It’s widely believed this set off an arms race among football clubs, Bennett’s salary having an inflationary effect on wages. If a player is paid $1 million, it represents slightly more than 10 per cent of the player salary cap, while a payment to a coach of $1 million, represents 17 per cent of the football department cap. The NRL is in discussions about what will be included in the new cap, but it’s not negotiable that the wages of all football department employees, including the medical and strength and conditioning staff, will be counted. However, it’s unfair to blame Bennett exclusively for the hyperinflation of coaching salaries. Two other NRL coaches received big deals during the 2011-13 period. The Dragons needed a big name to replace Bennett and made a strong pitch to Melbourne’s Craig Bellamy. However, News Limited was in the process of selling the Storm and its coterie of interested Melbourne businessmen knew they had to keep Bellamy in the city and paid accordingly.

Des Hasler coached Manly to the 2011 premiership and secretly signed with the Bulldogs for the 2012 season. Dessie loves a quid, but he was losing some of his powers at Brookvale and was also attracted by a big football department budget at Belmore. The "Bennett rule": Wayne Bennett's $1 million deal with Newcastle and Nathan Tinkler (right) changed the game for coaches. Credit:Darren Pateman In another touch of irony, the then Bulldogs’ chief executive, Todd Greenberg, is now boss of the NRL, which is seeking to impose a brake on the clubs' spending. Hasler is now without a club, Bennett is seeking an extension beyond 2019, and Bellamy has just signed a contract, reported to be $1.7 million a season for three years to 2021. This will be the last of the big deals. Should Bennett re-sign with the Broncos, even the wealthiest club in the NRL will baulk at paying a tax of 37.5 per cent on the overspend. News Corporation, which owns 67 per cent of the club, won’t like sending a message to its shareholders of salary excess.

Nathan Brown’s new contract at the Knights, where his employment ceases if the club does not perform, is clearly designed to avoid paying him out. Paying two coaches in one season becomes an indulgence when a tax is added. Salaries for head coaches will average out at $600,000, while a senior assistant will be paid $200,000 and an assistant coach between $150,000 and $170,000. Some at the NRL claim these salaries are excessive, comparing them with a PE teacher at a high school who is paid significantly less. But a teacher has the opportunity to rise to become a school principal, while an assistant coach can become unemployable when his head coach is sacked. Worked his way through the grades: Souths coach Anthony Seibold. Credit:AAP

The fact that many sacked head coaches have found employment as assistants shows they like the money and the job. Jason Taylor moved from Wests Tigers to the Roosters, Mick Potter to Newcastle, Dave Furner is at South Sydney and John Cartwright went to Manly. However, the NRL’s main concern is not the salaries of the assistants, but the number of them. The growth in assistants in the AFL has been exponential, rising to nine at each club. Most NRL clubs have two assistants serving the head coach and his 30 listed players. However, as game day approaches for the top 17 players, the remaining 13 need someone to prepare them for their feeder club games. An NRL club usually has one such mentor, referred to as a transition, or development coach. The enlightened clubs have two coaches caring for this group because they require more teaching than the top tier. The salary of these development coaches ranges from $100,000 to $120,000. Yet these are the coaches vulnerable to the purge that will come at the end of 2019, ahead of the cap.

A club looking to shave $100,000 off its budget, knowing it will cost them an extra tax of $37,500, will probably sack the development coach. Yet, consider the career of the Rabbitohs’ Anthony Seibold. He spent two years as the Storm’s under-20’s coach and another two years as a development coach. He moved to Manly as an assistant, switched to Souths in the same role and was promoted to the top job. Just as players need nurturing during the development phase, so do coaches. Should Bennett succeed in convincing the Broncos board to re-sign him, it will be interesting to see if he volunteers a pay cut for the club to retain a development coach.