Rugby League Coaching Manuals

Bennett has just invested the best part of the 10-minute halftime break of the All Stars fixture on Saturday night explaining to his team - which trails the Indigenous side by 10 points - the significance of the most fundamental part of the game.

And that is if you hold on to the ball, there is every chance you will indeed shit it in.

Surely it cannot be that simple. Please tell us this Bennett magic we've been trying to unearth and bottle for decades is something more than telling them to hold on to the pill.

Of course, like most things about Bennett, it's not so much what he says but how he says it. And who is saying it.

He speaks with such authority and wisdom you feel like you could pick up that Steeden right there in the dressing-room and run through that brick wall on to Skilled Park.

Then your mind drifts back to the first half, when you saw South Sydney man mountain Dave Taylor charging at Adam Blair and Anthony Watmough as they held tackle pads, bursting through, and you wonder how does another human actually stop that.

For the first time, Bennett has invited a journalist into the sanctity of his dressing-room and issued an unprecedented all-access pass: to the rooms before, during and after the game; the bench on the sideline for the first half; and then into the lion's den itself - Bennett's coach's box - for the conclusion.

When we meet him underneath Skilled Park about half an hour before the game, the room is surprisingly quiet as the players stretch and contort their oversized bodies.

Then Clint Eastwood walks into the room.

The players take their position on chairs formed in a semi-circle around the coach. Assistant coach Andrew Gee turns the fridge off in the corner and it is dead silent.

We all sit in silence for a minute. (Mental thought: did you switch your mobile to silent you fat gibberer?)

Then Eastwood speaks.

"The first battle tonight is the one between your ears. Your biggest opposition tonight is not the bloke in the other jumper, but you. Get that into your heads now. There were three things I told you yesterday, about why you are here. How you don't want to let yourself down. How you don't want to let anyone down. Is that clear?"

They nod. I also nod for some reason.

He then runs through some technical details that illuminate Bennett's remark to me last week that he remains a "hands-on coach".

He talks about the importance of ball control. "No Thurston show-and-go," he adds. "Is that clear?" They all nod. "Sandow. Don't go up sideways on him. Is that clear?"

Then the players line up in the doorway of the room and they make their way out, one by one, out into the tunnel and the emerald turf for a match the critics say they can't possibly have motivation to play in.

Meanwhile, Brad Fittler is still in the room stacking away the chairs. "Brad Fittler: former Kangaroos captain, Origin legend, chair stacker," I say to him.

"I'm just the assistant," he says with a grin.

SIDELINE EYE - THE upshot of sitting on the replacement bench is that you are close enough to hear that intoxicating sound of a footballer's bone and muscle and cartilage collide with that of another.

When the worlds of Manu Vatuvei and Jamal Idris meet early into proceedings, you can hear the slap and thud.

"Dominant!" shouts one of the referees. Thanks, Scoop. The players on the sideline laugh.

Then Choppy Close spies Wendell Sailor on the sideline. Del. Dual. Dellevision. He is the Indigenous team's water boy, and he is wearing a bright yellow shirt with the sleeves cut off.

Choppy can't resist: "Del, what happened to your sleeves?"

No response.

"Del, what happened to your sleeves?" he says again.

Del smiles. "Shut up."

The lack of sleeve exposes the black armband around his arm; the same one all the Indigenous players have strapped on in honour of the late Arthur Beetson.

Arthur would've approved with the high quality of footy being played. This is no exhibition match.

Nathan Hindmarsh comes from the field having ripped and teared so hard he has Terminator Eye - one is fire-red, the other isn't. As Fittler says after the match: "Retirement? Why would he?"

Yet for all the heart the NRL All Stars have shown, they are also failing to do as Bennett had asked. "One completion out of 10, boys," Close says. "It's killing us."

The other factor is that the Indigenous players have ripped the lid off an emotional week of introspection about who they are and the people they represent, and it is bubbling to the surface.

After winger Nathan Merritt makes a break, and is bundled over the sideline, it erupts.

The target is Roosters forward Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, who has come over the top late, and the ensuing fight devours an ABC Radio sideline eye.

Luke Lewis watches the madness from an exercise bike. "Didn't someone say no fighting?" he grins. "What happened?"

THE LION'S DEN - IN the rooms at halftime, the only noise is the fridge in the corner. Gee turns it off.

"I've let you sit there in silence so you can think about what just happened," Clint Eastwood finally explains. "Your ball control is shit. The biggest play you can make in that second half out there is to play the ball."

It's not a serve; it comes with explanation. He wants them to remember the humidity and sweat is making it difficult to hold the ball. Don't struggle so much in the tackle. Retain possession, then play it quickly.

His challenge to the forward pack about lifting its intensity had come with a strict condition: "No cheap shots. Is that clear?"

When I meet Bennett in the coach's box, taking a seat in the front row, he explains the dynamics of a halftime speech.

While the eyes of some younger players roll around like a poker-machine, struggling to digest it, the experienced ones do not. "Because they know what has to be done," Bennett says. "They don't need to be told it. It's interesting."

So here we are. In the lion's den. A journo in Bennett's coaching box.

At the 20-minute break, I'd spied former player Ben Ikin in the stands. He is also Bennett's son-in-law.

"Maybe make some suggestions during the second half," Ikin advised. "He'd like that."

Yeah, good. Maybe something like: "Wayne, I can kinda see where you are going with the rotation of your props, but maybe you could ..."

In truth, it's no icebox.

Bennett watches with similar infectious excitement to most of us.

When fullback Josh Dugan appears to have knocked on just before crossing the tryline, the coach is adamant he's scored.

"He's grabbed that," Bennett says. "He's grabbed that." Then he looks around the box. "Yes?" he asks. I nod with much enthusiasm.

When the try is awarded, he tells Gee: "I want them to keep it going on the keep it going."

Bennett translates: from the restart, keep going the one way, tackle after tackle, not chopping and changing the direction of the play.

With his team in front, off the back of the ball control he had so concisely commanded at half-time, he loosens up.

Merritt dances down the left touchline. "Don't let him get past you Nighty," he says to his former Dragons winger Jason Nightingale, who then edges Merritt into touch.

"Nightingale!" Bennett says. "He's unbelievable."

Then Bennett looks at me. "The beer will taste sweeter tonight," he says.

As the game's most well-known teetotaller, he wouldn't know.

But that's not the point. The point is he wasn't thinking about himself, but his players.

VICTORY SPEECH - Even in victory, the coach keeps them waiting.

When he does greet them in the victorious dressing-room, he tells them this: "I'm proud of you tonight. You won tonight because of the mateship you showed each other this week."

Then he repeats the line from the coach's box: "The beer will taste sweeter tonight."

In case you were wondering, I found out later what those three key points Bennett had drilled into his players on the day before the match had been.

First, you are playing for the man sitting next to you. Second, remember the fans of the game voted for you to be here. And third, remember you are playing for yourself. For your own personal pride. For the man that you are.

How that should be the last bloke you let down.

The person Bennett has described in the past as the man in the mirror.

So maybe footy runs deeper than holding on to the ball, if you're going to shit it in.

Is that clear?