Opinion
‘I miss you blokes’: It’s time for Russell Crowe to pick up the phone to Wayne Bennett
Andrew Webster
Chief Sports WriterIn the South Sydney dressing room after the 2021 grand final loss to Penrith, few were hurting as much as Wayne Bennett.
He’d lost big matches in the past. He’d lost a grand final. And he had the perspective that only comes with coaching football teams for more than half a century.
But Bennett was so devastated by the defeat that he didn’t address his players, which was a surprise to many of them because they were waiting to hear from him.
The match was played at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane because COVID-19 had seen the entire NRL competition relocated to Queensland midway through the season.
As the team bus made its way back to the Gold Coast, where the Rabbitohs were staying, officials were stunned when they realised Bennett wasn’t on the bus. He’d decided to stay in Brisbane.
Before arriving at the hotel, football manager Mark Ellison asked for the bus to stop so he could thank the players for their efforts that season – particularly halfback and captain Adam Reynolds, who was joining the Broncos.
Mitchell shared a close bond with former Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett.Credit: Getty
“I felt I had to do that because Wayne didn’t,” Ellison said. “It was disappointing.”
Some at Souths felt it was a snub; a selfish act from a coach who had already moved on to his next big contract at another club.
Two months later, on the first day of pre-season training, five-eighth Cody Walker was walking into Redfern when his phone buzzed. It was Bennett, who by this stage had been announced as the Dolphins’ inaugural NRL coach.
“F--- I miss you blokes,” he told Walker.
Cody Walker and Wayne Bennett during their time together at the Rabbitohs.Credit: Getty
After winning just five matches in 20, and just one match this season to sit at the bottom of the ladder, it’s painfully clear that South Sydney miss Bennett.
A dreaded “internal review” will be held after Saturday night’s match against Cronulla at Accor Stadium to unearth what Sam Burgess seemed to know all along: Jason Demetriou ain’t the guy.
When Burgess fronted the board and management on his final morning at the club, he made it very clear, in a very Sammy Burgess way, that Souths weren’t going anywhere under Demetriou. And he’s been proven right.
While some at Souths have no appetite for Bennett returning, and even less for Burgess as his assistant, there’s only one appetite that matters: that of co-owner Russell Crowe, who holds a paternal respect for the man he calls “Mr Bennett”.
Russell Crowe and Wayne Bennett share a common respect.Credit: Artwork: Stephen Kiprillis
So, with that in mind, Crowe needs to take control of his club by stepping off the set of the movie he’s shooting in Budapest, find the phone he allegedly threw at a New York hotel employee all those years ago, and call him.
There’s no other genuine alternative who can get Souths going again. More significantly, there’s no other coach who can get Latrell Mitchell firing.
Mitchell is the problem child nobody at Souths knows how to handle, but Bennett squeezed the best out of him in his three years at the club and can do it again.
When Mitchell fell out with the Roosters at the end of 2019, he was weighing up $1.4 million a season at the Wests Tigers. That’s some serious gravy. Then he met with Bennett, who had only just joined Souths, and money suddenly didn’t matter as much.
“Nobody has ever spoken to me like that before,” Mitchell told his manager, Matt Rose, as they left Bennett that day. “That’s who I want to play for.”
Mitchell was so desperate for Bennett to coach him, he signed a one-year deal so that Souths could squeeze him into their salary cap.
Steve Renouf playing for the Broncos.Credit: Greg White
Bennett has a long history of getting the best out of Indigenous players.
“He respects the footy we bring,” former Broncos centre Steve Renouf, a Gunggari and Gubbi Gubbi man, said. “He’d say, ‘I can’t coach what you bring, so just do what you do.’”
Just as Bennett would allow Renouf to return to his home town of Murgon, he’d let Mitchell return to his farm in Taree to escape the attention that shadows his every move.
He wouldn’t talk to Mitchell about football but his cattle because Bennett has cattle on one of his five farms around Warwick in Queensland.
Bennett doesn’t give “preferential treatment” to players, but understands that all players are different, and some require a different approach to others.
He’d certainly know when – and have no tolerance for – a player taking the piss. He would never have allowed Mitchell to get to a point where he’s elbowing Warriors halfback Shaun Johnson in the head as he did on Saturday afternoon.
In 2021, neither Mitchell nor Walker were taking the piss. Rather, they played the best football of their careers, the former trampling opponents and the latter bouncing off and darting around them.
All Bennett has said publicly about his own future is he wants to coach beyond this year when his Dolphins contract ends.
He won’t retire, and his top lip curls with disdain when you suggest the idea of him becoming a “coaching director”.
The 74-year-old loves a dollar but what drives him more than people understand is history. He is desperate to become the first coach to win premierships at three clubs.
To do so with the team that lost the 2021 grand final would appeal to Bennett’s ego.
The Dolphins sit at the top of the ladder, although they’re only there after picking off some low-hanging fruit in the Dragons, Titans and Tigers. Friday night’s blockbuster against Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium will give us a better gauge of where they stand.
Clearly, though, the game hasn’t passed him by. He’s still squeezing the best out of young men with simple, honest conversations.
We told you in this space in August last year after Burgess’ dramatic departure that speculation linking Bennett to the Rabbitohs would crank up by late April if Demetriou didn’t bank some early wins. It has come a few weeks early.
Bennett has unfinished business – with himself and Souths. It’s time for Crowe to make the call.
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