Gorden Tallis lets rip at Wayne Bennett over 'strange' Dolphins move
The rugby league great has called out his former coach over a baffling move with the NRL's newest team, the Dolphins.
Rugby League great Gorden Tallis has taken aim at his former mentor Wayne Bennett, over the 73-year-old's absence for his new team's debut competitive match. The master coach was a curious no-show as the NRL's newest club the Dolphins took on the North Queensland Cowboys in the NRL's pre-season clash on Sunday.
The NRL newcomers and last season's biggest surprise packets, the Cowboys, couldn't be separated over 80 minutes in Cairns as the sides began their pre-season trials with a 22-22 draw. However, Bennett was conspicuous by his absence, with Tallis left stunned that his former coach would not be in attendance to witness his troops in action first-hand.
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Tallis played over 150 games and won three NRL premierships under Bennett at the Brisbane Broncos. He still keeps in regular touch with the veteran coach but can't get his head around why the experienced mentor hasn't attended the team's last two pre-season games in a row now.
“Why isn’t the coach in (the club’s) first year going?” Tallis said on the Footy Talk League podcast. “I was in Gladstone with him last weekend... I was quite impressed with what the Dolphins are doing.
“Wayne was up there. He had a really young squad, all the young kids and [he] didn’t even go to that game either. “Two weeks in a row (he didn’’t go).”
Tallis said it was a "strange" move for the man tasked with getting the NRL's newest franchise up to speed, to hand over the reins to assistant coaches Kristian Woolf and Nathan Fien against the Cowboys. The former Kangaroos and Maroons superstar argued that Bennett's absence from the sidelines would have a flow-on effect to his playing group.
“I don’t care who you are. Let’s break it down to school when your teacher is not there and you get a relief teacher, do you work as hard?” Tallis added. “Maybe there’s a bit of a ploy and when his real team runs out, or when the top boys run out (that’s when he will be there). He’s been around for a long, long time so he knows what he’s doing.”
Wayne Bennett explains Dolphins no-show
Bennett brushed off the criticism around his absence and revealed to the Courier Mail that his "priority is to the Dolphins” and the wider playing group who were not involved in the Cowboys game. The veteran coach explained that the logistics around the trip to Cairns meant he thought it more prudent to stay in Redcliffe with the remainder of the Dolphins squad.
“We had some issues with flights (getting home early from Cairns) and I wanted to make sure I was here at Redcliffe to be coaching the rest of the NRL players who didn’t play against the Cowboys,” Bennett said. “There’s no issue at my end.”
Dolphins chief executive Terry Reader said the club backed Bennett's decision to miss Sunday's game and focus on training with the rest of the squad on Monday. “Wayne has been doing this for decades but I also think some people might have forgotten that 12 of our senior players that did not play were on the field with Wayne for training at 7am (on Monday morning) back at Redcliffe,” Reader said.
Jack Bostock crossed first for the Dolphins on Sunday and Lachlan Hubner had their second a few minutes before the break. The NRL newbies were down 18-10 at halftime but found themselves right back in the contest when Brenton Baira soared onto the end of Anthony Milford's kick for a try, with both sides slugging it out heading into the final stages.
A deft inside pass by Isaiya Katoa seven minutes from time found Hubner, and Mason Teague scored what looked to be the match-winner for the Dolphins before North Queensland snatched a draw at the death. Cowboys winger Laitia Moicedreke crossed for his second try of the match with 30 seconds remaining, as the entertaining pre-season trial ended all square.
with AAP
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