BRISBANE will need to defy almost 50 years of rugby league history if the Broncos are to pull off a miraculous turnaround and win the NRL premiership. The departure of Scott Prince and Peter Wallace means the Broncos will start the season without a Test or Origin representative player in the key positions of fullback, five-eighth, halfback and hooker.
No side has won the title in the past 48 years without a representative player in the spine of the side.
The premiership successes of Melbourne, Manly and the Sydney Roosters in recent seasons have been based around the quartet who hold the key to victory in big games.
Brisbane players celebrate a try during a clash agains the Rabbitohs.
Source: News Limited
With Ben Barba, Ben Hunt and Andrew McCullough likely to be joined by either Jordan Kahu or debutant Zach Strasser in the spine this year, the Broncos do not have a rep game between them. The Sunday Mail asked Fox Sports Stats to research the last time a spine without rep experience won the premiership and they eventually came up with the news that South Sydney last did it in 1968.
That team had Eric Simms, Denis Pittard, Bob Grant and Elwyn Walters in the spine, but it was also captained by the legendary John Sattler, featured the great Ron Coote and was coached by the little master Clive Churchill.
Sattler said the Broncos could learn valuable lessons from the Rabbitohs team he skippered to successive titles with their defeat of Manly in 1968.
"The key for the Broncos is you don't necessarily need representative halves to be successful," he said.
"As long as you have a consistent pairing that has a good understanding, they can do well.
"Our halves Pittard and Grant might not have been superstars, but they were solid, smart, mistake-free p
Ben Barba goes hard during a Broncos training at Purtell Park.
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layers and we had class forwards like Ron Coote and Bob McCarthy who provided the edge in the forwards."Sometimes a good team doesn't need a champion playmaker, you just need halves who can steer a team around the park and utilise the skills of people around them.
"I like the look of the Broncos' forwards and our great teams at Souths were the same.''
While Barba may have reached the 2012 grand final with Canterbury, that team was guided by NSW hooker Michael Ennis.
Maroons hopeful Barba is under pressure to fire this season after his horrid last season at Belmore, but Sattler believes the 2012 Dally M Medallist will hit back.
"I think Ben Barba will be great for them, he is a brilliant player,'' Sattler said.
"In the past he has been a bit erratic in his general life but the Broncos are a professional club and they will make sure his mind is on the job.
"He will have a big year for them. I'm saying that because of the culture of the Broncos. The discipline of the place is the best thing that could have happened for Ben.''
Canterbury were the last team to reach the grand final without rep stars in the spine, but that was 16 years ago when Rod Silva, Craig Polla-Mounter, Corey Hughes and Jason Hetherington got the Dogs into the decider with two epic finals comebacks.
[h=3]NRL pre-season: Brisbane Broncos coach Anthony Griffin 2:55[/h]
Brisbane coach Anthony Griffin chats to Fox Sports rugby league commentator Ben Ikin about the captaincy reshuffle at the club and Ben Barba's impact on the team.
Three of those four had won a premiership three years earlier alongside Terry Lamb, but Hetherington recalls his side were also written off many times in 1998 and proved everyone wrong through sheer will and commitment."I just think that we played for each other. We had that belief in ourselves," Hetherington said.
"I think a lot of the credit must go to Billy Johnstone. He added a lot of steel to Canterbury and their mentality.
"We ended up with a lot of self-belief in that 1998 series.
"We weren't a star-studded side but we all got on well, we were a terrific team with great camaraderie and I think that goes a long way.''
Hetherington said the biggest advantage teams had with rep players in the key positions was the ability to coach on the run, where experienced hands such as Cameron Smith teach younger players during games.
"A coach can't get out on the field, but when you have a good core of senior guys they really help you with the coaching on the field and they help out the younger blokes," Hetherington said.
