Bennett: Adam Blair's signing for Broncos 'a miracle'

[Super Freak]

YOU can officially call Adam Blair the Broncos’ 238 pound and two ounce miracle.

That’s Wayne Bennett’s words, not ours.

The master coach and his long time right hand recruitment man Peter Nolan couldn’t believe their luck when the veteran Kiwi prop pretty much fell in their lap at the end of 2014 due to the Wests Tigers crippling salary cap woes.

Plenty questioned the Broncos acquisition of the 29-year-old after three underwhelming years at Concord saw him tagged as one of the game’s most overrated players, a significant rebranding considering he was a contender for NRL’s best prop during his pomp at Melbourne.


Since returning to Brisbane, where he attended Wavell High School as a teenager, Blair has proven a vital cog in the Broncos engine room and will be front and centre of their forward battle with the Cowboys in Sunday’s grand final.

“By some miracle we got him, I was so pleased that we did get him,” Wayne Bennett said of bringing Blair to Brisbane on Wednesday’s edition of NRL360.

“In 2008 when I worked with the New Zealand team, he was outstanding.

“Then he went to the Wests Tigers and I couldn’t believe it was the same player. I felt for him.

“I knew he hadn’t lost it, I knew something must have been impacting on him.”

For recruitment guru Nolan, the three-year deal negotiated with Blair’s wife Jess while the big man was on tour with the New Zealand national side was a chance to finally get his man.

Nolan revealed he has had eyes for Blair ever since he was a teenager coming through the schoolboy ranks, but had never been able to lure him away from the Storm during his original decade-long stint with the Broncos in the 2000s.

Only when the Tigers’ highly publicised and thinly stretched salary cap saw Blair shopped around — with the battling Sydneysiders willing to subsidise his 2014 wage — did Nolan move and move fast.

“We couldn’t have done it without the assistance from a salary cap point of view,” Nolan told the Fox NRL Market Watch podcast.

“And I’m not having a shot at the Tigers, we’ve had to pay players to leave here as well and it’s never a good thing when you’ve got to do that.

“We couldn’t believe that we could actually get him.

“We were that excited when we picked him up, it was amazing.

“It was a quick signing it happened while he was overseas and how it all transpired was something that we knew we were going to reap the rewards down the track with him.

“Sometimes players come ... under different coaches and different boards and those sorts of things and they just don’t work out.

“We’ve always been very strong on (systems) here.

“We just knew that Adam would thrive in the right environment. He’s been educated in Melbourne which is probably the best system in the competition.

“He’s a guy we tried to sign as a young kid and you couldn’t just get players out of Melbourne which again is a credit to their system.”

Wayne Bennett declares Adam Blair’s signing for Brisbane Broncos ‘a miracle’

 

[redbur95]

Aren't we paying him only $200k under our salary cap? Considering the way he's played this year, he's been an absolute bargain. He's some such a long way since that horror show against Cronulla (1 run, 8 metres gained).

 

[pennywisealfie]

Going into the year he was one of my all time most hated players. He was dirty as **** in Melbourne.

However, the way he has played for this jersey, he's definitely not on that list anymore.

 

[Morkel]

Supported Blair before it was cool.

 

[Porthoz]

Supported Blair before it was cool.

Yup, credit where it's due... as the article says, miracles do happen!

 

[Big Pete]

Can never have enough Blair threads.

Let it be known...

 

[Mortician]

An interesting take on the Blair was lazy at the West Tigers crap that gets bandied about.....

Former Wests Tigers coach Mick Potter has opened up about Adam Blair’s defection to Brisbane, claiming the work ethic of the New Zealand forward put him offside with some of his former teammates who claimed he “trained too hard for them’’.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...551349556?sv=f72781922eec0f24218e268ebdae8823

Not sure if this has posted before and it is behind a paywall but if you google the first sentence to the comma you get the article.

After seeing Blair perform for the Kiwis myself personally was excited to see him in Broncos colours.

 

[Foordy]

An interesting take on the Blair was lazy at the West Tigers crap that gets bandied about.....

Former Wests Tigers coach Mick Potter has opened up about Adam Blair’s defection to Brisbane, claiming the work ethic of the New Zealand forward put him offside with some of his former teammates who claimed he “trained too hard for them’’.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...551349556?sv=f72781922eec0f24218e268ebdae8823

Not sure if this has posted before and it is behind a paywall but if you google the first sentence to the comma you get the article.

After seeing Blair perform for the Kiwis myself personally was excited to see him in Broncos colours.

If thats true, then the Tigers deserve to be at the bottom of the ladder

 

[GCBRONCO]

Yeah that sums up the basket case of a football club the West's Tiger's are.

 

[Broncoman]

Eggs and our faces are in line

I hated that he was coming here so much at the time as he was doing nothing for the Tigers but he has really turned himself around remarkably and is one of our most important players.

 

[GCBRONCO]

Former Wests Tigers coach Mick Potter has opened up about Adam Blair’s defection to Brisbane, claiming the work ethic of the New Zealand forward put him offside with some of his former teammates who claimed he “trained too hard for them’’.

Blair, who has found a new lease of life at the Broncos this year after rediscovering the form that made him one of the most damaging forwards in the NRL, was so committed to the Tigers he even paid out of his own pocket for *additional training.

“I praised ‘Blairy’ for what he was doing for the club and there seemed to be an agenda there to try and move him out for some reason,’’ Potter, who was dumped by the Tigers at the end of last season, told The Australian yesterday. “I couldn’t understand it because he was one of our best forwards for the two years that I was there.

“He copped a hard time and I thought it was unjustified. People thought the value he was giving the club for his wage wasn’t equitable, but I thought by far he was one of our best forwards for most of last year. There were a couple of people within the organisation that didn’t have that opinion and that’s unfortunate.”

Blair paid for some of his teammates to join him doing extra training outside the club, including Bodene Thompson, Martin Taupau and Sauaso Sue. Potter said their attitude differed from others who thought the club’s program was enough to “get them through”.

“He was exceptional in his training, he wouldn’t compromise on his training, and some of the other players didn’t like the way he trained because he trained too hard for them,’’ Potter said.

“He was going very good for the Tigers and one thing I told him was not to change his work ethic, and his attitude to training, and his attitude to playing because of the peer pressure. People talk about culture and they talk about work ethic and he was one player that you’d have in your team.

“That’s part of the reason Wayne Bennett grabbed him at his first opportunity because he knew the value he added. That’s why Tim Sheens got him (to the Tigers) and he was there when I arrived but you could see the divide there.

“There was some unjustified criticism that was thrown against his desk at Wests Tigers that was unfortunate but you’ve seen some of the stuff that’s gone on there.’’

Blair said he was in a much happier place since joining the Broncos. It was reported this week how his wife, Jess, and Bennett were the driving forces in negotiating his move away from the Tigers at the end of last season. The Brisbane prop said he would “be lying if I said I was 100 per cent happy” during his three years at the Tigers and that he had particularly struggled with the club’s losing record after making the move there from the winning culture of Melbourne.

“To actually go from Melbourne — where everything is pretty much given to you and put on a plate for you and you have no excuse at the end of the day — I just felt like I needed more training and more things to make me better (at the Tigers),’’ Blair said. “Those are just the little things I pride myself on. If I don’t feel I’ve done enough and I need to go and find other places to do things then I will. I haven’t found that here. We train hard, everyone’s competitive and we’re pushed to the limits from pre-season to now. Those are just some things that I wanted to be better at so I tried to make *myself better.’’

Blair said the thing that hurt him most about his departure from the Tigers was not being able to finish his contract but luck had smiled on him after making a move to a club that defied their odds at the start of the season to make the grand final. “To be here for my first year and to play in a grand final, I couldn’t ask for anything more. I’ve enjoyed my footy since I walked in the club and I still am now,’’ he said.

 

[ivanhungryjak]

Nice Marty Taupau connection there, too.

 

[broncos4life]

The Tigers are a disgrace.