{"id":784736,"date":"2026-07-07T12:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/784736\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T12:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:12:11","slug":"nrl-2026-cody-walker-brain-explosion-poses-confusing-wayne-bennett-question-south-sydney-rabbitohs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/784736\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: Cody Walker brain explosion poses confusing Wayne Bennett question, South Sydney Rabbitohs"},"content":{"rendered":"

He made headlines for all the wrong reasons last Friday, and now Cody Walker\u2019s brain snap<\/a> has sparked an \u201cunusual\u201d question for legendary coach Wayne Bennett.<\/p>\n

Watch every game of every round of the Premiership Season LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bennett has long rued South Sydney\u2019s ill-discipline this season, with the club\u2019s Achilles heel proving costly against in the blowout loss to Penrith<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Walker, of course, was the most notable culprit after being sin-binned for lashing out against Penrith\u2019s Jack Cogger and denying his team a crucial try early in the game as a result.<\/p>\n

Walker is off-contract at the end of the year and foxsports.com.au\u2019s Paul Crawley has questioned whether the Rabbitohs should give the veteran five-eighth another deal<\/a> given his constant on-field antics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it will cost him a new deal. I think it should cost him a new deal,\u201d Crawley said on NRL 360.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s 36 years of age. He\u2019s the captain of that team. This is a game against a champion team in Penrith who were missing all their guns and this was nearly the dumbest thing you\u2019ve ever seen in your life… it\u2019s just unacceptable. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know he apologised at the end of the game, but he cost his team. It set the tone for the match. When is he going to learn? When is he going to change? <\/p>\n

\u201cI remember him standing there and arguing with Cooper Cronk. Cooper Cronk has been retired for about six or seven years. It\u2019s been going on and on and on and on. He sits there and apologises on the weekend. But you know it\u2019s sure as hell going to happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get all the latest NRL news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/p>\n

‘Your captain should NOT do that’ | 11:53<\/p>\n

Bennett didn\u2019t want to be drawn into much of a public conversation<\/a> on the Walker incident, telling reporters it \u201cdidn\u2019t make me happy\u201d when asked if he was disappointed.<\/p>\n

Gorden Tallis could vouch for that, having previously played under Bennett during his NRL career. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know personally Wayne hates ill-discipline because you put yourself bigger and better than the team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, that in itself prompted a difficult question and one Tallis couldn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut how come Wayne out of all coaches, who is the greatest and has such a great relationship with players and they all love him, hasn\u2019t been able to manage this?\u201d Braith Anasta asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cody responds to brain snap | 03:30<\/p>\n

While Crawley was critical of Walker\u2019s maturity, he did concede the Rabbitohs five-eighth is undoubtedly talented and suggested his natural ability may be one of the reasons why Bennett continues to put faith in him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe loves coaching Cody. Cody\u2019s silky skills \u2014 that\u2019s his kind of five-eighth,\u201d Crawley said.<\/p>\n

But for as talented as Walker may be with his ball-playing, Crawley added that the Rabbitohs will not be able to challenge for a premiership until they clean up their discipline. <\/p>\n

\u201cPenrith\u2019s discipline and South Sydney\u2019s lack of discipline is what makes South Sydney a mediocre team, I think,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment, I think that\u2019s what brings them down and it\u2019s consistently done it now for several years, and they\u2019ve got to change this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He made headlines for all the wrong reasons last Friday, and now Cody Walker\u2019s brain snap has sparked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-784736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}