NRL: St George want coach to stay on

Wayne Bennett speaks to his players after the NRL Grand Final. Photo / Getty Images

St George Illawarra coach Wayne Bennett denies his work is done in delivering the Dragons a long-awaited NRL premiership, with the club already exploring the possibility of holding on to the master coach beyond next season.

Bennett, who confirmed his standing as the greatest coach in the history of the game with his seventh grand final triumph 32-8 against the Roosters on Sunday night, said he would return next year to see out the final year of his three-season deal.

But the club is already making plans to hold on to the veteran mentor, with chief executive Peter Doust to sit down with Bennett during the off-season to discuss the possibility of the 60-year-old continuing beyond next year.

"I'm keen, we're keen to extend his relationship with the club, but we've got to get all those right things in place he needs to want to coach," Doust said.

"We've always had an agreement that he'd be here 2011 for sure and then once this off-season played out we'd sit down and have a talk about what may be in front of him going further."

With his family still based in Brisbane, many believe Bennett will return home in 2012, given he has now achieved what he had set out to do by ending a 31-year drought for a Dragons premiership. The rumour mills have suggested a return to the Broncos is on the cards, but Bennett denied his job was done with the joint venture.

"No, not really - part of it's accomplished but I've got a three-year contract, still got a year to go," he said.

"My first goal was to get them winning - I didn't have a three-year plan or a five-year plan, I knew they had to win from day one and everybody was sick of waiting.

"When I get around to thinking about it I know what my instinct will be - we'll want to play well next year.

"I told Peter Doust when I came here that I didn't come here just to get another coaching job, I came here to hopefully put them back where they should be."

And had he done that with Sunday night's premiership?

"We haven't done too bad, have we," Bennett responded.

While Bennett may not consider his work complete, there was a sense of satisfaction in Doust's voice after his ambitious plan to lure Bennett to the club paid handsome dividends after years of finals failures.

In eight of 11 seasons as a joint venture - including last year's first campaign under Bennett - the Dragons reached the finals only to fall short of a premiership, with Doust paying tribute to Bennett for getting the team over the edge.

"You've got to put yourself in a position to win a grand final," Doust said.

"We certainly were struggling under that inconsistency label and our brand was suffering and the plan, as he's said all along, was to bring some consistency to the performance ... that's what he's delivered.

"He came at a time that they [the players] were ready as well [and] you can see that he's been able to take that somewhere special."

He may have missed out on the Dally M gong but the Clive Churchill medal for player of the NRL grand final will do just nicely for St George fullback Darius Boyd.

A month ago the 23-year-old was short-priced favourite to take the award as the standout player of the 2010 season, only to be overtaken in the final rounds by Roosters playmaker Todd Carney.

But no one would go past Boyd on Sunday evening.

- AAP