Wayne Bennett has long maintained he’s the only one who can successfully coach the Brisbane Broncos. He certainly didn’t think Kevin Walters could do the job.
When Bennett was at war with then Broncos chief executive Paul White in 2017, he told the club he wanted assistant Jason Demetriou to eventually succeed him ahead of Walters, who was also on his coaching staff.
“I didn’t want Kevin,” Bennett told me in an interview for the recently released biography The Wolf You Feed. “I didn’t think he was up for the job.”
Bennett often theorises that only a special, battle-hardened individual who can withstand the pressure and scrutiny of coaching the Broncos can handle the Red Hill hot seat.
In other words, himself. In many respects, he’s been proven right: Ivan Henjak, Anthony Griffin and Anthony Seibold all failed to deliver.
As the club careers towards Sunday’s grand final against Penrith at Accor Stadium, it turns out Walters is more than capable.
Coaching the Broncos is Walters’ dream job. He coveted it for years as he bounced from one club to another as an assistant coach and twice under Bennett.
He was finally given the nod in 2021 after a relentless campaign from his former teammates, led by Chris Johns and Gorden Tallis.
For his first two seasons, the normally jovial Kevvie presented like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. When I had lunch with him during the off-season, he barely cracked a smile, looking every bit like a coach who needed a top-four finish to keep his job.
The simplistic assumption about the Broncos is they coach themselves because they’re loaded with representative players.
Certainly, they have a production line that every club – except, perhaps, the Panthers – would envy.
It’s why Bennett wanted to hang around: he could see the quality players coming, rising through the ranks. Instead, he was sacked in 2018 because of a bitter fallout with White and News Corp, the club’s majority shareholder.
As Bennett and Walters will tell you, managing expectation, scrutiny and the ego of players who are feted like rock stars in rugby league-obsessed Brisbane is fundamental to success.
But Walters had a particularly tough job. Not only did he inherit a crestfallen team that finished last in 2020 following two disastrous years under Seibold, but also a roster that – excuse the crassness – didn’t seem to give a shit.
Walters’ great mate and former halves partner, Allan Langer, summed it up when comparing the current crop to Bennett-coached teams of the past.
“I look at the last few years at the Broncos,” Langer told me in early 2022. “It was a disaster because the group didn’t want to play for each other. They didn’t hurt enough when they lost. A Wayne Bennett team hurts when it loses. So does he.”
Exactly why Walters has got the Broncos finally humming is hard to pin down, but it’s clear losing hurts again.
He’s made some significant moves in just three years. He personally ensured South Sydney halfback Adam Reynolds came to the club and was then savvy and humble enough to allow Reynolds to run the team. The payoff: the 33-year-old is playing the best football of his career, telling NRL.com earlier this week he’s “fallen deeply in love with the club”.
For two years, prop Payne Haas threatened to leave for bigger money in Sydney, but Walters kept quietly telling us that he would convince him to stay. And he did, with Haas committing until the end of 2027.
Then there’s Reece Walsh, the uber-talented fullback who has gone from lairy loudmouth who sprays referees to calm, respectful superstar all in the space of one season.
So Walters has gone from coaching for his life at the start of the season to being one win away from becoming the first Broncos coach since Bennett in 2006 to land a premiership. Sunday will seem an eternity away from late 2005 when Bennett sacked him as an assistant coach.
“How do I get better?” Walters asked at the time.
“Not the right time to ask that question,” Bennett grumbled.
Bennett then handed Walters a written reference on Broncos letterhead. It was so touching and full of praise that Walters started to cry.
“Mate, if I was this good,” Walters asked, “why’d you sack me?”
Sydney Morning Herald
