Bennett in NRL expansion bid teams sights

AAP has spoken to key figures involved with several NRL franchise bids vying to be part of an expanded 18-team competition, possibly as soon as 2026.

All have said that 73-year-old seven-time premiership winner Bennett would be in the frame as head coach should expansion get the go ahead.

ARLC chairman Peter V'landys has outlined plans for a 20-team competition in the next decade but the race to be the 18th club is set to be hotly contested.

Perth, a third Brisbane team linked with the Tigers Group, North Sydney Bears, Newtown Jets, Papua New Guinea, Pasifika and a second New Zealand team are all among candidates, with some bid teams further along in their plans than others.

Bennett will be a free agent when his assistant Kristian Woolf takes over as top Dolphin at the end of 2024.

In 2018 when Bennett held a lengthy press conference at the end of his tenure at the Brisbane Broncos, just weeks before he was announced as South Sydney coach, he was asked if he intended to keep coaching.

"I'm not a social person. What else would I do?" he grinned at the time.

Reminded of that comment by AAP, and asked whether he would be carried out of coaching in a coffin, Bennett replied: "I don't know. I've got no idea, but I'll tell you this much ... when I've stopped enjoying it and I don't want to do it anymore, I won't do it. I'm not at that place yet."

Bennett said he was yet to decide if he would put his hand up to coach a new franchise.

"I don't have a position on that just yet one way or the other," he said.

"I have got a contract here until the end of next year and then we'll work it out."

However, Bennett hasn't planned on retiring.

"No, I'll let you know when I am going to do that," he grinned.

Shane Richardson, former Souths general manager of football when Bennett was coach, is a consultant to the Easts Group in Brisbane which submitted the Brisbane Firehawks bid to be the 17th team.

"Wayne is a great coach, a great team builder and a great club builder. We had him in line as our coach for the 17th team when Redcliffe (the Dolphins) appointed him," Richardson said.

"Whether we call our team the Firehawks is something for the club to decide but we want everyone to know that the Easts Group we will be putting our hand up to be the 18th team.

"It is up to Wayne to decide what he does when his stint finishes at Redcliffe but he will certainly be in the frame again for us ... as the greatest coach in the history of the game.

"He runs five kilometres at least every morning. He watches his diet. He doesn't drink. He doesn't smoke. If anybody is going to last until 100 it is Wayne.

"Whether he is still coaching then is a another matter, but you wouldn't underestimate what he can do. The more people write him off the better he gets."

League legend Billy Moore is on the board of North Sydney and says Bennett would be "at the top of the list" of potential coaches.

Moore said Bennett's track record showed he wanted to leave "a footprint" and "legacy" on the game.

"If Wayne wanted to leave his footprints in the sand in the form of a Bears entity it would be great to have him on board," Moore said.

"That's because of his expert knowledge, his ability to bring credibility to an organisation, his integrity and the ability to draw players to him.

"It would be a no-brainer, especially if he wanted to buy into reviving the Bears.

"The Bears won't be at North Sydney exclusively. It is going to be linked with somewhere else, a frontier area."

Before the Dolphins played at Optus Stadium in round 23 Bennett fronted the press and endorsed the Perth-based NRL bid. It is a bid that Bennett has believed in for a long time.

John Sackson is general manager of NRL WA and is working closely with the Perth bid consortium and the Western Australian Government on the plan to have a new franchise based in the state.

"You would love to have someone of the calibre of Wayne Bennett involved in a Perth franchise," Sackson said.

"There is his expertise, the respect he has in the market and his ability to attract players, sponsors and fans. All those assets would be an incredible asset to any new franchise entering the competition."

Newtown also intend to put in a bid to be in an expanded competition, possibly as part of a joint-bid with Perth as an east coast partner.

"You'd never say never," Jets CEO Stuart McCarthy said of Bennett as a prospective head coach.

"Whoever comes in will need a quality coach and Wayne has certainly done a great job at the Dolphins. You'd be mad not to consider him if he was available, absolutely."

Dolphins CEO Terry Reader is aware of the interest and has plans to keep Bennett on board.

"Our intention is to have Wayne involved here in a role after he has finished as a head coach, but if he wants to coach again elsewhere that is his decision to make," Reader said.

"With all that he has achieved in the game why wouldn't a new NRL franchise want him as head coach?"

Australian Associated Press