Wayne flies straight back to Broncos pre-season work

Wayne Bennett has returned to Brisbane from a successful tour of Europe as England coach and will be back to work at Broncos headquarters on Thursday to guide his young side's 2019 NRL campaign.

How long he remains doing so is yet to play out.

Bennett, who will link with South Sydney as coach from 2020, told NRL.com before he went on tour that he would see out his contract in 2019 at Brisbane and sent a text to all his players stating that intention. He's reaffirmed that in several interviews since.

While he was guiding England to a 2-1 series win over New Zealand and victory over France there has been constant speculation that an imminent swap between Bennett and Rabbitohs coach Anthony Seibold, who will join Brisbane in 2020, was on the cards.

That may still happen in the coming weeks but Bennett said it was his intention to remain at Brisbane in 2019.

"I am not going to add any more to it. Nothing has changed from my point of view," Bennett told NRL.com on Wednesday after arriving home.

Bennett supported Josh McGuire's release from the final two years of his Brisbane deal to join the Cowboys and said the Broncos had the players to fill the breach.

"Josh obviously got an offer that he thought was in his best interests and he's taken it, and that is fine. He's been a wonderful player for the club," Bennett said.

"When those opportunities come along you've got to take them. We lost Adam Blair last year for the same sort of reason

"We've just got to get on with it. We are not short of players. Some of them haven't got much experience but they are not going to get experienced sitting in reserve grade either."

The Broncos had the equal youngest squad of any NRL club in 2018 at 24.8 years and Bennett said the opportunities given to his youthful debutants - which included Payne Haas, David Fifita, Kotoni Staggs and Gehamat Shibasaki – was a "down payment" on the club's future success.

"All those boys are 12 months on with experience, not a lot for some of them, but they've got some experience and they know what NRL is about," Bennett said.

"So we've already put a bit of down payment on our future by blooding those boys a bit."

The Broncos also have middle forwards Thomas Flegler and Patrick Carrigan on their books who Bennett expected to make their NRL debuts at some stage

"They will get opportunities this season that they would not have got if McGuire had been there, and that's all good," Bennett said.