In South Sydney’s 46:20 loss to the Newcastle Knights, Rabbitoh’s fans smiled – and even drew an unusually smiley press conference from coach Wayne Bennett.
And why shouldn’t he be happy when his team bounced back from a 14-0 deficit to 46 unanswered points before a belated consolation attempt on Saturday evening sealed a match in the second week against the Parramatta Eels?
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But the legendary coach’s mood has darkened after the elephant was raised in the Sam Burgess drama room.
Burgess stepped down from his role at Fox Sports and as development coach for Souths after The Australian reported damned allegations during the week.
Burgess has emphatically denied the allegations.
Bennett had to answer reporting questions during the week, but it didn’t seem to affect his side as they piled on the points in a staggering performance.
Despite a slow start with the Rabbitohs taking a 14-0 lead after just 11 minutes, Bennett was asked if he would send messages to the team.
“You send prayers down when you’re down 14-0 in the semifinals,” joked Bennett.
Bennett said it was “the last thing you want” but when Souths put the mistakes out of the way, the team returned to the game.
He was also asked about star hooker Damian Cook, who appeared to have dealt with a leg injury before scoring a jaw-dropping endurance attempt.
“What do you think?” Bennett smiled.
“Can’t you say there’s too much going on with his ankle? Like a little rabbit trying to run from hole to hole. He looked pretty good when I spoke to him five minutes ago and told everyone how good his attempt was. “
However, when asked about the “difficult week for obvious reasons,” Bennett turned icy and targeted the media.
Bennett was clearly speaking about the Burgess drama and was clear about the questions.
“You’re not listening, that’s what bothers me more than anything,” said Bennett.
“I said two days ago that it will have no impact on the team and that it will not have any impact on the team. Still hasn’t, won’t.
“I’m just telling you, I train the team, I know what’s going on in the organization, it would never affect the team.”
The smiling Bennett had scowled away from Bennett after the question when asked about Cody Walker and Adam Reynolds.
But the Journos weren’t done yet and asked why he was so confident it wouldn’t affect the team.
“Common sense would tell you that, I’m not going to go into details,” Bennett said.
“You think about it.”
Bennett also said he didn’t have much to say about Parramatta and that he hadn’t seen enough of the game to give too much of an opinion.
When asked if he would like to consider Parramatta as a team this year, Bennett smiled again and said “not really”.
Yvonne Sampson of the Fox League called it a “Wayne Bennett Finals Special”.
“He’s very happy with himself, if I have to say, sometimes uncomfortable to look at, and it’s even more difficult to be on the other side of this press conference and ask questions.”
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