There are great expectations when in charge of a powerful club, as Wayne Bennett and Brad Fittler can attest, writes Roy Masters.

"IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times …," Charles Dickens wrote 150 years ago in the opening line of A Tale of Two Cities, a story of London and Paris and the antagonistic forces of loyalty and family on the one hand and hatred and duplicity on the other.

Tonight's opening NRL qualifying final is a match between two cities - Sydney and Brisbane - and a tale of two coaches whose futures have been shaped by twists of fate and tension in the family structure which bonds great clubs.

Brisbane's Wayne Bennett actually signed to coach the Roosters in 2007 but reneged on the deal and remained in Brisbane where he lost the support of the Broncos' owner and management, forcing him to walk from the final year of his contract and sign with the Dragons.

Brad Fittler, the Roosters' favourite son, was drafted late last season as a caretaker coach by a grateful board to resurrect the 100-year-old club in the wake of the failed tenure of Chris Anderson.

So, with hope and a home final in Sydney and hostility and wordless farewells to management in Brisbane, it could be expected that it is Fittler who is enjoying the best of times and Bennett the worst of times.

But speaking to them midweek, it was Bennett who was basking in Dickens's "season of Light" and Fittler mired in the "season of Darkness".

For Bennett, "it was the spring of hope" and for Fittler, "the winter of despair".

The usually taciturn Bennett declared it "the best time of the year". "I'm enjoying myself," he said. "You've got to have your best footy players on the field at this time of the year and bar one [Steve Michaels], we've got everyone on deck.

"After the State of Origin, we had nine games left and we set ourselves a target of winning seven of them. We won six and the biggest losing margin was four points and we had four of our top players out. I've got a fit squad and we're playing OK."

Fittler, after initially saying, "life's flying" quickly cast aside his mask and revealed the stress which stalks a coach whose team has struggled in the final third of the season.

"You go through different stages based on a life which is only winning or losing," he said.

"A lot of people try to help."

A long pause followed that last remark, prompting me to suggest, "So you're getting plenty of advice?" Another long silence followed, conveying more than words, before Fittler repeated the sentence slowly and precisely: "A lot of people try to help."

Translation: Coaching expertise has been thrust upon him, perhaps by a well-meaning high-profile board, or former coach Phil Gould has become involved in team preparation.

Yet, of all Fittler's superior qualities, loyalty is paramount and he quickly qualified his comment. "It's because people care, I suppose," he said. "I care, too, but deep down you've got to act yourself.

"Even from the outside you can tell it's a tough job. You've got to feel safe to be successful. I feel for what Matty Elliott [Penrith coach] has gone through and how it affects the team.

"There are no certainties in coaching. You can be sacked in a day. It's a pretty tough job."

Despite the Roosters' late-season collapse, captaincy change and seeming inability to score tries other than from kicks, Fittler is so loved by his board, any action chairman Nick Politis took would only be to support Fittler.

"He's one of us," Politis said this week.

Fittler's confirmation in the top job following his successful caretaker period has probably been the only time in history where a board put the interests of the coach above the club. Quite simply, they didn't want the job to destroy him.

Perhaps the recent intervention is in response to Fittler's own admission at a press conference following the victory over the Dragons last Friday.

Question: "Two weeks ago, you said you didn't know what was wrong."

Answer: "It was me."

Twelve months ago, when I caught up with Fittler at the premiere of the movie The Final Winter, he ridiculed the zealotry of modern coaches, arguing they took the job too seriously.

I remember thinking to myself, "Wait until you lose three in a row, Freddy."

This week, when I reminded him of the conversation and asked whether he had reviewed his opinion, he said: "I never really had expectations about the job. You have to give it a lot of time. You waste a bit of time. I try to relax but it's hard."

Bennett, when asked did he feel for Fittler, said: "I don't think much about Brad because my focus is on us. I think he's done a good job in 18 months.

"But one thing I'm certain of is if you ask him whether he'd rather be playing or coaching, I'll bet he'd say playing. He'd be more confident about the outcome of the game if he was playing. The great player he was meant he had a great influence on the game."

Ask Fittler about Bennett and he says: "One thing that can be guaranteed is he will be up for the game. He's proven himself there. He's always risen to the big games."

Listening to Fittler, it's Bennett's Brisbane that is Dickens's "we had everything before us" and Sydney who "had nothing before us".

For the Broncos, it's "all going direct to Heaven" and the Roosters "going direct the other way".

Yet, while the Sydney and Brisbane clubs are worlds apart, if Bennett and Fittler exchanged jobs a month ago, they'd probably be in the same situation tonight.

In Dickens's novel, a man with a name close to Fittler's heart - Sydney Carlton - swapped places with a condemned aristocrat and went to the guillotine, freeing the prisoner to escape to London.

The noble Bennett has been accused of all manner of sins in Brisbane - from taking secret payments from a businessman to encouraging players to leave, forcing the club to deny a report a week ago that he no longer communicates with his assistant and next year's coach, Ivan Henjak.

A stressed Fittler has made a sacrificial victim of himself by blaming the Roosters' desultory form on his own shortcomings, in a final, desperate strategy evocative of Carlton's last words in Dickens's book - "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done …"

And Bennett, the coach eternal, will soon be free of the rusty shackles of Brisbane to begin a new life, reborn in Sydney.