Opinion by Paul Kent
October 11, 2005
WAYNE Bennett, who casts the biggest shadow in the game, is a man under attack for the very trait that has made him one of the great ones.
That is the irony, the sadness and the hypocrisy.
Only a shallow dig into the past of those who came out on the weekend and attacked Bennett, after he sacked his coaching staff last Friday, will find all were sacked by him.
Number one critic was Willie Carne, who did little of any significance again after Bennett sacked him.
There was Trevor Gillmeister, who faded away at Penrith, and Wally Lewis, the all-time great who couldn't put together another winning season after Bennett gave him the punt.
Bennett's sacking of Gary Belcher, Glenn Lazarus and Kevin Walters from his coaching staff last Friday was enough cause, it seems, for them to attempt to settle old scores. Once again it reveals their own failings, and anyone else who buys into Bennett's purge as blame-shifting has missed the lesson of history.
Belcher, Lazarus and Walters might not have been the problem at the Broncos, but after several unsatisfactory years by Brisbane standards, they are clearly not the answer, either.
So getting it right again starts with Bennett.
He couldn't have quit himself because nobody was able to do a better job.
Five premierships has taught the coach that. By accepting this truth, and making the tough call, Bennett has gone back to an old formula.
When Jack Gibson coached his rule was never stay at a club for more than three years, and for all coaches it became a rule set in stone.
Gibson, perhaps the greatest ever, believed he needed to move on before he tired of the players and the players tired of him, and three years was about the limit.
So he would take his entire coaching staff with him to his new club and there he would refresh his enthusiasm and also his ideas.
He did the same for the players, too. Bennett changed it by doing it the other way.
People wonder why Bennett has been able to stay at a club for 18 seasons and get them into the past 14 finals series.
It was a simple reversal.
Rather than refresh himself by finding a new club, Bennett refreshed his ideas by hiring new talent under him.
He hired ex-players that had played under Gibson, Warren Ryan, Tim Sheens, Brian Smith and other coaches that have made their mark.
Then he questioned them, and challenged the ideas they brought with them. If he liked their response he stole it for the Broncos, if he didn't he explained why. Then he was challenged by them about his ideas, and questioned why, and it all worked for the good of the Broncos.
In the past few years Bennett strayed, though, and hired his coaching staff not for their smarts but for loyalty, for what they did for him as players.
The Broncos declined in that period, ideas grew stale.
By making the tough call Bennett has taken the steps to reinvigorate the Broncos.
As for the opinions of the disgruntled, well, it just underlines the coach's decision.
The Daily Telegraph