3 minute read

Jason Demetriou will coach in the NRL for the first time when South Sydney face Brisbane, the club Wayne Bennett wanted to see him take charge at.

He's the man Wayne Bennett wanted to succeed him at Brisbane but now Jason Demetriou's first chance to coach an NRL team will come against the Broncos.

In a bizarre sub-plot to Wayne Bennett's biosecurity breach, Demetriou will lead South Sydney against Anthony Seibold after a public spat with the Broncos coach last year.

It will present Demetriou with an opportunity to take charge of an NRL side on game day, after being Bennett's right-hand man for the past four years.

Bennett originally wanted his assistant Demetriou to replace him at the Broncos in 2020 when the master coach's contract expired.

However, the Broncos chose Seibold instead, before Demetriou followed his head coach to the Rabbitohs after he was sacked with a year to run on his contract.

Since then, Seibold and Demetriou have traded barbs.

Last year, Demetriou accused the Rabbitohs of falling apart in the finals under Seibold.

The rebuttal came when Seibold pointed out Brisbane's finals woes with Demetriou as an assistant and questioning if he was upset he couldn't land a top gig.

Demetriou will have his own head coaching role in 2022, with Souths confirming he will succeed Bennett.

Friday night and the next fortnight will now act as a dress rehearsal and Bennett has no doubt his understudy is ready against the struggling Broncos.

"Of course he is (up to it)," Bennett said.

"He's going to be head coaching in 12 months time, so he's ready for the moment."

Meanwhile, Brisbane players were just as surprised by Bennett's biosecurity breach on Thursday as anyone.

Bennett will be excluded from Souths' bubble for a fortnight, meaning he won't return to training in person until two days before their round-15 clash with Manly.

But Brisbane forward Patrick Carrigan did not expect that to hurt the Rabbitohs given their wealth of senior players.

"That'd be a bit strange if you're probably rocking up to the game without your coach," Carrigan said.

"But they've got classy players like Cody Walker and Damien Cook, Adam Reynolds, who have plenty of ability footy wise and are pretty good leaders.

"They'd still be able to steer the ship and it'll be a good game Friday night."