wooden spoons, with the NRL’s best coach’s reputation for leaving clubs in a tattered state further enhanced.

Brisbane called Bennett home after it was determined that Griffin was not the man to rebuild a floundering team, and in his first season of 2015 the old master had the Broncos back in the finals. Only one of the most desperate and gripping finales prevented his eighth premiership, and the hypothesis that success follows wherever Bennett travels was once again proven beyond any doubt.

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Three more trips to the finals followed for Bennett’s now consistent Brisbane before South Sydney lured the coaching genius down south once again and the current period of sustained competitiveness began. At the same time, former South Sydney coach Anthony Seibold oversaw a debacle in Brisbane and an eventual wooden spoon in 2020. Kevin Walters had no further luck in 2021, with 14th the best his Broncos could manage.

With Bennett’s penchant for luring quality men from his most recent place of employment and many players’ apparent determination to play for him and perhaps not the new man to the job, each and every club that Wayne Bennett has visited since his NRL coaching debut in 1988 has somewhat crumbled upon his departure.

Partly it speaks to just how effective and brilliant he is as a coach and man manager while also potentially casting aspersions on the men that have followed him.

While the St George Illawarra fans loved their premiership and Knights folk enjoyed the rise before the most dramatic of crashes, one wonders whether it was worth the investment. The NRL’s greatest coach will give you a heck of a high and a mighty low when he leaves.

One wonders if South Sydney is about to live that reality in the very near future.

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