Whether or not he ends Brisbane's two-decade halfback headache, South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett believes his former club has landed a prize asset in Adam Reynolds.
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The Rabbitohs captain has signed a three-year deal with Brisbane from next season and it's a move Bennett feels works well for both player and club.
"The Broncos have got a wonderful player coming here," Bennett said, confirming Reynolds will feature for Souths in Saturday's Magic Round clash against Cronulla at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday.
"What he brings off the field as well. He's a really special bloke.
"South Sydney will be sorry to lose him - we all are - but that's the way it worked out.
"It wasn't his fault. It wasn't the club's. It's just a situation we find ourselves in with the salary cap but he's made a good choice, I know he's happy with it."
From his own experience coaching at Souths, Bennett can see elements of Broncos great Allan Langer in the 30-year-old Reynolds, a talented playmaker but also a character off the field.
"I like his calmness and his fun. He's a bit like Alf ... he's not as big a pest as Alf (but) he's not far off it," Bennett said.
"He can be a bit of a pest but he's got a great sense of humour and a really balanced guy.
"I take captaincy of a club extremely seriously and had some guys there, a couple of them could've done the job but I wanted him to do the job because I just thought he had all those attributes that makes good captains and makes great teammates.
"He's not probably going to score them 80-metre tries because that's not what he does, but he's going to help other guys score 80-metre tries and that's what they probably lack right now."
Replacing Langer, who last played for the Broncos in 2002 after a 258-game career that included four premierships, has been an ongoing issue ever since the diminutive playmaker's departure.
Bennett said the inability to find a long-term halfback at Red Hill was for multiple reasons, and handling the expectation of solving that problem would be Reynolds' biggest challenge next season.
"Alf's never been replaced. Kevin (Walters) did a great job there for us in 2000 but Kevin was a wonderful halfback in his own right," Bennett said.
"Since that period of time there's a lot of young men who have played halfback at the Broncos ... it's been a bit of an Achilles heel for the Broncos for a long time.
"Ben Hunt did a good job there as well but it's just been a tough area the halves and five-eighths."
Australian Associated Press
