OFFICIAL 2025 Roster

PLAYER ROSTER FOR 2025 AND BEYOND
Red: final season of contract.

PLAYER		2025	2026	2027	2028
Adam Reynolds	Half	2025	Coach?
Antonio Verhoeven	Lock, Second row	2025*	2026*
Ben Te Kura	Prop	2025	2026
Billy Walters	Hooker, half	2025	2026
Blake Mozer	Hooker	2025
Brendan Piakura	Second row	2025	2026	2027
Coby Black	Half	2025**	2026
Corey Jensen	Prop	2025
Cory Paix	Hooker, half	2025***
Deine Mariner	Centre, wing	2025	2026	2027
Delouise Hoeter	Centre, wing	2025
Ezra Mam	Half	2025	2026	2027	2029
Fletcher Baker	Prop, Second Row	2025
Israel Leota	Wing	2025
Jack Gosiewski	Second Row	2025
Jaiyden Hunt	Prop, Lock, Second Row	2025
Jesse Arthars	Centre, wing, Fullback	2025	2026
Jock Madden	Half	2025	2026
Josh Rogers	Half	2025	2026
Jordan Riki	Second row	2025	2026	2027
Kobe Hetherington	Lock	2025***
Kotoni Staggs	Centre	2025
Marty Taupau	Prop	2025
Patrick Carrigan	Prop, lock	2025	2026	2027	2028
Payne Haas	Prop	2025	2026
Reece Walsh	Fullback	2025
Selwyn Cobbo	Wing, centre, fullback	2025
Tyson Smoothy	Hooker	2025
Va'a Semu	Prop	2025	2026	2027
Xavier Willison	Prop	2025

*TBC
** TBC top 30
*** being shopped to other clubs

DEVELOPMENT (2024)

Bailey Trew: centre

Coby Black: half

Israel Leota: wing

Va'a Semu: prop

UNSIGNED in 2025

Corey Oates

Josiah Karapani

STOCKS

Front Row
Carrigan, Haas, Hunt, Baker, Willison, Jensen, Te Kura, Semu, Marty Taupau

Second Row
Baker, Piakura, Riki, Taupau, Hunt, Gosiewski

Lock
Carrigan, Hetherington, Taupau, Hunt

Hooker
Mozer, Paix, Walters, Smoothy

Half
Reynolds, Mam, Walters, Paix, Madden, Rogers, Black

Fullback
Cobbo, Walsh, Arthars,

Centre
Staggs, Mariner, Arthars, Cobbo, Hoeter

Wing
Cobbo, Arthars, Leota, Hoeter


ETHNO MAP

QLD
Ben Te Kura, Billy Walters, Blake Mozer, Brendan Piakura, Coby Black, Corey Jensen, Corey Oates, Cory Paix, Delouise Hoeter, Ezra Mam, Israel Leota, Jack Gosiewski, Jaiyden Hunt, Josh Rogers, Kobe Hetherington, Patrick Carrigan, Reece Walsh, Selwyn Cobbo, Tyson Smoothy

NZ
Deine Mariner, Brendan Piakura, Jesse Arthars, Jordan Riki, Xavier Willison, Marty Taupau

NSW
Adam Reynolds, Fletcher Baker, Jock Madden, Kotoni Staggs, Payne Haas

Indigenous
Ezra Mam, Jordan Riki, Kotoni Staggs, Reece Walsh, Selwyn Cobbo

Tonga
Kotoni Staggs, Delouise Hoeter,

Samoa
Jesse Arthars, Payne Haas, Marty Taupau

Cook Islands
Brendan Piakura, Xavier Willison

 

[Big Del]

Ricco Verhoeven is a Dutch Kick Boxer .
I wonder if they are related .

 

[ningnangnong]

Ricco Verhoeven is a Dutch Kick Boxer .
I wonder if they are related .

Doubt it.

In 2007, Verhoeven was the 44th most common name in the Netherlands.

 

[McHunt]

Marty Taupau will not be extended, freeing up about $350k pa.

 

[Bucking Beads]

With a few season ending injuries does it mean we have the ability to bring in some more depth?

 

[McHunt]

With a few season ending injuries does it mean we have the ability to bring in some more depth?

We evidently said no to TPJ, whatever that's worth. As little as I trust him, he would've been an upgrade on our bench last weekend.

 

[Waynesaurus]

We evidently said no to TPJ, whatever that's worth. As little as I trust him, he would've been an upgrade on our bench last weekend.

Yeah.......well the bar isn't set very high................ four garden gnomes would have been an improvement on the bench last weekend

 

[1910]

Semu promoted early, development deal rest of 24, NRL 25, 26, 27.

 

[BroncsFan]

R&R team needs to be fired into the sun... Ikin got us back on track and balanced the cap only for a pack of morons to come in and go all in on youth again.

The "depth" we have is beyond embarrassing

 

[Sproj]

R&R team needs to be fired into the sun... Ikin got us back on track and balanced the cap only for a pack of morons to come in and go all in on youth again.

The "depth" we have is beyond embarrassing

Forwards: Taupau, Baker, Hunt, Gosiewski,
Backs: Pereira, Sailor, Hoeter, Madden, Paix, Rogers, Oates
Kids: Mozer, Te Kura, Karapani (could perhaps be above), Leota, Temu now

I don't think you can say it is all in on youth. It is just that guys like Baker have turned out to be total spuds He looked like a fantastic pick up from Easts, unfortunately he has turned out to be anything but and so much of the other depth above is injured or playing busted.

Goodness me, even our first team has like 70% that look like they need the offseason already.

 

[BroncsFan]

Forwards: Taupau, Baker, Hunt, Gosiewski,
Backs: Pereira, Sailor, Hoeter, Madden, Paix, Rogers, Oates
Kids: Mozer, Te Kura, Karapani (could perhaps be above), Leota, Temu now

I don't think you can say it is all in on youth. It is just that guys like Baker have turned out to be total spuds He looked like a fantastic pick up from Easts, unfortunately he has turned out to be anything but and so much of the other depth above is injured or playing busted.

Goodness me, even our first team has like 70% that look like they need the offseason already.

Sending Capewell packing when he had a year left to make Piakura the fulltime starter was very similar to the times when we promoted a shiny new thing way too early.

They then spent his money on upgrading Ezra, Walsh (who hasn't even signed yet), etc. and didn't bother to replace him in the squad, except for barely reserve grade players from other clubs. Those guys are our future but R&R have to know when it's time to hand it over to them.

I was wary of giving Ezra a mammoth upgrade too early and was hoping we would give him a 2-3yr extension and decent upgrade, and then you give him a second upgrade in a few years after he's cemented himself and showed consistency... he's a support player at the moment, but can't put the team on his back. That's now a significant and long investment on a guy that is still well within his development stages.

I daresay that if we had Reynolds last night instead of Ezra we would've been far better off, and would likely be doing better this season if the situations were reversed, but very soon Ezra will be getting paid more than Reynolds ever was.

Capewell had a role to play this year as a safety net until Piakura was ready to take over, and without him it's looking like it would've been a more and more important role.

Even with Patty we have literally no one in the squad that can come in and do a role even close to Patty at lock... we looked an absolute shambles out there last night when Patty was off the field, with no structure in the attack... but Capewell was filling in there at times last year and that would've been the perfect role for us this year. Start at second row and then move into the middle when Piakura comes on... whilst also providing some sort of cover for outside backs that go down.

 

[Sproj]

Sending Capewell packing when he had a year left to make Piakura the fulltime starter was very similar to the times when we promoted a shiny new thing way too early.

They then spent his money on upgrading Ezra, Walsh (who hasn't even signed yet), etc. and didn't bother to replace him in the squad, except for barely reserve grade players from other clubs. Those guys are our future but R&R have to know when it's time to hand it over to them.

I was wary of giving Ezra a mammoth upgrade too early and was hoping we would give him a 2-3yr extension and decent upgrade, and then you give him a second upgrade in a few years after he's cemented himself and showed consistency... he's a support player at the moment, but can't put the team on his back. That's now a significant and long investment on a guy that is still well within his development stages.

I daresay that if we had Reynolds last night instead of Ezra we would've been far better off, and would likely be doing better this season if the situations were reversed, but very soon Ezra will be getting paid more than Reynolds ever was.

Capewell had a role to play this year as a safety net until Piakura was ready to take over, and without him it's looking like it would've been a more and more important role.

Even with Patty we have literally no one in the squad that can come in and do a role even close to Patty at lock... we looked an absolute shambles out there last night when Patty was off the field, with no structure in the attack... but Capewell was filling in there at times last year and that would've been the perfect role for us this year. Start at second row and then move into the middle when Piakura comes on... whilst also providing some sort of cover for outside backs that go down.

The issue is Capewell was showing signs of slowing down last year and hasn't been going great this year either. I feel like that decision was not great either way.

 

[BroncsFan]

The issue is Capewell was showing signs of slowing down last year and hasn't been going great this year either. I feel like that decision was not great either way.

But it would've been a lesser role that we were asking of him this year... I don't think we would've been asking him to play 80mins on the edge every week.

Would probably be looking at 30mins on the edge (Piaks the remaining 50mins) and then 20mins or so stint in the middle to rest Patty.

 

[BroncsFan]

Forwards: Taupau, Baker, Hunt, Gosiewski,
Backs: Pereira, Sailor, Hoeter, Madden, Paix, Rogers, Oates
Kids: Mozer, Te Kura, Karapani (could perhaps be above), Leota, Temu now

I don't think you can say it is all in on youth. It is just that guys like Baker have turned out to be total spuds He looked like a fantastic pick up from Easts, unfortunately he has turned out to be anything but and so much of the other depth above is injured or playing busted.

Goodness me, even our first team has like 70% that look like they need the offseason already.

Just further to this one and there's a few other examples of relying on youth coming through.

We lost Herbie, Flegs, Capewell and Palasia from the grand final team, that's just about 400 games of experience, and they've mostly been replaced with kids.
- Willison looks like he'll be able to replace Flegler, but we got 50mins a game out of Flegler... we're only getting 35 out of Willison
- Piakura looks like he can replace Capewell, and looks like he can pretty much become just about anything at the position, but is way off on his effort areas and 1%'ers (an absolute staple of Capewell's game)
- Palasia hasn't really been replaced at this point... they've tried with Baker, but he's not looking up to first grade at this point and it's been a revolving door trying other options.
- Of the replacements Cobbo has been able to replace Herbie, but Cobbo was a starter already so his replacement was Mariner... who looks like he'll become an elite winger, but isn't there yet

We lost 375 games of experience last year and basically replaced them with 77 games... that is a **** ton of NRL experience lost and hoping the young guys can step up and replicate it.

I'm concerned this year is basically turning into a gap year / rebuilding year with the amount of experience we're trying to replace.

Losses
- Herbie (79 games for broncos)
- Flegs (96 games for broncos)
- Capewell (147 games total now)
- Palasia (53 games for broncos)
Total 375 games experience

Replacements
- Cobbo (49 games at start of the year), but Cobbo's spot was replaced by Mariner (6 games at the start of the year)
- Willison (11 games at start of the year)
- Piakura (15 games at start of the year)
- Baker (45 games at the start of the year)
Total 120 games, but basically 77 games when you remove Cobbo


There's also a lot of spots across the squad that just don't look like they're providing much value or capability to fulfil a role when needed in first grade. Is there much of a future at the club for Taupau, Pereira, Hoeter, Paix and Oates, or even use for them for the rest of this season? (I think Hoeter and Pereira are season injuries anyway, but was there much of a plan to use them at the start of the year or were they just wanting to fill roster spots with minimum wage players)

That is a lot of potentially wasted roster spots when you've only got 13 other spots outside your top 17. These guys need to be the next man up, and then a sprinkling of youth and potential to round out the squad, but at the moment the youth is looking like the next best depth (Willison, Te Kura and Karapani).

Gos at least has a role he can play for the season, but should we be relying on him as a regular in the 17 and next man up on the edges?

Hunt I haven't seen enough of, but he seems to be down the order and getting used as a second rower... they've got him listed as 110kg (bigger than Baker)... I wouldn't mind seeing him again.. I think he does have aggression and physicality in him (based only on the trials), but not sure if you can run with a bench of him and Kobe.

 

[Bucking Beads]

Our back row depth is shocking. The club needs to wear that. Need some more versatile forwards who can play edge and middle.

 

[Waynesaurus]

The fact is we got scared, we got suckered in and overpaid for Payne, we probably should have let him go and spread his cash across the forwards.

 

[BRC088]

To be fair, I think every team is struggling with depth and increasing the number of teams is going to erode that even more - I really think the NRL product will suffer across the board if this trend keeps going.

Maybe the game has just tipped over to the too fast to be sustainable now.

 

[Battler]

The fact is we got scared, we got suckered in and overpaid for Payne, we probably should have let him go and spread his cash across the forwards.

I don’t think it was too silly. Elite props (at the level of Haas, JFH, Tino, AFB) are almost as rare as game managing hbs and are all getting paid a mil+ accordingly.

Our issue, as it has always been, is that we have to contend with insane overs being offered to our players more frequently than any other club due to media hype. The groundwork is already being laid for Cobbo, with media heads claiming that clubs will pay a mil for him to play fb (he’d fail spectacularly as a week to week fullback).

 

[Bucking Beads]

Our Salary Cap must be extremely tight if we're not trying to bring in some talent at the moment. It is very obvious that our roster isn't where it needs to be to push for a big finals run.