Wayne Bennett is one of the most recognisable names in rugby league.
He’s spent the best part of 50 years in the spotlight, coaching just shy of 900 club games, winning seven premierships, on top of international and State of Origin roles.
But while his unique mannerisms and style are studied and scribed on a weekly basis during football season, there aren’t many people who know the real Wayne Bennett.
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In a Stan Original fly-on-the-wall documentary Dawn of the Dolphins, released to the public on March 6, Bennett gives a rare glimpse behind the gruff exterior.
Episode one begins with the 73-year-old supercoach sitting on a chair facing the camera, where he is asked how often he struggles with his introverted personality.
“Every time… I’m fighting it just sitting here with you,” first-year Dolphins coach Bennett responds.
“I probably made my mind up some time a couple of hours ago that I didn’t really want to talk to you today.
The three-part Stan Original Documentary Series ‘Dawn of the Dolphins’ premieres weekly from March 6, only on Stan.
“I was going to keep everything pretty short, pretty sharp, which I have done. But I have given a bit of myself.”
Bennett does give a bit of himself – he’s the unlikely star of the show, surprisingly natural and honest for a man famous for not letting outsiders into his world.
”I don’t like giving myself publicly. It’s not who introverts are,” he says.
“All my life I’ve fought it. But I won the battle with it, because I wouldn’t be able to coach if I was introverted, you’ve got to be able to communicate.
“I can’t tell you the (number of) days, and the moments in a day when I have to fight with myself to talk to somebody – not because I don’t want to talk, I just don’t want to talk right there and right then and I don’t want to have that conversation.
“But I have to have it, and I have to do it.
“Does it worry me that someone says, ‘you don’t talk much Wayne’… none of that worries me. I talk to get my message across and after that I’m just going to shut up.”
The three-part Stan Original Documentary Series ‘Dawn of the Dolphins’ premieres weekly from March 6, only on Stan.
Dawn of the Dolphins is a three-part documentary that follows the NRL’s newest club from the moment it won the 17th licence, through to the start of their maiden season.
Episode one takes viewers behind the scenes of Bennett’s recruitment drive and how he lured the likes of international forwards Jesse Bromwich, Kenny Bromwich, and Felise Kaufusi from Melbourne.
It’s live on Stan on March 6.
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