Bennett, who still had another year to run on his rich deal with Newcastle, hadn't determined his future beyond last season and at the time there was no official approach from the Broncos.

In fact, Bennett was set to return to St George Illawarra until a phone call to Lachlan Murdoch on July 19 assured him that he would be welcomed back to the club he had co-founded and guided to six premierships with the blessing of the News Corp chairman.

But the master coach had decided before then that his tenure in Newcastle was over, announcing nine days earlier that the performance of the team under his charge had not been "satisfactory" and someone else deserved a chance.

"I'm extremely disappointed, I'm embarrassed by it," Bennett told a press conference.

"You can't keep passing the buck and blaming other people ... I expect my players to do the same."

Bennett's words demonstrated a level of accountability rarely seen in professional sport and ensured there would be no excuses at Brisbane this season either.

That approach had resulted in an honesty among the playing group that was lacking in recent seasons, according to forward leader Corey Parker, who said: "If Wayne is not there we're probably not in the grand final".

Discipline on and off the field, which last year resulted in Jack Reed, Corey Oates and Daniel Vidot being stood down for breaching the club's alcohol policy, was immediately addressed.

When a Broncos veteran reported at the start of the season that he had misplaced his club-issued trousers over the summer, the player was made to pay $40 for a replacement pair.

More significantly, Bennett took it upon himself to reshape the squad he had inherited from Anthony Griffin – a task the master coach had overseen from a distance before joining St George Illawarra and Newcastle.

Ben Barba, Josh Hoffman, Ben Hannant, Martin Kennedy and Dave Hala were released from their contracts, with Bennett bringing in Adam Blair, Darius Boyd, James Gavet and Travis Waddell.

"We made a couple of tough decisions during the off-season to let some players go here, so that depleted the squad a bit, but I thought it was also strengthening the squad because I didn't think they were the right fit for the place, so we did all that," Bennett said in an interview with Fairfax Media columnist Phil Gould on Nine's Footy Classified.

Even those players who had enjoyed a long association with Bennett were not spared, with former Broncos captain Sam Thaiday dumped to the interchange bench after the season-opening 36-6 loss to South Sydney.

Bennett, who handed Thaiday his NRL debut as an 18-year-old in 2003, had expressed concerns about his weight during the off-season and he showed the Brisbane players that reputations would count for nothing this season by blasting the Test forward for conceding three first-half penalties against Souths.

"I don't come to work of a day thinking whether I am your coach or your friend," Bennett said. "You know when I am the coach and you know when I am your friend and if you don't you better work it out pretty quick otherwise you are going to struggle with it."

Parker, who will captain the Broncos in the grand final if Justin Hodges is suspended, said Bennett's hard-nosed approach had been the key to the club's success this season as the players had been forced to take responsibility for their performances.

"I remember when I was first coming through first grade, if I had an ordinary game I would just resign myself to the fact I was playing reserve grade the next week because that is how I understood the system," Parker told Triple M.

"But I think over the last few years if some of the players had an ordinary game, they just knew they were going to play the next week.

"It just doesn't give you any of that honesty among the group, so accountability has been probably the biggest change I have seen."