Wow - Wayne will shake things up when he takes over

Pre-season will be fun with Wayne and Corvo.

Be interesting to see how the Courier-Mail reacts if we miss the finals next year. Not saying it'll happen but there is a hell of a lot of pressure on him coming back.

Bennetts finished it will all end in tears

That is a typical East Hull perspective. I understand that everything in East Hull ends in tears.



But Brisbane is different. It is the rugby league capital of the world.





Bennett is far from finished. And Anthony Milford is coming. In Brisbane it will all end in smiles ......

Not everything in East Hull ends in tears Jean like the time the Queensland state of origin team came and got beat remembered for Mark Broadhurts punch and yes Bennet is finished

He has had everything he could ask for at Newcastle.
He has sacked about 30 players and built up his own team from scratch.
He has employed all his own staff.
He was given all the facilities he asked for.

The results speak for themselves. He has no excuses.

It is all very strange. He was so successful at Brisbane, and later even at St George-Illawarra.

Not strange Jean he's finished like I said

Not strange Jean he's finished like I said

Brisbane need a proper stand off first

I understand that the people who run Brisbane know absolutely nothing about rugby league, coaching etc. It is just such a shame that before hiring Bennett, they didn't ask for the definitive assessment of "fun time frankie", a true giant of coaching skill and knowledge. Bennett is surely no more than a pimple on frankie's backside. And to think they've been conned into paying $4m for this no-hoper!

Over in Aus, they only have mugs like Steve Renouf who madly believes Bennett is in a league of his own. No Steve, "fun time frankie" has it down, Bennett is "finished", deal with it.



Thanks mate, best laugh I've had in ages!

He's that good he turned Newcastle with no money into grand final winners oh hang on a minute he failed terribly with loads of money and everything he wanted

Not to knock Griffin but Bennett has a bit of an aura around him and I wouldn't be surprised if he was hired more to re-establish the club's culture than to win a premiership straight away.

It used to be players would want to play for the Bronx and get paid unders to do so but now it's just another club used in player negotiation with other clubs (ie: Inglis a few years ago and Hannant more recently). Melbourne and Souths have both overtaken it as the marquee club.

"Failed terribly"? Yeah, like despite the turmoil at the Knights, getting them to within one game of the GF last year? (KO by the winners).

"Everything he wanted"? The truth is you know nothing at all about the Newcastle situation, and are just being obtuse. Matt Gidley, another person whose knowledge of Newcastle is, oh, I dunno, a zillion times better than yours, said about Bennett's record at Newcastle:
“=#0000FFBut you know, as we all do, there are circumstances surrounding this situation."

(Pausing there, I suspect you actually know feck all about those circumstances. Maybe you should look them up)

“=#0000FFAnd the way Wayne has stabilised this club throughout an extremely turbulent period, the care he’s shown ... it’s been remarkable.”

But what does he know, eh? He's just the CEO and a legend in his own right.

Bennett himself, typically, plays down the difficulties and instead said:

Bennett got everything he wanted at Newcastle.
He sacked players like Junior Sau, Keith Lulia, Zeb Taia, Mark Taufua, Kaufusi, Mika, Richie Faáso, Shannon McDonnell, Cory Paterson, Issac De Gois, Ben Cross and about 10 others and employed pretty much a whole new side - keeping only about 5 players.
He brought his own training staff, many of whom had followed him from Brisbane to Saint George and to the Knights.
He asked for and got all new training facilities.

There are dozens of excuses being made for him, but he got $1.4 mill a season and everything he asked for including a team he chose, a massively expensive training squad he chose and all the facilities he asked for. Nathan Tinkler spent $20 mill out of his own pocket on top of everything the Knights earnt to give him everything he needed to do the job.

Basically, no coach has ever been given more money or as much of a free hand to do the job.

You can do a whole list of things that went wrong for him, but happens, and it's the job of the head coach to deal with that.

Don't take my word for it take roopys a massive Newcastle fan who I suspect knows just a little more than you about Bennetts failings as pointed out in his post but don't let the facts get in the way of your ass licking of Bennett eh FA

Oh and the CEO talking up the coach whatever next

Bennett is probably the greatest coach of all time, so hardly needs his ass licking by me, even if I were into that, which I'm not.

I hope when I am "finished" I can find someone at one of the top jobs to fool into paying me millions to waste everyone's time for a few years. Still, at least he didn't fool you!

Firstly I agree with you that Bennett is probably one of the greatest coaches of all time but every coach comes to the end of his time I think Bennett has you don't its JUST MY OPINION I suppose at the end of next season one of us will be right and one of us will look stupid

Bennett has admitted he is coming to the end of his time, though - that's his reason for leaving Newcastle!

I disagree that next season is likely to demonstrate if Bennett is "finished", in general you can't judge an incoming new coach just on results, the Bulls were the prime example of successive coaches over several seasons building on the legacy patiently constructed by their predecessors. I get that some short-termists just think the guy who wins the first title is the genius, and anyone else before must have been mugs, but it's not how it works.

Unless you run Salford, in which case you get about 4 games!

Bennett has the Knights playing a style of football that worked really well for him for a few decades, but his low mistake rate, keep possession, never offload, always kick the goal etc etc style has not worked at the Knights, even though he chose every player in the side.
The only time the team looked even a little bit good was when Danny Buderus came back and got them playing like a non Bennett team for a desperate run at the semis.
His style worked for a long time.
It isn't working now.
He doesn't seem to have another plan.

He hasn't been able to attract the top players because no one wants to live in Newcastle.

He's got a lot of cap space tied up in injury prone overrated locals in pivotal positions. The money Tinkler spent on training facilities brought the club in line with other clubs due to massive under funding, well according to Andrew Johns anyway.

Of course he got rid of some players, the list of the ones he let go is a pretty dismal one. He only got his star centres because they got punted from their previous clubs and can't get another hooker in.

He managed to get one game away from the grand final last year and this one he's had players not getting paid, the nrl having to save the club, Mckinnons tragic accident and his full back struggling with depression.

He'll get a far better squad at Brisbane next season with some high work load, low error fowards, a good half to move them about the pitch and some dynamic running backs. Just the way he likes it.

complete nonsense.
No one told him who to sign.
He was the one who picked each player.
The squad is his - hand picked by him.
No one told him signing 8 players over 30 was the way to go. If he wasn't Wayne Bennett a lot of people would have told him that was crazy in fact.

I've heard all the excuses. He runs them out every press conference.
He got the money. He got the staff. He chose the players. All decisions were his to make, and the club backed him all the way, because he has the reputation.
Everything belongs to him - especially the results and the boring, outdated style of play.

I agree with you roopy its a pity everyone else thinks he's God and can do no wrong

Didn't Tinkler say they wanted to get Newcastle born players playing for the club? Bennett had never wanted to pay over 300k for a prop but demanded Snowden? So he picked Mullen over Thurston, Gidley over Farah, Houston over Burgess? He assembled the best squad willing to play for Newcastle.

You make out that a club backing a coach is something new. If it wasn't for Bennett and Tinkler Newcastle would still be training on amatuer style facilities.

Maybe when the club tries to sign players they can tell targets you can drink what you want, take what you want and do what you want and we'll turn a blind eye as long as your winning. We tried professionalism under Wayne and it got us no where.