Rugby league-'Marvel' coach Bennett hailed ahead of 900th match

MELBOURNE : Wayne Bennett was a lanky former policeman in his mid-thirties when he took the reins of the Canberra Raiders with co-coach Don Furner and steered them to victory over the Cronulla Sharks in 1987.

Some 36 years on and seven National Rugby League (NRL) titles later, the 73-year-old supercoach will plot the Sharks' downfall again on Saturday when he coaches the Dolphins in his 900th championship match.

A big crowd can be expected at Lang Park to pay tribute to the man who delivered six of his seven titles to the local Brisbane Broncos from 1988-2008 and has now lent his nous to the NRL debutants.

Emotions may run high during the game, but the famously taciturn Bennett will likely have his usual poker-face on while looking to engineer victory.

Tributes from players, fellow coaches and NRL head office have rained down on the luminary this week.

"I can only marvel at the career of Wayne Bennett - what he has done for the game and what he has been able to achieve out of the game is phenomenal," NRL boss Peter V'landys said.

"Records may be meant to be broken, but it’s almost certain this one will not be."

Bennett, in his inimitable style, was having none of the hoopla on Friday and even threatened to walk out on a press conference when asked about the milestone.

"I’m not talking about my achievements, what I’ve done and haven’t done," he said.

"You’ve written about them, had an opinion on them. We’ve all had enough of it."

No NRL coach has come close to Bennett's tally of games, with second-placed Tim Sheens, the 72-year-old Wests Tigers manager, yet to crack 700.

With another three seasons in his contract after the current one, Bennett could yet threaten the 1,000-game milestone.

Back in the day, he had never considered