Win, lose or golden point, Wayne Bennett will make history on Sunday.
He will lay claim to being the greatest rugby league coach in history – and even earn the right to stand alongside the greatest in any team sport.
It is a huge call to make, given that in international terms rugby league is a minor sport at best. Ask a UK Premier League supporter who Wayne Bennett is, and you will no doubt get a blank look in reply.
Ask a US Major League Baseball, NFL or NBA fan what rugby league is, and chances are the response will be the same.
South Sydney Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett will take a record fourth different team to the competition's decider this Sunday. Pictured: Bennett celebrates with his team after winning Game 3 of the 2020 State of Origin series at Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
Should the Rabbitohs win, the victory will be Bennett's eighth title from 10 grand finals. At 71 years of age, he will also be the oldest coach to ever lift the trophy
Bennett has coached a record 885 club games for 553 wins, 14 draws and 314 losses, a win-loss ratio of 62.6 percent
But in statistical terms alone there is no denying that what Bennett has achieved within the confines of his sport is worthy of comparison with any coach of any code – regardless of how many people play it or watch it.
When his South Sydney Rabbitohs run onto Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium to take on the Penrith Panthers, he will become the first rugby league coach to ever take four different clubs to the grand final.
Should the Rabbitohs finish on top, he will become the first coach to win premierships with three different clubs.
It will be his eighth title from ten grand finals – both records – and, at 71 years of age, he will be the oldest coach to ever lift the trophy.
In recent years there were those who said that Bennett had lost his touch, that he was too old and that the game had passed him by.
What he has achieved at South Sydney in the three years since he was sacked by Brisbane Broncos officials who felt their club's future lay in the hands of a younger man has well and truly proven his detractors wrong.
He has shown that the old fox still has plenty of tricks up his sleeve and cemented his reputation as the greatest rugby league coach who has ever lived.
Bennett addresses the Brisbane Broncos faithful after the club beat the Melbourne Storm in the 2006 NRL Grand Final. He won six premiership titles with the Broncos (including the SuperLeague title in 1997 when the game split into two competitions)
Bennett left the Broncos for the George-Illawarra Dragons, bringing the club success at the 2010 Grand Final
Bennett could bring the Bunnies its 22 premiership on the weekend. The club last won the competition in 2014
There have been plenty who have been given that title over the years, most notably the late Jack Gibson, who stopped coaching in 1987, and Craig Bellamy, current coach of the Melbourne Storm, but Bennett's performance this season has taken him well ahead of them.
Those with a fondness for history would say that Arthur 'Pony' Halloway's eight premierships between 1916 and 1945 still have him ahead of Bennett, but four of those premierships were 'first-past-the-post' without a grand final.
On the numbers alone, no-one can come close to Bennett.
At club level he has coached a record 885 games (over 200 more than second-placed Tim Sheens) for 553 wins, 14 draws and 314 losses, a win-loss ratio of 62.6 percent.
He took the Raiders to the 1987 grand final that they lost to Manly, before winning titles with the Broncos in 1992, '93, '97 (Super League), '98, 2000 and 2006.
In 2010, during a three-year stint with St George-Illawarra, he took the Dragons to their first premiership title as a joint venture and, five years later back at the Broncos, his team lost the grand final in extra-time to the Cowboys after being ahead with one second remaining.
He has coached Queensland to six State of Origin series wins between 1987 and 2020 and in 37 matches in charge of Australia, England and Great Britain, has recorded 24 wins for a winning percentage of 64.9 percent.
And that, in any game, is one heck of a record – so how does it rate outside the boundaries of rugby league?
Coach Wayne Bennett and captain Darren Lockyer (right) celebrate after the club's win in the 2006 Grand Final
Bennett celebrates with Dragons players Jamie Soward (left) and Dean Young (right) after the 2010 Grand Final victory
Australian Rules football has two coaches who stand above the rest in statistical terms: Norm Smith and Jock McHale.
Voted coach of the AFL Team of the Century, Melbourne legend Smith was a strict disciplinarian who took the Demons to the top of the game in the mid-1950s and early 1960s, winning five premierships from seven consecutive Grand Finals from 1955 before adding a sixth flag in 1964.
Statistically, Collingwood's McHale and Bennett are neck and neck. McHale coached for 38 seasons and 714 games for eight
