The nightmare ordeal of New Zealand’s players in the United States has not stopped Wayne Bennett from issuing an ultimatum – rugby league must take a “global view” or it will die in 15 years.
While the Bennett-coached England had a seamless return from Sunday’s Denver Test against New Zealand, the Kiwis weren’t so lucky with players such as Martin Taupau enduring four days of flight delays before finally getting back to Australia.
A number of NRL teams were even unsure if their Kiwi players would be available for this week’s round with Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy critical of the Test’s timing after admitting he had no idea about forward Nelson Asofa-Solomona’s whereabouts.
But Bennett believed it could have all been avoided if the NRL had worked together with the Rugby League International Federation over scheduling.
And the Broncos master coach insisted it was still up to NRL clubs to support the international game by ensuring all their players were available for Tests.
New Zealand fielded a second string side in Denver due to late retirements, injuries and the unavailability of the likes of stars Shaun Johnson.
“The game works against the game. We didn’t all get on board with it,” Bennett said of the Denver Test.
“We have had situations that could have been avoided with scheduling and all that sort of stuff.
“People who run the game have to run the whole of the game so we are all on the same page not the NRL tugging somewhere and the international game trying to tug somewhere else.”
Bennett said the game must explore its options in the US including a proposed NRL 2019 season kick-off in America – or else.
“If we don’t have a global sport we are not going to have rugby league in 15 years, I tell you now,” he said.
“We will just have a little game of rugby league played in two states.
“We have taken an Australia-wide view now we have to take a global view because it is a great product.”
Bennett was pleased with the 20,000 crowd for the Denver Test but warned if the game didn’t follow up the US visit, it would have been a “waste of time”.
“The first (US visit) was State of Origin in 1987,” he said.
“It doesn’t have to be an Origin game (played in the US) we just need some sort of continuity.
“It’s a huge country over there and they love the body contact. If we get one or two per cent of their population interested in what we are doing, it would be huge for us.”
For the record, Bennett didn’t have any travel dramas in the US.
“We were back in Sydney by 7am Monday morning. We beat the (Queensland) Origin players home (from Sydney) by two hours,” he smiled.
