Areas That Need Fixing for 2017

[Sirlee oldman]

There is no doubt Wayne Bennett is one of the all time great coaches and his judgment is usually spot on. The downside of this is that when he is wrong he seems to be slow to realise it. I think he was wrong in a few areas this year.

When Maranta is in form he is a capable player but he was never in form this year. Even on his best day Eden is not first grade standard. I know hindsight is a wonderful thing but both Opacic and Pearson look good. They should have been given an opportunity much sooner.

The use of the interchange this year was poor. I understand that Wayne is trying to manage the amount of minutes our young forwards play to avoid flattening them but we lost games this year while fresh players stood and watched. The game on Friday was played at a furious pace in high humidity. Leaving a weapon like TPJ on the bench and playing with 16 men was a huge error.

I can't be sure of my last point and would like to hear from someone close to the team but to me it seems like we go into a lot of games without a specific game plan. Hunt and Milford are instinctive players and you certainly don't want to discourage them from taking opportunities that are in front of them because that's when the magic happens but there were many times when the magic wasn't happening and they looked clueless and panicked. They look like they need to be told what to do in certain situations and a captain that can remind them of the plan when the pressure is on.

I'm not suggesting Wayne should go at all I just hope that when the season is reviewed he has an honest look at his own performance.

 

[Super Freak]

There is no doubt Wayne Bennett is one of the all time great coaches and his judgment is usually spot on. The downside of this is that when he is wrong he seems to be slow to realise it. I think he was wrong in a few areas this year.

When Maranta is in form he is a capable player but he was never in form this year. Even on his best day Eden is not first grade standard. I know hindsight is a wonderful thing but both Opacic and Pearson look good. They should have been given an opportunity much sooner.

Opacic was given a chance earlier in the year when we needed a centre after Reed and Kahu got injured.

He got injured and he was out for over a month, IIRC.

Pearson. Look he is a quality winger, but he can be a mixed bag. He can make some silly mistakes, he can drift out of games and just do nothing. As talented as he is, he can have those moments when he will hurt the team more than he helps them. I didn't think he would get a chance this year. I thought he was still another year or two away from making his debut in the NRL because of that reason.

Given the fact we were going through our worst period in nearly a decade, I imagine Bennett didn't want to throw him in there and possibly destroy his confidence.

I imagine Maranta was there because Bennett knew what he was going to get from him and despite his shocker against the Warriors, I didn't think he did too bad in his other performances. My memory might be a little shaky, but I didn't think he was too bad. We had very little options.

 

[bazza]

When Maranta is in form he is a capable player but he was never in form this year. Even on his best day Eden is not first grade standard. I know hindsight is a wonderful thing but both Opacic and Pearson look good. They should have been given an opportunity much sooner.

.

There were times certainly in the beginning of the season, when we were still feeling our way back into playing football on a regular basis when I thought Seve should have gotten a shot, especially when we were playing a busted Reed. He could be anything if given a chance.

 

[1910]

You are well aware that Wally Lewis is one of the worst coaches off all time. He had no idea and was divisive.

Beside from a few exceptions no great player makes it as a coach.

Won a premiership as coach in 1986. In fact won all four trophies on offer that year.

That's after a vote of no confident in the board and everyone replaced. Players not paid and plenty of issues. Kept it altogether and won the whole lot.

So many great players have been great coaches I can't even begin to list them.

 

[jamesqld]

Everytime i think of recreuiting one of these big bopper props on the outer from their club, i think of Kennedy. I can't help it...

 

[Dash]

Won a premiership as coach in 1986. In fact won all four trophies on offer that year.

That's after a vote of no confident in the board and everyone replaced. Players not paid and plenty of issues. Kept it altogether and won the whole lot.

So many great players have been great coaches I can't even begin to list them.

Yes, but he had Wally Lewis in that team.

 

[mitch222]

Couple of points

1. Overall kicking needs to be worked on by the whole spine not just Hunt. Boyd has the ability to have a decent short kicking game (which can come in handy) and the halves plus macca need to work on kicking game. For way to long has Ben Hunt been our punching bag when 99/100, the opposition know Hunt is getting the ball every time to kick. We need to mix it up and we often look a lot better when Macca and Milford are helping with the kicking. I think Walters is back on board next year so hopefully he should help with this.
2. Forwards - replacing Wallace & Parker are not going to be easy. Wallace was really starting to establish himself as a weapon off the bench and someone we could trust to play big minutes. In Parker, you lose your metre eater and tackler. Arrow wont just take over immediately. I would like to think hopefully Bennett has an established forward lined up to sign before next year starts to cover these losses. TPJ, Offaengahue, Ese'ese Arrow etc are all not ready to start but hopefully next year with another year under the belt should be starting to really impose themselves in the game.
3. Outside backs - Next year I would love to see Roberts go to the wing with Kahu at centre. Kahus ability to pass the ball a lot better than Roberts could see Roberts finally find the tryline a lot more. I think Opacic is going to work out well at left centre. Oatesy needs to improve his handling skills or he will go to the forwards quicker than what he thinks. There is no doubt about his finishing but taking the high ball still remains a problem. Pearson looks like a genuine gun and should be really gunning for a spot next year to nail down and make his own. Outside of that, our backline stocks take a major hit. We really need our 20s to start kicking back up into the top 4 and producing talent to evolve into the first grade side.
4. Captaincy - Boyd without a doubt
5. Overall results on this year, its been a failure. We are inside a premiership window and the failure to win it all just isn't acceptable. The players need to realise this. With a lot of the team out of contract next year, we really need to win it in 17 or we might have to do another rebuild after due to salary cap restraints. Next year there is going to be a lot of hard questions asked of players and I think Bennett is going to make some big calls to shake us up.

My top 17 team for next year as it stands now

1. Boyd
2. Oates
3. Opacic
4. Kahu
5. Roberts
6. Milford
7. Hunt
8. McGuire
9. McCullough
10. Blair
11. Thaiday
12. Gillett
13. Glenn

14. Nikorima
15. TPJ
16. Arrow
17. Offa

 

[noisetheory]

this may have been brought up elsewhere but does anyone think there was ALOT less interplay between hunt and milford at the back half of this year? they seemed to go right away from running little plays together, swapping to each others side of the field and combining for grubbers/inside passes/etc.

 

[Mr Fourex]

Your mum's old friend who lives on the GC, who knows someone with something to do with a club. How reliable a source is she?

The source or Bman's Mum?

Bman's Mum is from NSW.......that says enough for me.

 

[Mr Fourex]

I also read an article last year that he turned down Lockyer because he thought he could do it himself. I thought that was stupid, considering Lockyer convinced him to come to the Broncos and vowed to transition him into a five-eighth.

Yep...you're right. I remember that article now and just looked it up again to revise it.

 

[_wwong]

this may have been brought up elsewhere but does anyone think there was ALOT less interplay between hunt and milford at the back half of this year? they seemed to go right away from running little plays together, swapping to each others side of the field and combining for grubbers/inside passes/etc.

Definitely. Hunt seemed to stay on left and Milford on the right. Where as last year they ran riot on both sides of the field. Remember that final against the roosters? Hunt and Milford went to town.

 

[Broncoman]

The source or Bman's Mum?

Bman's Mum is from NSW.......that says enough for me.

Born and bred in Toowoomba and spent some of her young adult years in Ipswich

 

[gordjw]

So she's a NSW legend. Her and Peter Sterling.

 

[Mr Fourex]

Born and bred in Toowoomba and spent some of her young adult years in Ipswich

My apologies for the slander.

 

[Super Freak]

So she's a NSW legend. Her and Peter Sterling.

Well if Bowraville is in QLD, then Toowoomba is in NSW.

So she was born and bred in NSW.

 

[Culhwch]

I'm not sure if it has been noted here (probably has) although I know for sure that it's been mentioned a number of times in the last few months in pre- and post-game threads, but one of the things that I think they need to improve greatly is attacking sets inside the opposition 20. I'd like to see a stat on opportunities versus conversions - I bet the success rate would be pretty low.

I always hated the 'take the two' mentality that the Broncos used to have whenever they got a penalty inside the twenty, but now that they've gone away from that to a degree, particularly in the last half of this year, I long for those easy points. When they do take the tap (or get a scrum feed or whatever) with a short field, they always look haphazard, unstructured, and unsure of what the hell to do. The first few tackles are wasted by flat-footed forwards, and late-set options are usually diabolical - if someone hasn't dropped the ball already. They don't work set plays, they don't work for repeat sets - they usually just throw it around till someone ballses it up.

And I think that this is as much a coaching issue as a player issue. Maybe after automatically taking the two for so long, the players just don't have any practical experience in what to do in these situations, but they need to start working on drills and set plays to take advantage of them when they come up. Our halves can be great working off the cuff when they have the space, and that's why our long-range attacking game can be so deadly, but when the attack and defense is compressed on the try line the off the cuff stuff just rarely seems to work.

 

[jarro65]

We need another Webcke/Civoniceva front row pairing.

 

[Rico]

In no particular order for me:
-goal kicking. How we haven't addressed this over a 5 year period is beyond me. Kahu Missed a shot from beside the posts in townsville earlier this year then again against the Tigers the next week. As we know beaten by a point both times. There went our top 4 spot.
- general kicking but if we go back a step and had a t'lolo style ball runner for tackle 4 runs I think hunt would be either ripping it up or getting us repeats. Bloody hard to get a good attacking kick away when your catching it on your heals.
-defending kicks. Titans showed how vulnerable we are there. The storm have their two Fijians gobbling up bombs for fun and we bumble and bloody stumble (Darius of course excluded).
- red zone metre eaters. Thank god for Oates in this area (errors aside) we struggled to get out of our 20. Need a ball carrying front rower like other fellas have pointed out.
- earlier clean ball to the jet. If we got the above sorted then this would be easier.