The Serve

Wayne Bennett doesn’t have to justify a thing

The rugby league public got a taste of what journalists have been served up for the last twenty years. Or at least that’s what those journalists are saying today. A Wayne Bennett press conference filled with one sentence answers and a gross lack of enthusiasm. Even his defenders would admit this is not a new phenomenon.

Viewers of Monday night football on Fox Sports have been let into the secret world of the media post-mortem.

Pretty boring, isn’t it?

There ain’t no mystique to the press conference. The occasional Ricky Stuart spray, Brian Smith rattling off a list of stats, Craig Bellamy accidentally revealing the Queensland origin side, and that’s about it. Extremely clichéd questions with just as clichéd reponses. The reason for this is simple. The newspaper writers want to have their own, better, angle to the rest of the scribes. They want the one quote that they believe only their killer question would procure. Can’t ask that in a press conference, with everyone else taking notes, now can we? That leaves a conference line up of, depending on the result: ‘Good win/tough loss? What did you think of Player X?/What did you think of player Y? What did you think of the referee/What did you think of the referee? Any injuries?’.

There’s your order for every conference for the past twenty years. The good stuff comes in the dressing rooms.

Back to Bennett. He has a responsibility to win games of football. Something he’s done with a fair degree of monotony. Sure, he’s not a media god, but even when he put the shutters up during his time as Queensland coach, origin seemed to survive. Bennett doesn’t do journalists any favours. That is not for question.

I bet the fans couldn’t care less.

Think of it this way. Perhaps the most charming coach of recent times has been Shaun McRae. Hell of a nice guy. Win or lose - normally the latter - McRae would offer wide and varied opinions and informative explanations on what just happened on the field. His interviews always entertaining listening.

McRae won twelve games in two years.

What would a supporter prefer, an entertaining loser or a boring winner?

I’m guessing Broncos fans are quite happy with their lot.