PRE-GAME [Round 7, 2026] - Broncos vs Tigers

[Big Pete]

Cheers @Big Pete

Was this common place? Dating back 30+ years?

I've been watching since '92 and I strongly remember the Broncos being severely and consistently impacted by Origin - but maybe the byes etc were still there and the Broncos just got them at the wrong time?

It varied, especially in the 90s where they would tinker with the day it was played on (it was moved to Monday during the mid-90s, then Friday in 98 etc.). Sometimes they would play through it, other times they'd take a couple of weeks off the competition, teams would get byes etc.

By the time South Sydney were re-admitted, they introduced the split rounds and they retained the concept when the Titans came in.

So there haven't always been byes, but the whole bye concept has been around 20+ years at this point.

 

[Morkel]

The HIA in itself is a joke.

You cannot in a 15 minute period ascertain how significant a brain injury is, it's a joke.

It's worse than that. I believe the "cat 1" call is from the independent doctor, purely from watching the incident itself on replay within a couple of mins of it happening. No tests, no 15 minute period, just how it "looked" on the field.

 

[ivanhungryjak]

100% corrupt

You only have to look down in Sydney and rabbits have been granted an exemption to play Dufty from NSW Cup who's on a T&T.

This despite them having Latrell, Johnston and Wighton who have played fullback at NRL level... and theyve got Latrell Seigwalt... an actual ****ing fullback ... under contract.

Bacially a salary cap rort being able to play Dufty but have him sit outside the salary cap.

The NRL couldn’t even be bothered to write a small piece about how this came about.
All things coming out of the club pointed towards Paix being ok and passing protocols.
Now, all we know is he hasn’t been given the ok to play despite players being ok’ed in the past.
Just some description of the process and briefly why he’s not ok would be great.

 

[dejan]

Rogers is reportedly going to start with Bukowski to the bench.

Duffy may be the unlucky one to drop off, but I would still have him on the 6 man bench

Yeah, I'd imagine he will just be a speed bump for the starting 20minutes. He offers pretty good service from dummy half and is a bigger body than Paix, Mozer and Buk. Not to mention, he can help with kicking if Reyno is pressured.

I do see value in putting him at starting hooker over Buk. You could see in the Cows game he was a bit late in some of the contact, 3 inefficient tackle, but warmed into the game. I am sure Madge would've had him training all week at hooker, tackling the big boys.

 

[1910]

100% corrupt

You only have to look down in Sydney and rabbits have been granted an exemption to play Dufty from NSW Cup who's on a T&T.

This despite them having Latrell, Johnston and Wighton who have played fullback at NRL level... and theyve got Latrell Seigwalt... an actual ****ing fullback ... under contract.

Bacially a salary cap rort being able to play Dufty but have him sit outside the salary cap.

It doesn't sit outside the cap; you need to pay them $3000 per game and that comes off the cap.

 

[Lockysillegitimatechild]

Paix "failed". What a rort. Can anyone seriously tell me nathan cleary wouldn't have passed the "independent" doctor review if he had to do one?

 

[1910]

Training is 4:10 today.

 

[Big Pete]

It's Wally Lewis failing his medical all over again!

9/11 was an inside job!!

 

[theshed]

I don't think there's a conspiracy against the Broncos. The Broncos problem is that they play too passively. They're still using that 2015 defence where they'll sacrifice line-speed to keep their line in tact. The issue is the opposition gets a roll on and if they put in an attacking kick the Broncos are suddenly under all sorts of pressure.

It's not sustainable.

It's frustrating but I think the biggest issue isn't so much Brisbane and how they're officiated but just the state of the game in general. We're losing the physicality, the rules keep getting tinkered with to the point that they lack common sense and there's just no flow to the game. It's back to the 2020-21 where teams just score in bunches.

If you squint hard enough, there's still some good play. However there's so many games where you just have to wait until half-time so the referee can put the whistle away and let things play out.

I wonder if our passiveness in defence is due to how much work we still expect our middle forwards to do in attack.

It’s so hard to ask Patty and Haas to maintain aggressive line speed when they are out there running a biathlon of sorts.

the RL zeitgeist of the 6 agin era is to have your outside backs carry the load for run metres, allowing your middles to have gas in the tank for defending. We’ve improved somewhat is this department but still rarely get Penrith level output from our back 5.

 

[Harry Sack]

It's Wally Lewis failing his medical all over again!

9/11 was an inside job!!

...bloody was though.

 

[dejan]

I feel like it is 50/50 with the passive defensive line and conserving our forwards, and the state of set restart ruling. Because we rely heavily on Haas or Patty to get through big minutes. And if they fatigue due to fast defensive line speed, the opposition will eventually roll us.

I am noticing there is more load on our bench players and 2nd rowers now, more than this time last year. Kobe and Riki were absolute dog nuts. Talty and X are able to maintain the middle somewhat enough to give CJ and Haas a rest. And Piakura and Riki making 100+ run metres helps Haas and Carrigan more too.

Inside our own 20 we do have a higher degree of line speed, but that is about it.

I feel like Madge is more thinking about how he can efficiency use our squad to not introduce too much fatigue compared to our opposition, and then roll them in the final 20 minutes, like we did last year, and to stop relying on Haas and Patty.

 

[McHunt]

That still IS at the initial point of contact, taken from a frame by frame of the live slow mo footage. It's the only angle I could find unfortunately so not great, but clearly impacts X's jaw with moderate force given the creasing to his face.

What the **** do forward passes from 3 years ago have to do with anything? Of course all teams get away with things at times and get unfairly pinged at others, I've never argued otherwise. Heck, the NRL have come out now and said the Drinky disruptor was the wrong call, as was Toia's, but they're obviously fine with Shiba's since it didn't rate a mention - which IMO given the timing of his arrival at Chester (after the ball was dropped) makes it the most egregious call of the three. If his head was down and he smashed Chester into the turf it's play on, Broncos try - but somehow because he got there a fraction late, jumped and looked at Chester as well as the ball, it's not ok.

The ref and the MRC are two different entities. The NRL acknowledges decisions made by referees in a split second aren't always correct. That's why they have the challenge and why it's sometimes successful.

The MRC, on the other hand, has access to all available footage and unlimited time to forensically analyse it. It's not impossible to challenge their ruling but the odds will be heavily stacked against you, and even moreso if your evidence is only what was shown on TV through the eyes of a highly biased fan.

One of those forward passes was in the last game, btw. Bank error in our favour.

 

[Johnny92]

Yeah, I'd imagine he will just be a speed bump for the starting 20minutes. He offers pretty good service from dummy half and is a bigger body than Paix, Mozer and Buk. Not to mention, he can help with kicking if Reyno is pressured.

I do see value in putting him at starting hooker over Buk. You could see in the Cows game he was a bit late in some of the contact, 3 inefficient tackle, but warmed into the game. I am sure Madge would've had him training all week at hooker, tackling the big boys.

Another option could be start Hunt or Jetski at "9" for the first 20 to soak up the tackles in the middle while Mam or whoever's near the ball basically runs at 9 in attack. 20 mins in bring Bukowski on keep Rogers on the bench to finish the game if needed.
Hunt or Jetski will play that 15 minute cameo if they get on so do it at the start and just tackle your ass off for 20 minutes.

 

[Jeffy]

I wonder if our passiveness in defence is due to how much work we still expect our middle forwards to do in attack.

It’s so hard to ask Patty and Haas to maintain aggressive line speed when they are out there running a biathlon of sorts.

the RL zeitgeist of the 6 agin era is to have your outside backs carry the load for run metres, allowing your middles to have gas in the tank for defending. We’ve improved somewhat is this department but still rarely get Penrith level output from our back 5.

I think last week was just an off day. But overall we definitely allocate workload and effort inefficiently. Both Panthers starting props average sub 100m a game, while all their backs are 150m+. It's a simple allocation of energy question - a fast defensive is a linespeed is a non negotiable as the entire game snowballs from there. Your forwards are the players primarily responsible for defensive linespeed, therefore they must frontload their energy there. Your backs then pick up the yardage obligation to relieve your forwards so they can frontload again defensively. Shiba was the consistent yardage back for us last year, but has now dropped off a cliff and the rest of our backs are too small.

In last year's finals run, our forwards were able to dominate enough to bring tiredness into the opposition, which created the initial seam for our smaller/faster backs to start winning in yardage sets. It was very apparent in the Penrith prelim that we were winning the yardage game and Penrith just fell apart without the momentum they're so used to.

Our backs absolutely suck in any neutral kick return/ball handover situation. I think it's made worse by the fact that they try fight for metres, instead of fighting for a quick ptb. Karapani is the most guilty of this. He might strain for an additional metre but the slowness of the ptb makes play 2 and all subsequent plays cooked. Mariner's made massive improvements but is still on the smaller side. I thought Anderson was great at just dive bombing at legs and finding his front, even if the run itself made little metres.

 

[Big Pete]

For @Sproj

Here's the 2002 Baby Broncos
17. Nick Parfitt
18. Scott Minto
13. Casey McGuire
4. Stuart Kelly
1. Steve Irwin
6. Brett Seymour
7. Scott Prince
8. Corey Parker
9. Shane Walker (c)
10. Robert Tanielu
22. Brad Meyers
14. Michael Coorey
11. Phillip Lee

5. Elia Tuqiri
16. Nathan Friend
19. Kris Kahler
20. Steve Lacaze

What a 2026 Baby Broncos would look like (injuries permitting)

23. Seth Gundry
24. Kane Bradley
19. Hayze Perham
1. Jesse Arthars
22. Antonio Verhoeven
6. Ezra Mam
25. Braithen Scott (Obviously Duffy is the better candidate but needed somebody to represent just how young Seymour was at the time)
13. Xavier Willison (Originally just went Corey for Corey, but Willison works too)
9. Cory Paix (Has to have a mo if he wants to captain)
18. Va'a Semu
12. Jordan Riki
17. Jack Gosiewski
11. Brendan Piakura

26. Phillip Coates
20. Cameron Bukowski
27. Tupou Francis
28. Jett Bryce

Coach: Matt Ballin

We may need to tinker with half and hooker but somebody get this team to Madge pronto!

 

[Sproj]

10. Robert Tanielu

You know what's funny is out of all those names, this is the guy who I thought had a future. I thought he was great in that game.

 

[Super Freak]

A few updates from Madge.

- Reyno is good to go. Got through training with no issues.
- Bukowski will play. He will come off the bench.
- Riki is fine and will play.

 

[Swordfish]

A few updates from Madge.

- Reyno is good to go. Got through training with no issues.
- Bukowski will play. He will come off the bench.
- Riki is fine and will play.

Not expecting a thumping W for us but your 3rd point gives me some confidence. Hopefully, headgear Riki stands tall and motivates the rest of the troops towards a W.

If no headgear Riki, that 19 absolutely