Adam Reynolds has revealed how a heart-to-heart with one of his former coaches helped save his marriage.
As the Brisbane Broncos skipper gears up to take on his old club, South Sydney, on Friday night at the Suncorp Stadium, the 35-year-old has also opened up on how he experienced a difficult period in his marriage during the Covid-impacted 2020 season.
Reynolds joined up with the Rabbitohs back in 2012, going on to make 231 appearances for the footy club before leaving in 2021. He’d spend the majority of his time at the club working under the guidance of legendary footy coach Wayne Bennett.
The pair would here strike up a bond, which led to the Brisbane skipper reaching out to the footy coach, whom he dubbed ‘a great mentor and friend’, while he worked through a rocky period with his wife, Tallara.
‘It was a tough part of my life,’ he told ex-Broncos boss Kevin Walters on his Inside Ball podcast.
‘Wayne saved it,’ he added, referring to his marriage.
Footy star Adam Reynolds (pictured with his wife Tallara) has revealed how former coach Wayne Bennett helped him save his marriage
Speaking to Kevin Walters and Ben Dobbin on the Inside Ball podcast, Reynolds lifted the lid on how he and Tallara faced challenges during the Covid-19 season
As NRL teams looked to navigate the uncertain world that was left behind following the pandemic, eagle-eyed Bennett saw something wasn’t quite right with his star player.
‘I was lucky that Covid had ended and we could resume footy, because it was a distraction from my personal life,’ Reynolds added.
‘It was the end of 2020. It was a really tough part of my life. He [Bennett] is very good at reading the room.
‘I wasn’t giving out too much and he grabbed me aside one day and said: “What’s up?”.
‘I opened up to Wayne because he gets the trust of the person and for him to give me guidance and regularly check in with me was good.
He admitted: ‘It was hard to navigate through that time,’ but added: ‘If I didn’t have that guidance from Wayne, I don’t know where I would have been.’
When asked by Ben Dobbin if ‘Wayne saved his marriage?’ Reynolds simply replied: ‘Yeah.’
Walters then chimed in: ‘He saved a lot of marriages.’
He explained that Bennett, coach of the Souths at the time noticed he wasn’t his normal self and pulled him away to have a conversation
Reynolds and Tallara are childhood sweethearts and met when they were 15 years old. They have four kids together
‘I opened up to Wayne because he gets the trust of the person and for him to give me guidance and regularly check in with me was good,’ Reynolds (right) told the podcast
Reynolds and his wife Tallara are childhood sweethearts. They met when they were 15 and now have four children together.
Speaking in an interview with South Sydney’s website back in 2018, the footy star explained that he felt that their lives growing up together made ‘things a lot easier’.
‘Tallara is the backbone of the family,’ Reynolds explained. ‘She makes things a lot easier at home. Obviously, looking after four kids isn’t easy. I know I struggle a fair bit when I am on my own with them. For her to do it day in, day out just proves what a great person she is.
‘I suppose she keeps the clock ticking in the family. If it wasn’t for her it probably would be a lot harder turning up to training every day and having to worry about things other than just what I need to.’
He has also been candid about his relationship with Bennett.
‘I’ve got a great relationship with him. And we still keep in touch regularly. Obviously, he gives me a lot of feedback and I respect his opinions, and he’s done a lot for me,’ Reynolds told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2022.
‘He knows my game, he knows the game, the media, he knows everything inside out, especially at the Broncos and in Brisbane. So it’s always good to have someone in your corner who always gives me a bit of feedback.’
Bennett, meanwhile, was pressed on how he helped the Broncos stand-off through that difficult period.
Reynolds (pictured) then stated that he has a ‘great relationship’ with Bennett, who is both a good friend and a mentor to him
Bennett (right) revealed that he had also played a big role in helping Reynolds (left) move to the Broncos, adding that he had given the Queensland club the tip off the halfback was being released
While he heaped praise on Reynolds, the former Bunnies boss told The Daily Telegraph: ‘Well, as a coach, the players are part of my team. Everyone in my team gets looked after and cared for. That’s how it works with me.
The footy star would leave the Bunnies in rather difficult circumstances, with the club man being released from his contract at the end of the 2021 season.
He has previously explained that he never fully received a full explanation from the club as to why he was let go, adding to Walters and Dobbin that the decision left him feeling aggrieved.
‘It was frustrating at that time because all you want to do is stay at the club and finish your career there and have a long career there post football,’ he told the Inside Ball podcast.
‘We got to the negotiating table and we outlined that we wanted two years. It was on half of the money that I was on the previous year. It wasn’t about money or about anything else, it was just about the two years. We couldn’t come to an agreement there.
‘They tossed up a one-year offer and then things sort of started getting leaked in the media. My body wasn’t well. I couldn’t train. This and that. Whether that was them [the Souths] or not. But that sort of ticked me off.’
But things didn’t work out badly at all for Reynolds, who subsequently moved to join the Broncos and last week made his 300th appearance in the NRL.
Reynolds continues to dazzle in rugby league’s top flight, having now made 74 appearances for the Broncos with his contract set to expire in 2026.
‘I always wanted to move north post football and I didn’t know if that was going to be Gold Coast or Brisbane,’ he explained.
Walters, though, cracked back at his former player, saying: ‘You didn’t mention that at the negotiating table, we could have taken an extra zero off the contract!’
Bennett, meanwhile, has opened up on his relationship with Reynolds too, revealing he played a huge role in giving the Broncos a tip off that the Bunnies were set to release him.
‘I think the world of Adam,’ Bennett said to The Daily Telegraph.
‘I really do. He is a special person.
‘We just gel. He’s a great guy and I like everything about him. The way he handles himself, the way he conducts himself.
‘We built a great relationship and friendship at Souths and it remains to this day.
‘I was instrumental in getting him to Brisbane. I spoke to ‘Alf’ [Allan Langer], because Souths weren’t going to keep him, and I just thought Brisbane would be great for him and his family.’
‘He’s done remarkably well in Brisbane. They’ve made a difference to Adam and he has made a difference to them.’
Reynolds is now set to release a memoir titled ‘On My Own Terms’, which will release on October 28, 2025.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .