WHAT card will Wayne Bennett have up his sleeve when the supercoach celebrates reaching the unbelievable milestone of 900 video games coached in Magic Round at his favorite stomping floor Suncorp Stadium?
There’s no query Wayne’s biggest trick is instilling belief and perception in his gamers.
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Bennett is the undisputed better of the very best in relation to being a gamers’ coach.
Talk to anybody who’s performed for him from Sam Burgess to Wendell Sailor to Beau Scott or Gorden Tallis, Bennett’s genius is the way in which he pertains to his gamers, earns belief and understands what makes all footballers tick.
Not simply champion footballers, all footballers.
Like Craig Bellamy at Melbourne, Wayne can get the very best out of the gamers within the backside tier of the highest 30 the identical means he can extract brilliance out of the superstars.
Let’s take Jamie Soward, for instance. Bennett helped remodel the maligned Dragons playmaker right into a premiership-winning five-eighth when loads of different coaches had consigned him to the too exhausting basket.
His message? Real easy. Don’t carry your divots.
Play to your strengths and we’ll work in your weaknesses.
Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, Tom Gilbert and Connelly Lemuelu are three current examples on the Dolphins.
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Already good gamers, Wayne’s made them real stars.
He hasn’t executed it by tactical periodisation or X’s and O’s on an iPad.
He simply trains them exhausting, instils self-belief and treats them like males.
There’s sufficient well-known tales about Wayne to fill 5 books.
The seven premierships, the dust-ups with different huge figures within the recreation, the allies, the enemies.
From at all times sitting up the again of the bus (nothing good occurs on the entrance) to enjoying playing cards together with his gamers to falling asleep in his workplace as he’s moved into his 70s to a number of the State of Origin collection celebrations (we will’t print these), it’s a ripping learn.
Of course, it’d be unimaginable to outlive in rugby league for 5 many years with out making loads of enemies.
Wayne’s obtained loads of detractors however even his harshest critic can’t deny a file which can by no means, ever be overwhelmed.
Roosters coach Trent Robinson, 45, must coach for an additional 25 seasons within the NRL to equal the quantity of video games Bennett has coached when the Dolphins play the Sharks on Super Saturday in Brisbane.
Robbo has at the moment coached the Chooks for 266 video games and three premierships.
Let’s go over a number of the different coaches who’ve made it previous 400 video games on the roller-coaster trip of life as a head coach.
It’s an all-star line-up. Tim Sheens (677 video games, 4 premierships), Craig Bellamy (531 video games, three premierships) , Ricky Stuart (475 video games, one premiership), Des Hasler (458 video games, two premierships), Warren Ryan (415 video games, two premierships), Bob Fulton (405 video games, two premierships).
Fittler tight-lipped on five-eight spot | 01:30
Every single a kind of coaches has modified the way in which the sport is performed – a mark of how good they’re.
Bennett’s 62.5 per cent win ratio may not be forward of Bellyache or Bozo’s however what underlines the Dolphins coach’s genius is his ratio of constructing the finals.
When it involves qualifying for September, in 36 seasons on the high stage Bennett has made the finals 83 per cent of the time.
That’s phenomenal.
His critics bag his time in Newcastle however the actuality is he took them to a preliminary last in 2007 – one thing the Knights can solely dream about nowadays.
Then you issue within the eight State of Origin collection Wayne’s coached for Queensland (the Maroons gained 5, together with with the worst Queensland group in historical past in 2020).
And the 36 Test matches he’s coached for the Kangaroos and England.
And the function he performed with the Kiwis when New Zealand upset Australia within the 2008 World Cup.
And the premierships he gained within the Brisbane competitors earlier than becoming a member of the Canberra Raiders in 1987 alongside Don Furner.
In all chance it’s a file that can by no means be damaged.
What all of it provides as much as is the best coach the sport has ever seen.
‘Playing with hearth’ Hunt place change | 04:59
DRAGONS PLAYING WITH FIRE OVER HUNT
THE Dragons are enjoying with hearth by shifting the membership’s greatest star Ben Hunt into the dummy-half function because the Red V seek for the solutions to snap a four-match dropping streak.
Sure there’s no query Hunt will deal with it and there’s an argument given how properly he performs for Queensland and Australia within the no.9 jumper it’s truly most likely his finest place.
But the place St George Illawarra are rolling a harmful cube is by pushing Hunt into enjoying hooker they danger rival golf equipment sharpening their pencil to make a raid on the Red V.
The sort of character Hunt is he’ll do what’s required for the group however at 33 we’re tipping his choice for the rest of his NRL profession isn’t to play in the midst of the sphere making 40 tackles plus per recreation.
Given how tight Hunt and Dragons coach Anthony Griffin are there’s no query the coach could have sounded the Red V captain out in regards to the prospect of shifting in to play hooker.
Hunt spent all of a Wednesday coaching session at dummy-half however the way in which we’ve heard it the plan is for him to start out the sport at halfback after which transfer into the hooking function when Jayden Sullivan is known as upon from the bench.
The Dragons will attempt to argue Hunt has a two-and-a-half yr contract till the tip of 2025 and there’s no means they’ll be releasing their finest participant.
But within the fashionable NRL world most individuals are awake to contracts not often being definitely worth the paper they’re written on.
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Cashed-up golf equipment just like the Bulldogs, the Canberra Raiders and the Dolphins might all make a play for Hunt to play halfback and comfortably supply him properly over $1 million per season.
The champion Red V playmaker has already gone on the file this season stipulating how he’ll have to contemplate his choices if Griffin is now not the Dragons head coach.
Those odds are shortening by the day because the Dragons drive Griffin to endure a dying by a thousand cuts last 12 months on the St George Illawarra helm.
You’ve solely obtained to have a look at the way in which he’s taken an axe to the Dragons group listing for Sunday’s showdown in opposition to Wests Tigers to see how poorly the membership has dealt with the scenario.
The coach is everywhere in the store, very like membership administration and the board who remains to be but to make key choices round who’s in cost for subsequent season.
For all Griffin’s faults, it’s merciless the way in which the Dragons have rolled him out and allowed hypothesis about his future to show into an out-of-control bonfire.
The Hunt to hooker transfer is the most recent desperation play from a membership quick rivalling the Wests Tigers because the NRL’s greatest basket case.
HOOKS BAFFLING HANDLING OF LOMAX CALL
DRAGONS centre Zac Lomax was so irate about being axed from the NRL for Magic Round he returned to teach Anthony Griffin’s workplace to ask why.
When Griffin initially broke the news to Lomax on the membership’s Wollongong headquarters on Tuesday, the coach provided no reasoning however informed the centre to take a few days off and return to coaching on Friday when he’d clarify it.
Lomax initially went and sat within the WIN Stadium grandstand to course of what had simply unfolded earlier than returning to Griffin’s workplace to once more pose the query about why he’d been minimize.
Griffin gave no solutions and easily informed Lomax to go and funky down and he’ll get a proof on Friday.
Confused? Don’t fear, so are we.
This may need been acceptable within the Nineteen Seventies and 80s however within the fashionable world of sensible automobiles, Instagram likes and Chat GPT expertise, Griffin has dropped the ball huge time right here.
Griffin has lengthy worn criticism for poor communication relationship again to his days at Penrith Panthers and put merely Lomax deserved a proof.
Is it that tough?
Lomax is signed on the Dragons till the tip of 2026 having already exercised an possibility in his favour for the ultimate yr of the deal.
On about $550,000 this yr, the 23-year-old centre can be on across the $700,000 mark by the ultimate yr of the contract.
Surely it’s the coach’s job to get the very best out of the highest expertise on his roster and given Lomax’s wage we’re classifying him as high expertise.
Lomax, 23, can be a walk-up begin in most high 17s at any NRL membership.
While Ben Hunt skilled at hooker and Jayden Sullivan ran at halfback in Wollongong on Wednesday, Lomax was nowhere to be seen at St George Illawarra headquarters.
This is a nasty scene and says a lot about the place St George Illawarra are at as a membership in the mean time.
Dragons unfazed by Lomax being dropped | 01:05
Would something remotely like this have occurred below Wayne Bennett’s watch when he steered the membership to its final premiership in 2010.
No probability.
Imagine if Bennett had Zac Lomax on the Dolphins now. He’s turned Jamayne Isaako into one of many strike wingers within the NRL.
After the Dragons face the Wests Tigers in Magic Round the membership is then headed to the Gold Coast for a number of days earlier than making ready to tackle the North Queensland Cowboys in Townsville in spherical 11.
The robust mail is Jason Ryles is subsequent to no probability of accepting the top teaching place for 2024, Shane Flanagan’s consultant has been informed he’s extremely unlikely which principally leaves Ben Hornby in pole place.
Unfortunately for one of many greatest manufacturers within the NRL – on the again of the occasions of this week – we’re tipping this Red V unhealthy scene is about to get a complete lot worse earlier than it will get higher.
The Dragons must get 5 key areas of the membership proper.
Head coach, normal supervisor of soccer, head of recruitment, CEO and whoever else goes to work within the soccer division across the head coach.
All the great golf equipment have these areas sorted.
The Roosters, South Sydney, Melbourne, Penrith, Brisbane Cronulla and the Dolphins are prime examples.
St George Illawarra and their opponents on Sunday the Wests Tigers are nonetheless very a lot a piece in progress.
Source: www.foxsports.com.au