‘I feel sorry for you blokes’: The Wayne Bennett speech that got Dolphins flying

Key points

• The classic Wayne Bennett speech after the Dolphins’ win over the Roosters.
• Roosters almost resigned to Joseph Suaalii going to rugby.
• The Dragons have cranked up the NRL coaching merry-go-round earlier than normal.

The easiest storyline this side of Suncorp Stadium this week is about Wayne Bennett versus the Brisbane Broncos.

Not the Dolphins versus the Broncos, but Bennett versus the Broncos. That’s how big the Bennett legend has become: he’s a club unto himself.

But let’s rise above the ugly tit-for-tat between Bennett and his former team following his sacking in 2018, straight up the Suncorp Stadium tunnel and into the Dolphins’ dressing-room after their stunning 28-18 victory over the Roosters in the first round earlier this month.

Bennett isn’t one for long oratories before, during or after matches. As his late mother would tell him: “Shut up Wayne – nobody’s listening.”

But people listen to Patsy Bennett’s son now. They hang on every word and the power of his message is always in its simplicity.

“I feel sorry for you blokes – you’re f—ked,” Bennett told his players, according to someone in the room. “I didn’t think you’d get here so quickly. That’s the standard now.”

Wayne Bennett addresses his players in the sheds after the round one win over the Roosters.Credit:NRL Photos

Bennett’s former St George Illawarra players have heard that one before: he used the same line after their 17-16 golden point loss to Melbourne in the opening round of the 2009 season, his first match in charge.

If you’re going to plagiarise someone, it might as well be the greatest coach in history who also happens to be yourself.

The Dragons won the minor premiership that season, and the premiership the following season, something their long-suffering fans thought impossible until Saint Benny arrived.

It seems equally impossible Bennett can work similar miracles with the Dolphins in their inaugural season in the NRL, although his side’s 3-0 start mocks pre-season predictions they would be the competition’s whipping boys.

Bennett poses for a selfie with a Dolphins fan after the win over the Roosters.Credit:Getty

Whenever I’ve spoken to Bennett in the last year for an unauthorised biography I’ve been working on about his career and life, he’s been amused about how many pundits – mostly former players – dismissed what he and chief executive Terry Reader have been building at the Dolphins.

“They’ve been writing me off my whole life,” he told me, sounding very much like Bill Heslop from Muriel’s Wedding who was “battlin’ all me life, battlin’ for Porpoise Spit.”

Indeed, the crystal-ball gazing in rugby league has become quite comical; opinions change as dramatically as the weather. But the way some widely dismissed Bennett and the Dolphins, simply because they couldn’t land a big fish like Cameron Munster or Kalyn Ponga, became absurd.

Where have they been for the last 50 years?

It’s been exactly half a century since Bennett, 73, started coaching when he took over the Queensland Police Academy under-20s team in mid-season.

“It was a wonderful opportunity to put to rest something that had played on my mind,” he has said. “I wanted to make a difference with these young men, and I had always believed I could do it.”

He has adopted the same creed with these Dolphins as he did with those fresh-faced police cadets: run hard, tackle harder, effort on effort on effort.

Bennett goes along with the widely held theory that he isn’t very knowledgeable about the tactics and technicalities of the game, something his assistant coaches and players say is a fallacy.

But there’s something to be said for his ability to give his young men – old, too – simple messages that result in glorious victories. The win against the Roosters in the opening round was a Bennett special.

He’s signed to the Dolphins for two seasons and is expected to hand the operation over to assistant coach Kristian Woolf in 2025.

After that? His confidants, including his family, predict he’ll never retire. He doesn’t seem like the type to play lawn bowls and make model airplanes.

Roosters resigned to Suaalii rugby switch

There’s a quiet sense of resignation coming out of the Roosters about Joseph Suaalii signing a big, fat deal with Rugby Australia from 2025 onwards.

RA insists no such deal has been done while you cannot believe a word that comes out of the Suaalii camp. He’s managed by Isaac Moses and being advised by art dealer Steve Nasteski: one operates in the shadows, the other seems to enjoy getting his name in the paper.

A News Corp report that Moses had been re-registered as an accredited rugby agent was seen by many at the Roosters as typical Moses posturing after the club extended captain James Tedesco until the end of 2025.

Suaalii wants to style himself on Sonny Bill Williams, hopping between the rugby codes, but that’s a tricky path to tread.

He’s a physical specimen, no doubt, but not in the same ballpark as Tedesco or even Joey Manu in terms of fullback play. Not yet, anyway.

If he did pull on a Wallabies jumper for the 2025 British and Irish Lions tour, then the 2027 World Cup on home soil, he’d presumably play inside centre, wing or fullback, a position that has been problematic for Australia in recent times.

Playing those positions as a schoolboy is one thing — playing them straight up against the Lions is a different proposition altogether.

Broken system meant Dragons had no choice with Hook

SPOTTED: St George Illawarra coach Anthony Griffin dusting off his old IBM Selectric typewriter and tapping out his resume after being told he will have to re-apply for his current job.

Or something like that.

The Dragons board has informed Griffin they will be sounding out other options for next year and beyond, and have been smashed up for doing it so early into the season. But they had little choice.

There are no secrets in rugby league, as they say in the classics, and it was better to be up front than go behind the coach’s back.

Furthermore, the NRL’s broken player contract system that makes clubs sign players more than a year before they arrive means coaches and staff need to be appointed well in advance, too.

The RLPA thinks the system is working fine, and is unconcerned about the havoc it causes clubs. Maybe they should ask “the fans” they continually say are foremost in the players’ minds.

Anthony Griffin will need to dust off his resume if he wants to keep his job at the Dragons.Credit:Getty

In telling Griffin to reapply for his job, the Dragons have cranked up the NRL coaching merry-go-round earlier than normal. Naturally, managers have been calling chief executive Ryan Webb all week spruiking their clients.

As revealed in this space last month, former prop Jason Ryles has support at board level. He’s an assistant coach at the Roosters, who wouldn’t stand in his way if another job came up if given enough notice.

Dean Young has been a raging success at North Queensland. So has Ben Hornby at South Sydney.

But, as we’ve said before, the deeper issue at the Dragons isn’t the coach but the set-up. They are crying out for a head of football.

Clive Churchill and John Sattler.Credit:Fairfax Media

THE QUOTE

“I’m telling you, Satts, stay out of the way — I’ll take the hit-ups.” — Souths prop John “Lurch” O’Neill to front-row partner John Sattler, who’d just had his jaw broken in three places in the 1970 grand final against Manly. Sattler died this week, aged 80.

THUMBS UP

NBL MVP Xavier Cooks played injured for the Sydney Kings as they won the championship last Wednesday then debuted for the Washington Wizards in the NBA three days later. In an era when players are governed by GPS and their “loads” managed, it was some effort.

THUMBS DOWN

The AFL tribunal must be drinking the same out-of-date milk as the NRL’s match review committee after Melbourne’s Kysaiah Pickett almost removed the head and mullet of Western Bulldogs midfielder Bailey Smith. He received a two-match ban, which should have been six.

It’s a big weekend for … the Sydney Swans, who play their first home match of the season at the SCG on Sunday against Hawthorn. They will be Buddy-less after he was ridiculously suspended for one match for an innocuous bump. (See above).

It’s an even bigger weekend for … Graham Arnold and the Socceroos as they meet Ecuador in a “Welcome Home” match at CommBank Stadium on Friday night. There’s no such thing as a friendly, especially when a fired-up Arnie is involved, so the joint will be jumping.

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