Benji Marshall seemed to be playing another game to his opponents over his 346-game NRL career, moving in ways that didn’t make sense and then, in his advancing years, adapting to became one of the sport’s great conductors.
As a coach, he has been belittled and ridiculed, questioned for what some believe is an unjustified elevation to the Wests Tigers job. He has been taunted for his team’s subsequent failures, and teased for daring to think of a life of family, of authenticity, of something bigger than rugby league.
