Bennett reveals how France almost lured him as World Cup coach

He will coach England at this year’s Rugby League World Cup, has been in charge of Australia and helped New Zealand secure the Paul Barriere Trophy in 2008 but Wayne Bennett has revealed he also reluctantly turned down the opportunity to coach France.

FRA

Bennett, who was appointed to the England role last year, said he had been approached to coach France at the 2013 World Cup in Britain but was concerned that he couldn’t speak French and would struggle to communicate with the players.

He was also concerned about criticism if Newcastle, whom Bennett was coaching at the time, had a poor season and he was away in Europe with les Tricolores.

“I think I have done the rounds,” Bennett said.

"I had an opportunity to coach France at the last World Cup. I nearly took it but there were two things that stopped me - one was that I can’t speak French and I can’t understand how I could coach them if I couldn’t communicate with the players."

“Communication is what coaches do. If you can’t communicate with them because you can’t understand their language and they can’t communicate with you I thought that was a bit difficult.

“The second thing was that I was in Newcastle at the time and I just didn’t want the media coming at me and using the fact I had decided to coach the French team to make a headline every second day about how I was coaching France and Newcastle was struggling.

“Usually the media don’t influence me in my decisions but on this occasion, just being a bit wiser, it did. I would have taken the job other than that and the language."

“The language was a big thing, having someone interpret for you – they probably can’t swear as well as I do when I get cranky, so I didn’t do it.”

The recruitment of Bennett would have been a major coup for France, who hosted the inaugural World Cup in 1954 and donated the trophy, now named after Barriere, who was a driving force behind re-establishing the game after World War II and the formation of an international board.

France, who will play Lebanon and Australia in Canberra on October 29 and November 3 before travelling to Perth to face England on November 12, qualified for the quarter finals of the 2013 World Cup and are currently ranked sixth on the RLIF rankings.

Ahead of les Tricolors are Australia (No.1), New Zealand (2), England (3), Scotland (4) and Samoa (5) and Bennett took aim at suggestions there were less teams with a chance of winning the Rugby League World Cup than other sports.

“When we look at our other major sports outside of soccer, when you look at cricket, when you look at rugby union… they only have two or three nations capable of winning in those competitions as well,” he said.

“When it gets to our game we seem to get more attention than the other games do but when we look at the cricket world cup it is going to come down to two or three countries that we all know are going to be in the final and rugby union is the same.”

Bennett also said the new international eligibility rules allowing players who qualify for more than one country to represent a tier-two nation if not chosen by Australia, New Zealand or England would ensure the most competitive World Cup of the 15 staged since 1954.

“I think when you get to the semi-final stage, if Australia, New Zealand and England are in the semi-finals, I think the other nation will be quite a challenge because they will have played in a quality competition and they will have to be pretty much at the top of their game as well to get to the semi-final stage,” he said.

By Brad Walter | @BradWalterSport
Chief Correspondent, RLWC2017