You don’t last 48 years in this game, Wayne Bennett might say with his one-sided smile, by getting too many big calls wrong.
And it’s hard to recall rugby league’s longest-serving coach botching a big positional shift.
Darren Lockyer took his time warming to five-eighth after a decade at fullback, but delivered Bennett the 2006 premiership. Justin Hodges was instrumental in the same title triumph shifting from centre to fullback.
Gene Miles from centre to the forwards was Bennett’s first big call at the Broncos the best part of 40 years ago.
Even shifting Wally Lewis from five-eighth to lock was the beginning of the end for ‘The King’ at the Broncos. But it accommodated Kevin Walters and the decade-long, four-premiership reign of he and Allan Langer in the halves.
The Rabbitohs and Latrell Mitchell are in the safest of seasoned hands as Bennett’s next big decision looms.
It’s a conundrum rival coaches would kill for, but a conversation not worth entertaining already if not for the Dally-M leading form of diminutive fullback stand-in Jye Gray.
At No.1, Gray embodies exactly where the fullback of 2025 and beyond is heading in the six-again era – absolutely everywhere for 80 minutes.
Dylan Edwards is the game’s gold standard, James Tedesco and Tom Trbojevic are bigger bodies wired the same way. Ditto Ryan Papenhuyzen and evergreen Clint Gutherson. Kalyn Ponga and Reece Walsh bring more enigmatic brilliance with them, which Walsh is currently wrestling with.
As is modern rugby league’s way as well, Gray is signed for 2026 but will be among the next crop of players off-contract come November 1, and is driving his value up every time he plays.
Jye Gray is a runaway Dally M medal leader after five games.Credit: NRL Imagery
Asked on Friday in Perth if Gray had exceeded his own expectations like most all other observers this year, Bennett said: ”My expectations are pretty high, so probably he hasn’t. But he’s been very good.
“He’s brave, he’s highly skilled. When I first started going to training with him, I realised his communication is really good and he knows what’s going on out there. He’s pretty smart. All those things help get him through the game at his size, and that’s quite an effort.”
Mitchell too ranks among the NRL’s best custodians, and at 102kg is in the best shape of his life and better suited to keeping pace with the kelpie-like requirements of today’s fullback.
Bennett was again emphatic ahead of Saturday’s clash with the Cowboys, when Mitchell will play five-eighth out of necessity.
The Rabbitohs highest-paid player will return to fullback when Cody Walker does the same at five-eighth.
Bennett has played his cards deftly in declaring Mitchell his fullback this season, giving him a public cuddle and reward for the commitment and training that has seen him drop 10 kilos over the summer.
What Bennett and his successor/predecessor Jason Demetriou have weighed into previously, is how much longer the game’s most magnetic player needs the added running demands at the back.
“It’s a possibility,” the veteran coach said of Mitchell eventually moving to the halves fulltime.
“But it’s not now, it won’t be next year. Cody will be the five-eighth and when we’re all together properly [and fit] Latrell will be the fullback.”
The big Bunnies question: what does Wayne Bennett do with Latrell Mitchell and Jye Gray?Credit: Stephen Kiprillis
Bennett spoke of Mitchell shifting to five-eighth when he first left Souths in 2021, while Demetriou raised the same eventual shift when he visited his million-dollar man in Taree soon afterwards.
“The long-term plan, and I’d spoken to Latrell about this before I took over as head coach, his evolution from fullback for me was always going to be to move to five-eighth,” Demetriou said this week on Triple M.
“He’s one of the best ball-playing fullbacks in the game, if not the best ball-playing fullback in the game. He’ll handle that side of it really easily.
“He can create problems with his running game and his passing game and he could grow into one of the elite five-eighths. It’s only [happening now] because they’ve got injuries but it’s a pretty handy option to have.”
Mitchell’s ball-playing numbers at fullback back up Demetriou’s assessment, just as Gray’s running statistics speak to the mobility and endurance that is plain for all to see.
When Walker returns from injury, it will be at five-eighth because he is far more comfortable, and dangerous, as the most left-side dominant player in the game.
Souths’ breakdown of scoring channels, with 11 of their 17 tries coming down their left edge and just one via the right, reflects this.
The game-managing No.7 role Walker tried on out of necessity last season was a poor fit, and Bennett has told both Walker and Jack Wighton that he prefers them at five-eighth and centre respectively.
There is an element of Origin selections in front of Bennett when his backline stocks are fit and available. And with plenty of time spent coaching at representative level, Bennett knows how to juggle quality players and traverse being spoilt for choice as well as anyone.
The Dally M count leading Gray or Mitchell at fullback; Mitchell, Wighton, Campbell Graham, Alex Johnston and Tyrone Munro across his three-quarter line; Walker at five-eighth with Jamie Humphreys his No.7, along with options in $650,000 English recruit Lewis Dodd and utility Bud Sullivan.
Playing Gray as a bench utility is a daunting prospect for tiring opposition defences, though the argument grows stronger with each outing that the 21-year-old is too effective to be shifted from fullback.
Particularly when Gray’s 182 run metres per game are the third-most of any player in the NRL. Across the first five rounds, the competition’s smallest player has contributed 13 per cent of Souths’ entire yardage game, which has their average 1391 metres as the lowest in the NRL.
Concern around his lack of size being targeted has also abated somewhat, though Gray can be expected to be targeted further under the high ball by the game’s best kickers.
Brad Fittler’s use of Mitchell and Trbojevic as roaming, roving centres with devastating success for NSW is one possible way to keep Mitchell and Gray in the same starting side.
Andrew Johns’ suggestion of rotating the pair on set-plays – switching Mitchell from centre to fullback to have him “chasing the biggest moments in a game and putting the defence on edge” is another.
“I’ve thought about it, but I don’t know yet,” Bennett said of where Gray lands when Mitchell goes to the back.
“I think he could play in the centres, he could play anywhere really.”
Walker’s dodgy hamstring has given Mitchell and the Rabbitohs an early taste of what he can do at five-eighth.
In a remarkable comeback against the Roosters, in his first game since August last year, Mitchell’s 53 touches far outstripped any previous involvement levels at any position – not least his previous forays as a stop-gap Roosters pivot six years ago.
Walker made note last year of Mitchell’s booming kicking game compared to his own “pop gun” left boot, and twice the 27-year-old overcooked 40-20 attempts that sailed out on the full against his former side.
If anything, there’s a happier medium between Mitchell’s heightened involvement against the Roosters and the risk of confining him to one edge at centre or five-eighth.
Because of course, when the time came for a match-winning moment – and a quick physics lesson for those questioning his dazzling cut-out pass to Isaiah Tass – it was Mitchell needing his hands on the ball.
It might be a while coming yet. But Bennett has another fascinating positional call at hand as well.
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