Wayne Bennett thought he would lighten the mood this week by taking South Sydney players to lunch to popular Italian eatery Grappa. Grappa was the Leichhardt restaurant Bennett famously visited in 2020, when he was meant to be in the NRL’s COVID-19 bubble. He was later forced to isolate from the players for a fortnight. With injuries mounting, and wins hard to come by, Bennett thought what better way to forget about your troubles than by hoeing into some zucchini flowers and a hot bowl of tagliolini with crab meat, at a restaurant at which he has significant history. It beggars belief that Bennett, arguably the greatest coach in NRL rugby league history – whose record stands at 583 wins from 958 first-grade games – is preparing for a game on Sunday being dubbed the “Spoon Bowl”.