Wayne Bennett wears international hat before fashioning England advance

The new national team coach tells Dave Hadfield this week’s World Club Series is his starting point

The future England coach Wayne Bennett (right), over here with his club the Brisbane Broncos for the World Club Series, meets the RFL chairman, Brian Barwick (Reuters)

We are used to seeing Wayne Bennett, widely rated as rugby league’s top coach, in his trademark baseball cap. It could be a trickier balancing act this week to wear two hats simultaneously.

Bennett is in Britain in two capacities; firstly, as the man who is synonymous with the success of the Brisbane Broncos, who play Wigan in the World Club Series on Saturday.

But he is also here as the coach-in-waiting for England, who have agreed a two-year contract with him to take in the 2017 World Cup.

The day was supposed to be all about the former, with international duties on the back-burner until later in the week. It might feel like adopting a split personality, but Bennett has never arranged his time to fit in with the media and he is not about to start now.

It could be hard separating the two themes, though, because it is the very qualities he showed in a Sir Alex Ferguson-like first stint of 21 years at the helm of the Broncos that England want to tap into now. These can be summed up as discipline, attention to detail and a determination to mentor the whole person, not just the rugby league player.

When Bennett first went to the Broncos in 1988, it was with a promise that, if he could not improve them as players, he would try to improve them as people.

If that sounds a little sanctimonious, Bennett does know what he is talking about. His father, a violent alcoholic, abandoned the family when Wayne was 11. He does not drink, smoke or gamble – in other words, he is hardly recognisable as an Australian at all – and he hates the low-life behaviour and resulting toxic image rugby league can sometimes generate.

People say that he has never been seen to smile in public. That is not quite true, although his dry, deadpan humour is invariably delivered with a straight face. They also acknowledge that to glimpse him at his most overtly affectionate you had to see him with his disabled son, Justin.

Had it not been for Justin’s needs, it is a fair bet that Bennett would have coached in England by now. He was a committed Anglophile even before his short playing stint with Huddersfield in the early 1970s.

One thing that runs deeper than that, however, is his commitment to international rugby league. He is the antithesis of the attitude, all too common in Australia, that only that country matters.

He showed that in the 2008 World Cup when he put his expertise at the disposal of New Zealand, working in tandem with Stephen Kearney and helping the Kiwis to win the tournament.

The situation is slightly different with England, where Bennett will be the head coach and will pick a – presumably English – assistant. You could even view this weekend’s World Club Series as a programme of auditions for the job.

Saturday’s opponents, Wigan, are coached by Shaun Wane. The actual World Club Challenge between Leeds and North Queensland the following day gives Brian McDermott the chance to show his paces. He is already coaching the United States, however, and form and fitness concerns with Leeds make it unlikely that he will be able put down much of a marker.

St Helens’ Keiron Cunningham, whose side play the Sydney Roosters on Friday evening, has already come out strongly against an overseas appointment, but that still leaves arguably the strongest candidate of all, Castleford’s Daryl Powell.

But that is for Thursday. With his Brisbane hat on, Bennett, who had flown in from coaching the NRL All Stars against the Indigenous All Stars in the Australian season opener, let it be known before he arrived that it was strictly World Club business.

There is no doubt that he is a fan of the concept. “I think it could be stretched to eight clubs,” Bennett said. He would also like to see the event staged in Australia in alternate years.

“We played Wigan in 1993 and got 50,000. If we did that again now we’d get 50,000. I’d like to see us do it. I think we ought to do it.” It almost amounts to an official endorsement.

That is the trouble with saying so little in public. People tend to hang on to every word that you do utter. That is not just down to the singular figure he cuts, though; it is also firmly based on what he has achieved in the game.

“Wayne Bennett is the pre-eminent coach of the modern, possibly any era,” said Nigel Wood, the RFL chief executive. “He has a proven track record at club and representative level and is a sincere internationalist. Wayne’s nationality is a non-issue for me.”

Bennett’s internationalism extends to supporting the World Club concept, even if, like last year, Super League clubs lose all three matches.

“It tends to go in cycles,” he said, no doubt recalling the great British forwards he grew up studying. And with that, he is whisked away – until further revelations on Thursday.

As ever, he makes the rules. If that means that we have to wait until he is good and ready to tell us what he wants us to hear, it will probably be worth the delay.