Wayne Bennett is on a revenge mission to see the Dolphins usurp the Broncos as Brisbane’s number one team after the way the club unceremoniously dumped him after six premiership wins.
That is the opinion of the NRL 360 panel after the Dolphins poached two key Broncos players on the eve of their inaugural first season alongside their Brisbane rivals in the NRL.
“Is Wayne at war with the Broncos?” Braith Anasta asked on NRL 360.
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“The Dolphins have got Flegler and Farnworth coming from the Broncos. It was always going to be a concern of the Broncos having the Dolphins so close in Brisbane and having the powerful Wayne Bennett as head coach of their neighbours, that this would happen and now it has happened.”
Paul Kent has no doubt Bennett is using his personal feud with the Broncos to drive the Dolphins to greater heights at the expense of his former club and cross-town rivals.
“You think?” Kent said.
“Of course he is. Look, Wayne is a competitor at heart. That is what has kept him in the game for so long.
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“There is no doubt he still doesn’t appreciate the way the Broncos treated him last time he was there and if he can rub their noses in it, of course he is going to do it.
“And I would say nine out of 10 rugby league people would say the same.”
Paul Crawley believes Bennett has earmarked the Round 4 clash against the Broncos as the perfect opportunity to announce the Dolphins as a real threat to Red Hill’s stranglehold on the region.
“He would have Round 4 against the Broncos circled on the calendar on the fridge with a printout of the email where he got sacked beside it,” Crawley said.
“Seriously, he won’t forget the way that club treated him in the end. And from the perspective of the Dolphins too, this is the fight for Brisbane.
“They are a $110 million organisation and they want to rule the town. It is no different to the Roosters and South Sydney hating each other.
“Rugby league is built on hatred. It is good for the game.”
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Dave Riccio believes it is no coincidence that Bennett was lured to coach the Dolphins in their inaugural season after his brutal axing from his former club prior to him joining the Rabbitohs in 2019.
“I think the Bennett signing by design was intentional,” Riccio said.
“It gets under the Broncos’ skin. You talk about Herbie Farnworth, great pick up. Tom Flegler great pick up.
“They are starting to eat into the Broncos’ nursery. This is the competition that the Broncos have never had before.
“They don’t know what it feels like and now suddenly Bennett is getting under their skin to the point where Karl Oloapu the young talented five-eighth was released from the Broncos only on the basis that he didn’t go to the Dolphins.
“He was allowed to go to the Bulldogs and he is currently in the Bulldogs system. It was on the basis of you can go mate, but you are not going to the Dolphins.”
Kent went further as to suggest the NRL intervened when the Dolphins wanted another coach initially to coach the club should it win the 17th NRL licence.
“When the Dolphins were actually brought in they actually had someone else in mind as head coach initially and the NRL strongly recommended you get the license and we would really like to see Bennett as your inaugural coach because they knew the rivalry that would bring to the city,” Kent said.
“That would bring the conversation to the city and ramp it up another gear.
“Bennett is a showman. He doesn’t say much at least publicly, but he is a showman. He understands the way it all works.
“He will put his Cowboy hat on and he will be loving every minute of it.”
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Kent believes the signings of Flegler and Farnworth are a sign the Broncos can no longer be complacent when it comes to keeping the players they want at their club.
“They have got something to worry about because they are losing players and they are losing players they wanted to keep,” Kent said.
“To be fair in the 30-odd years the Broncos have been going, they haven’t faced a lot of that, of losing players that they want to keep.
“Generally when a player has left the Broncos it was because they were the lesser of two evils whoever went.
“They have never really lost players because now the one argument the Broncos could always offer was the cheaper cost of living in Brisbane and now you can still live in Brisbane and play for another NRL team.
“They are not used to this and it is ‘welcome to the big leagues’ now in that regard because they have got to face a new threat that hasn’t been there before.”