In a thinly-veiled swipe at NSW Blues coach Brad Fittler, South Sydney boss Wayne Bennett claims he had to be careful not to 'destroy’ dumped five-eighth Cody Walker’s confidence any further following his Origin axing.
Walker was among the form players in the NRL before he was named to make his Blues debut in the interstate series opener against Queensland.
But the 29-year-old was controversially hooked in the second half of the Blues’ 18-14 loss to the Maroons at Suncorp Stadium and was axed for the remaining two games – both of which Fittler’s side won.
Speaking after Walker scored a try and set up another in the Bunnies’ last-gasp win over St George Illawarra on Friday night, Bennett admitted the star pivot returned to Redfern out of form and down on confidence.
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“I’d said to him during the week he was coming back to his best and as a coach you know your players better than anybody else,” Bennett said.
“So I could see in the last couple of weeks, he was out of form when he came out of Origin and the disappointment that goes with all of that but I thought he handled it really well and he was just getting better each week.
“Last week against North Queensland I said to him after the game, ‘That’s where you want to be, you’re not making the line breaks but you’re about to’.
“… And tonight he came and got the rewards, he started to run the ball again and started to be Cody Walker.”
Walker scored 11 tries and had eight try assists through his first 11 games of the 2019 NRL campaign.
He had managed just one try assist in four games since his Blues demotion before his breakout performance against the Dragons.
Asked if he was concerned about Walker following his traumatic taste of Origin, Bennett replied: “No not really, I’ve been in that situation before … so I wasn’t worried about it, I knew that’s where he’d be.
“I just had to make sure I didn’t destroy any more of his confidence and do anything that would make him feel that he wasn’t valued, so I’ve been happy to do that over the last month with him.
“I made him captain, a couple of other guys probably could have been but I thought he needed the challenge and I knew that would have helped him.”
Pressed on Walker’s state of mind at the time of his Blues brushing, Bennett quipped: “Well, when someone rejects you what do you feel?
“Are you doing high hoops and jumping around everywhere and happy? I hope not.
“We all feel it, we all feel that when those moments happen in life so he was no different to the rest of us.
“But he knows his value to South Sydney and he knows I value him and that’s what matters most.”
