Wayne Bennett

The longest serving and most successful coach in the history of the game, Bennett has won seven premierships with the Brisbane (1992, 1993, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2006) and St George Illawarra (2010), while taking Canberra (1987), Brisbane (2015) and South Sydney (2020) to grand finals.

As a player, Bennett represented Australia and Queensland on the wing, and began coaching while playing – taking charge of Queensland Police teams, while working as a police officer. He turned to coaching fulltime with Ipswich in 1976, and also coached Brisbane Souths (1977-79, 1984-85) and Brisbane Brothers (1980-82) - winning a Brisbane premiership with Souths in 1985 - before joining the Raiders in 1987 to work alongside Don Furner as co-coaches.

Bennett coached Queensland in the first of his four stints as State of Origin coach from 1986-to-1988, which was also the year he began his long and successful career with the Broncos. The club’s inaugural coach, Bennett remained in charge for 21 seasons from 1988 to 2008 as he helped build the Broncos into the game’s flagship team.

Leaving for the Dragons in 2009, he took the club to the minor premiership in his first season and the first premiership in the history of the joint venture in 2010 before departing at the end of the 2011 season to coach Newcastle. He returned to the Broncos in 2015 and spent another four seasons with the club before moving to South Sydney in 2019 and then moving back to Brisbane to oversee the entry of the Dolphins as the NRL’s 17th team in 2021. He will return to the Rabbitohs in 2025.

At representative level, Bennett has coached Australia (1998, 2004-2005), England (2016-18) and Great Britain (2019), and worked alongside New Zealand coach Stephen Kearney when the Kiwis won the 2008 World Cup. He has also coached Queensland to six State of Origin series wins in 1987, 1988, 1998, 2001, 2002 and 2020.