HE is regarded as rugby league’s most successful coach, having won more premierships, more finals and more games than anyone in the code’s history – but Wayne Bennett’s Midas touch has deserted him in Newcastle.
Of the eight men who have coached the Knights since their inception in 1988, statistics suggest nobody has a worse win-loss record than the 64-year-old Queenslander.
Sunday’s 32-10 thumping from Penrith, which left the Knights languishing in second-last position with two wins after nine rounds, was Bennett’s 60th game at the helm since he arrived in Newcastle before the 2012 season.
Of those 60 games, the Knights have won 26, lost 33 and drawn one.
That gives Bennett a winning strike rate of 43.3 per cent and a losing ratio of 55.0 per cent.
Bennett’s losing percentage is the highest of any Knights coach, surpassing that of the much-maligned Brian Smith (54.4 per cent).
Only foundation Newcastle mentor Allan McMahon (40.7 per cent) has a lower winning strike rate than Bennett.
But McMahon’s no-frills team featured in six drawn games between 1988 and 1991, in the era before golden-point extra time, compared with a lone draw for Bennett.
Because of that, even though Bennett boasts a higher winning percentage than McMahon (43.3 to 40.7 per cent), McMahon lost fewer games on average (51.8 to 55.0 per cent).
If you include points gained from draws in the equation, McMahon’s success rate (44.4 per cent) shades that of Bennett (44.2 per cent).
Those numbers are a far cry from Bennett’s career record when he signed for Newcastle, after winning seven premierships at Brisbane (1992, 1993, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2006) and St George Illawarra (2010).
At that stage, he had a winning strike rate of 64 per cent from 633 games, more than 20 per cent better than his subsequent record at the Knights.
His overall career strike rate has dipped slightly since joining Newcastle to 61.9 per cent from 693 games.
Bennett, of course, steered the Knights to two playoff wins last season – their first success in the post-season since 2006.