“It’s a vocation that hasn’t been encouraged,” he says. “There’s been no NRL assistance to help the process.

“Maori, Pacific Island and Indigenous players comprise well over half the playing population but haven’t been encouraged to become assistant coaches

“We need a pathway or a program to encourage players when they retire.”

Asked if it would help if the salary of a Polynesian assistant at an NRL club was exempt from the football department soft cap, Kearney said, “It’s still a spend for the club but if the NRL provided the funds for the hire, it would be a benefit.”

A similar incentive operates for Indigenous coaches via the Kari organisation, which part-funds the salary of First Nations staff at sporting clubs. An assistant at Wests Tigers last season, Ronald Griffiths, is now the coach of the Newcastle Knights NRLW team.

The NFL also has a problem with a low representation of black coaches, despite 58 per cent of the playing population being of black heritage. The Rooney Rule, named after a former owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, was introduced in 2003 to encourage the hiring of minorities. Each NFL club was required to interview at least two black or Hispanic candidates for the positions of head coach and general manager. There were three black coaches in the NFL in 2003 and there are still three today. While the interviews were mandatory, they were mostly a sham.

Opportunities are limited because the NFL, like the NRL, recycles coaches. Some of the NRL’s assistant coaches are former head coaches, even at their fourth club, meaning they reduce the vacancies for Pasifika assistants.

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Craig Bellamy, who twice hired Kearney as an assistant, can’t explain why the NRL has a poor representation of Polynesian coaches, except to say he wouldn’t hire a coach just because he was Polynesian, nor would he not hire one for the same reason.

Kearney agrees Bellamy is colour blind, saying, “If a person fits the job description, he gets it in Melbourne.”

Sheens is the same. “I don’t see colour of skin,” he says. “I see only ability.”

Mal Meninga is of South Sea Island heritage and is in charge of the Australian team at the World Cup.

While it’s not the NRL, the Kangaroos are the biggest brand in the code, meaning an Immortal of Polynesian ancestry can reach the top as a coach.

As a player, Benji has already paved the way for Polynesians to be playmakers.

“I’m only an interim coach,” said Sheens, who will step aside after 40 years in the job, confident Marshall can be a field marshall off the field as well.

“He will be front of office.”

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