Does this in any way resemble the truth of the situation?Wayne Bennett forced to watching Broncos training from his office as coaching farce drags on
Wayne Bennett is a prisoner in his own palace.
If there is a living, breathing example to adequately capture Brisbane’s messy handling of the succession plan for Bennett, it was laid bare at 10.11am at Red Hill.
For Brisbane’s big guns like skipper Darius Boyd and veteran hooker Andrew McCullough, it was their first day back at training for the 2019 pre-season.
Their first session represented the embryonic steps in Brisbane’s quest to break a 13-year premiership drought next season.
It was also the first day back for Bennett.
No wonder the Broncos look slightly confused. (Annette Dew)
Fresh from masterminding England’s 2-1 Test series defeat of New Zealand in the UK, Bennett should have been front and centre on Red Hill’s freshly-manicured turf, the Big Boss watching his troops from close range with his trademark crooked grin.
Instead, Bennett was, metaphorically speaking, behind bars at the Broncos.
The coaching circus — and Brisbane management’s confusing communication amid the pursuit of Bennett’s successor Anthony Seibold — has forced this bizarre, nonsensical incarceration.
Wayne Bennett forced to watch from his office. (Annette Dew)
As Broncos players trained happily in a relaxed mood, Bennett felt under siege, determined to sidestep the relatively minor gathering of media by hiding away in the plush office he may be forced to depart in coming weeks.
How did it get to this? Wayne Bennett, the NRL’s greatest mentor and Brisbane’s only premiership coach, reduced to watching his players, at the great club he built, through a second-floor glass window.
The Courier-Mail exclusively captured the moment Bennett briefly left his office to peer at the action below.
Is this what the Broncos legend has been reduced to? (Annette Dew)
After six hours in confinement, Bennett produced a Houdini-style escape. By 2.30pm, he had vanished, avoiding five news crews by using decoy cars, crawling to an escape vehicle and lying down in the back seat to flee Red Hill.
Backdoor Benny had done it again.
Welcome to the latest episode of Australia’s Most Wanted … err, sorry, day one of Brisbane’s 2019 pre-season.
A besieged coach seeking shelter like some sort of on-the-run criminal amid a group of confused players who have spent the past week discussing who will be their boss next season.
As Bennett hid, McCullough fronted the media. He should have been waxing lyrical about Brisbane’s bright new campaign. Instead, the first question was whether Bennett would be their coach next year.
McCullough flashed a wry, Bennett-style grin and shrugged his shoulders.
“Same as you guys, as players it’s the unknown,” he said.
“We can only be guided by Wayne says. He will be here at the moment and we’ll go from there.
“As a playing group, it’s out of our control what happens. We’ll just work with what we’ve got.”
Andrew McCullough could only shrug his shoulders. (Lachie Millard)
Seibold is ready to come to the Broncos and Souths will happily release him, so the final impediment now is Bennett.
Morris is likely to offer Bennett a compensation deal, but the 68-year-old won’t cop any cut-price arrangement.
It means Brisbane face an expensive $1 million-plus payout, when you factor in Bennett’s assistants and Seibold’s salary, or the supercoach stays put for one final, turbulent season.
When the madness ends is anyone’s guess, but Bennett’s actions must surely be the final strand of evidence for Brisbane bosses to pull the trigger — at any cost — and bring Seibold to town.
Only then will sanity return to Red Hill.
Yep, looks like the only thing stopping Bennett being out there were a set of stairs.
Well when you get older those stairs do start to be more of a challenge
Plus we had a star hooker coming through the juniors
Who wrote this shit?
It's a classic Badel.
No. He wasn't forced by anyone, he clearly chose to watch without the hounding knobjockeys disturbing the players.
Fair enough but I don't agree that game is evidence that the future in 2019 is THAT word. My hope is WB sticks to his guns and does indeed demand the full payout although I have no idea what his thinking on that is. He doesn't need the board's support, he only needs his player's support and his staff as well. The board won't make any hard runs, the media won't make a single tackle, only his crew counts. If he stays and they hit the ground running then I predict all this angst will disappear but yes, if a tiny crack appears it will be wedged open by all the haters.
