Culture first and talent later as Wayne Bennett stamps his mark on Dolphins
Wayne Bennett is blunt. He has always been so, and duly stayed true to form in the press conference to mark his unveiling as inaugural Dolphins coach. The 71-year-old sat in front of media on Thursday and listened to enquiries about the nitty gritty of the make-up of his future squad. He has a competitive NRL roster to build, and can approach any player who is off contract at the end of 2022 from 1 November.
Cameron Munster, Kalyn Ponga and Harry Grant are big names already doing the rounds and headline the more than 150 players who will be coming off contract. But as he took questions about how he planned to fill the $9.5m salary cap, which stars he would steal from which club and what qualities would fit his ideal environment, Bennett was sharp.
“Culture, every time,” he said. “The talent will come, we’ll grow the talent, we’ll find the talent, but it’s who we are and what we stand for that’s important within clubs. My dream is to have them come here as six-year-olds and play NRL. I really mean that. I can’t think of anything more exciting for a young player than to know he can come through the system and play first grade.
“Clubs in Sydney do that. There was seven or eight at Souths and they make your club, they make your team because they’ve got the love for the place and they want to be a part of it and they want to play in front of their parents and friends and they’ve done that since six years of age.”
Bennett, of course, will sign marquee players. He said as much in that same press conference, that it “will be our priority to get those players and build the other players around them”. And he acknowledged that his 2020 tenure as Queensland State of Origin coach had created connections with Maroons starters including Munster, Tino Fa’asuamaleaui and Christian Welch, relationships that “won’t hurt me”.
But his point about culture is sound, and demonstrated by his past – all three decades and seven premierships of it.
There is a reason he is the only coach to take four different clubs to a grand final – including Brisbane five years after they joined the NRL in 1988 – and only part of it involved tinkering
with the roster. Bennett is a coach of tactics but he is also a coach of people. The human beings behind the brawn, who generally play the game a bit better if they’re all on the same page and believing the same thing.
He did it as foundation coach of the Broncos – albeit with access to Origin talent from the Queensland competition – leading them to six trophies. Same with St George Illawarra in 2010. By the time he had joined and left Newcastle and returned to the Broncos he was being discounted as too old. Past it. Out of touch.
History will show the septuagenarian’s second coming in Brisbane ended in bitterness, but he reminded his critics he still had it when, in 2020, he led Queensland to an unlikely Origin series win. And again in 2021, when he took South Sydney to the grand final and narrowly lost to Penrith.
His half-time speeches are the stuff of legend and the taciturn exterior appears to melt during moments when players required a softer touch. His most recent Maroons win – four previous sides won the series under his tutelage – was at the helm of young but inexperienced legs. There were no heroes from series past, just a bunch of rookies ready to be galvanised. After game two, having just lost 34-10 to set up a series decider, Bennett chatted in the dressing room, calmly, smiling and chatting. In complete control.
Bennett is a man manager, a manager of men, and suitors from other clubs know it. The Dolphins already have an established facility. Build a culture and the talent will come on its own.
“The thing I want to establish here is trust so the players can feel it’s a place they’re always going to be welcome at and build relationships with the staff and the players,” Bennett said. “The better we play the better we’ll build that relationship [with the community] as well.
“If they see a team here that’s trying hard every week, we won’t always win but doing their best every week, that’s what I’ll be aiming to do here, whether we win or lose you’ll see a team that’s doing their best for you.
“It will help us attract players because it will be that once-off opportunity to [be an inaugural player at a new club] but more importantly there’s a great facility here and a great reputation about this club so we’re not starting from scratch.”