2016 Season: Round By Round

[Super Freak]

I just got my copy of the Broncos Annual magazine and in it is a look at the 2016 season round by round.

So I decided I would post what it has in the magazine and since I'll have access to NBN, I will also upload extended highlights with it.

Round 1 coming soon..

 

[Horseheadsup]

Round 22 against St. George.
Thaiday was great
Alas,
Benji was just soo baaaadd.

 

[Big Pete]

How good is the Broncos Annual Magazine? The club has really stepped their game up and it's been like an early Xmas gift for me.

Eels v Broncos looked amazing on paper, but by showtime it seemed like it would be a pretty easy win for the Broncos. The first half was good for a season opener and the try for Milford was one of the best from the round but the game fell off a cliff in the second half.

Oates played well, Eden not so much.

 

[subsbligh]

Just take a black Nikko pen through the June - September rounds

 

[Big Pete]

I didn't mind August, a couple of nice wins that saved the club from an unmitigated disaster.

 

[Big Pete]

Maybe it was early season jitters, but the Round 2 performance against New Zealand was shabby.

After a strong start, the Broncos got lazy gifting New Zealand easy territory with poor discipline and ball security. Andrew McCullough had a particularly slow start to the contest with a poorly timed and rushed clearing kick that put his team on the back-foot and a weak effort on Issac Luke, enabling Luke to shrug him off and score a soft try right underneath the posts.

Fortunately the Warriors defence, particularly down Johnson's fringe was very soft. Jack Reed produced a phenomenal effort to score a try that was eerily reminiscent of one he scored way back in his rookie season against Melbourne, but the play should have been shut down by Johnson. They were clearly caught short out-wide, so Johnson had to come in and cover Milford. Instead of going for the ball in all, Johnson simply tags him like it's a game of touch, allowing Milford to put Reed through a massive gap. I actually think Reed was looking to get the ball inside to Nikorima but Gerard Sutton got in the way so he just dummied to the official and went himself.

We really missed Reed last season. He provided the club with plenty of security, his work out of our own end of the field was invaluable and he covered well for Milford. It was just clear even in this game the shoulder was giving him grief. There was one run Ayshford produced in the 35th minute where you could see Reed's inside shoulder go. He was gutsy, but if the signs weren't there the season before when Ferguson made Reed look like a park footy player, they were clear as day on Blake freakin' Ayshford.

Watching these games, of course I'm going to keep a closer eye on Ben Hunt. For the first 39 minutes, I thought he was one of the Broncos best. There wasn't a lot doing, but he was often catching Tuimoala Lolohea out on his right wing and troubling Tuivasa-Sheck with his bombs - it was certainly a marked improvement on his ordinary performance against Parramatta the week prior. I was also impressed with his defence, which again, had been dire against Parramatta. He wasn't afraid to rush up and put a hit on Vatuvei or Hoffman, which is the way he was defending in 2015. Then it seemed like he hit a wall. He threw a horrific pass from dummy half in the dying stages of the first half which saw the Warriors bridge the gap by two and his second half followed a similar trend. Nikorima made a strong 20m half-break through the middle and instead of playing the ball through the hands, Hunt kicks for himself and allows the Warriors to work it out of their own half. I could forgive that play somewhat, but then his pass to Parker close to the line was the wrong option and blew what should have been an early second half try to the Broncos. The sad was, the play prior he threw a great short pass to Gillett for him to nearly cross on the second, it's just that inability to string good plays together that hurts him.

Stand Outs

Boyd - Produced some Karmichael Hunt esque kick returns to get Brisbane rolling, was safe at the back and produced some big plays. The only blemish was a knock on early in the second half. While Boyd should have taken the tackle, Roberts decision to run into the exact same gap as Boyd threw Darius off and if had have run just a touch wider, it would have been try time for the Broncos.

Oates - Came up with some huge plays from his own in-goal, produced a spectacular finish for first points and was one of only a few players earning consistent metres in the middle. Still, I was reminded that his issues with the high ball surfaced here as he made two big mistakes that almost proved costly.

Milford - Constant danger signs for the Warriors, to the point where they were deliberately giving away penalties just to take him out of the game. Speaking of, Bodene Thompson can eat a bag of dog turds for his dangerous tackle on Milford.

I also thought Blair, Gillett, Glenn and Thaiday were strong in the middle without being spectacular.