Bennett backs old mate Kevvie to make Brisbane great again

Wayne Bennett insists new Broncos coach-in-waiting Kevin Walters will restore the culture that has made the club a beacon of success in its proud 32-year history.

Bennett won six premierships at the Broncos and is well qualified to speak about what Walters will bring the to table, and about what makes the club tick.

The duo have enjoyed an extraordinary association stretching back more than three decades with Walters winning five premierships as a player under Bennett, and then joining him as assistant coach in two stints at Red Hill.

Maroons coach Walters, who was offered the Broncos job on Monday night, will be unveiled as head coach in the coming days.

"I am really pleased for him,” Bennett told NRL.com

"That is the job that he has always wanted since he retired and got into coaching.

"Kevin has had as rough a coaching career as anybody. It has had its ups and downs.

"To his credit he has never given up on the dream, and sometimes that is what it is all about – just perseverance and all that kind of stuff.

"I think he will be good for the club in the situation it is now in."

Walters has a massive job ahead of him with the Broncos finishing the 2020 season with the first wooden spoon in their history.

The 52-year-old has had a long apprenticeship and has been head coach of the Ipswich Jets, Toowoomba Clydesdales and Catalans, along with stints as Broncos and Storm  assistant before taking over as Queensland coach in 2016.

"It has all prepared him for the journey he is going to go on now," Bennett said.

"He was part of a very, very successful team there for a long period of time and he was a pivotal part of it.

"Kevin understands absolutely what made that club, in his era, so great.

"He has never lost sight of those things and he will reproduce them if they are not already there."

Bennett created a culture at the Broncos of success and built a club the fans, players and all who were touched by it were proud of.

That Broncos culture has been fractured but Bennett can see better days ahead.

"What is important is that the culture comes back. There is a culture that will work there now, and it will work in 20 years and 50 years time," he said.

"It has been broken, there is no doubt about that, because people had a different idea about what that culture should be.

"The culture that made that club great is the same culture that will get it back on its feet again. Kevin can drive that because he knows what it is."

Walters is set to stay involved with the Maroons in the coming month as he prepares for a transition to a new coach, who QRL chairman Bruce Hatcher said would be appointed for the 2020 season only.

Bennett, the Rabbitohs coach, and Kangaroos mentor Mal Meninga are in the frame to coach the Maroons for an intense Origin campaign which commences on November 4.

Bennett’s focus right now is coaching his South Sydney side through the finals series with the goal of being in the grand final at ANZ Stadium on October 25.

If approached to coach the Maroons he would be interested and has a big hitter in his corner on the QRL board in Hatcher.

The QRL has formed a committee with the express purpose of choosing a coach for 2020 only.