As far as sports go, rugby league is one of the most adversarial, most gladiatorial around. There is no place to hide, no quarter given and, unsurprisingly given its physical nature, the game manages to throw up some classic rivalries and grudges that endure both on and off the field.
South Sydney v the Roosters, NSW v Queensland, Benny Elias v Mario Fenech, Ray Hadley v Andrew Voss, Bob Fulton v Bill Harrigan, Manly v Parramatta, Manly v Souths, Manly v Western Suburbs, Manly v everyone, Paul Gallen v Cameron Smith, Brett Stewart v David Gallop. On and on it goes.
Rugby league embraces the hate like no other. Russell Crowe even created his own Book of Feuds when he bought the Rabbitohs, as he sought to pluck controversial moments from the club’s long history to help motivate their current players.
And alongside this tradition is a new rivalry that is rapidly gaining momentum – Wayne Bennett v Mal Meninga, the master against the apprentice, England’s new coach against Australia’s new coach.
Bennett and Meninga’s relationship goes back more than 40 years, back to when Meninga was just a 15-year old in Brisbane joining the Queensland police academy. There the future rugby league legend was scouted by one Wayne James Bennett, then a police officer and former Kangaroo, who later became arguably the greatest coach the game has seen.
Meninga and Bennett as a partnership of player and coach reached great heights. They won a premiership together with Souths Magpies in the Brisbane competition in 1985, reached a grand final with Canberra in the NSWRL in 1987 and won five Origins together with the Maroons.
As two of the biggest names in rugby league, these two forces of nature only really came up against each other in the NRL from 1997 to 2001 with Meninga’s brief reign in charge at Canberra. The younger man then took the reins at Queensland, and would go on to usurp Bennett as the Maroons’ most successful Origin coach.
But four decades of friendship seemed to take a permanent back seat last year when Meninga and Bennett were in contention for the Kangaroos job. Both wanted to be Tim Sheens’ replacement, the campaigning grew competitive and the harping in the media constant. Meninga won out in the end and Bennett responded by taking the role as the new coach of England, putting him directly up against his former charge. Talk about irony.
Since then Meninga has taken every opportunity when presented to take a shot at his former coach in the media. Upon landing at Manchester airport last week in anticipation for the Four Nations, the 56-year old said: “He wants my job. He wants my job but he hasn’t got it. So obviously he’ll be trying his damnedest to usurp me. We’ll see what happens.”
So far Bennett has refused to take Meninga’s bait. The England boss told reporters at the Four Nations launch in Liverpool on Monday when pressed that he was “very happy with the English job right now”. “I’m just happy with what I’m doing,” Bennett told the assembled media pack, while Meninga sat a few metres away visibly chuckling. “I’m very pleased with the decision I’ve made.”
So is it all mind games? Just a bit of fun to help sell the Four Nations and international footy in general? Meninga has certainly publicised his role as also being an ambassador for the international game and not merely as just a coach, both inside Australia and out. When cornered him this week on the issue, he was adamant that the media posturing with his fellow Queenslander was all light-hearted.
“It’s just banter,” Meninga told Guardian Australia. “Everyone knows that Wayne coveted the job as well at the beginning of the year, and he mentioned just recently that he’d love to coach the Australian side again in the Australian media down the track. So it’s just a bit of tongue-in-cheek stuff. But I think it’s really great Wayne’s involved and coaching at this level so we need people like him to help promote the international program, that’s where were at with all that…. We go back a long way.”
Rivalry solved? Not quite. One Kangaroos official said that despite denials to the contrary, there is “no love lost” between the pair. Another source, who knows both men well, says the animosity is real, not imagined. “Wayne wanted the Australian job and campaigned hard for it. Mal was also disappointed Wayne told the Queensland Rugby League not to get Kevin Walters as Queensland coach. They haven’t been close since the 1980s.”
Whatever the source of the feud, it just adds another edge to what promises to be an engaging Four Nations series. The Kangaroos are seeking to claim back the trophy they lost in 2014 and their No1 world ranking that went to New Zealand, while England are bolstered by the return of their prodigal son Sam Burgess. The battle on the benches in London on 13 November, when Mal’s Kangaroos meet Wayne’s Poms, will be well worth watching – and not just for the action on the pitch.
