Brisbane Broncos 2014 in Review

[subsbligh]

Best Player - only player - Ben Hunt

Best Forward -CP13

Best Back - Dale Copley. What a break out year. If only he'd put in a 7/10 performance against the Sharks he might have edged Chambers for the Origin spot

Most Consistent - Daniel Vidot - those kick returns, and usually 2 hit ups per set. Often pulling the forwards out of our own half.

Rookie - Well there is none really. Granville I suppose.

Biggest disappointment - pissing away games from winning positions.

Try of the year - in no particular order: Kahu's 2nd last week (for Jordan and for Hodgo playing us back into the game), Hunt's final try versus the Roosters (for giving us belief that we could topple top teams), the Barba buzzer beater v the Bulldogs (for flair value)

 

[Allo]

Best Player - Ben Hunt

For the most part, dragged us into the finals even with that Hoggman-sized anchor for most of the year. Imagine what an even better year he could've had with an actual experienced halves partner. Unfairly maligned in his poor areas (mostly kicking and game control/close out) because he had to do everything himself

Best Forward - Corey Parker

Continues his status as the game's best Lock, despite playing Prop. Origin actually seemed to kick him on a bit. One criticism is that his offloading was a bit down on both quantity and quality than normal. Maybe it's due to playing prop he gets hit by better tacklers but they dried up a little and when he did, they either didn't make a difference (support play has been super bad also) or he pushed them and forced a turnover/ intercept. Hopefully it's not age although it's bound to happen sooner or later. Oh and goal-kicking. In close games, he's pretty awful. When chasing points we generally need to score an extra two tries just to get even sometimes and the same when defending just to stay ahead.

Despite this, if we don't have him, we are so much worse off.

Best Back - Gonna give this one to Coppers.

16 tries was a pretty great effort after being out of the game for a while. Tapered off in the last 6 weeks or so but it's clear he's a gun. Killer step and still has some great speed despite a few injuries. However needs to look to his winger a bit more (usually Maranta, so, ok). Got a little lucky managing to step through instead of using the overlap and of course needs to catch that ball better. I've said before his brain skips the ball security part and goes to what to do after that but by then he's dropped it. Hopefully he can stay at centre but if he wants Origin chances are it'll probably come via the wing so he needs to nail it.

Special mention to Hodgo. He's proved a few people both right and wrong since his move to the back. At the moment his attack is only just outweighing his deficiencies in defence of the high ball, last line d and kick gather/ return. But without him at FB, we don't make finals

Most Consistent - Josh McGuire

I don't he's a bad game all year tbh. He ranges from decent to pretty good. Always putting in, perhaps doing more defence than offence but never shirking responsibilities. He really needs some help from a Kennedy or a Garbutt hopefully to allow him to make the most of his runs.

Rookie of the Year - .... does Molo get it by default? Assuming it's exclusive to debutants, his one game of probably 7 minutes says a lot about our now former coach.

I suppose on in-game impact you could throw Granville in there. Positionally Hunt or Copley. Nikorima in the Nines. Awful aspect of our team when you look at it. Every club has, in some way, benefited from their rookies. Souths for instance shafted club stalwart Merritt for Johnston and he's carving it up.

Defensive Play of the Year - I honestly can't think of one off the top of my head. Probably a team award for Round 19 v the Warriors. Now yes we conceded 22 points, but I think there were probably more individual defensive efforts in that game than for most of the season combined.


Most Improved - Hunt. By a country mile

Biggest Disappointment - gonna break this one into a few little sub-sections

In terms of money, Kennedy easily wins this one. 400k for a QCup player. Granted it's not entirely his fault, but he didn't show enough in his first outing and when he came back and just started to look decent he had an awful case of the dropsies and then tore his calf or something. Needs a huge '15.

Excitement goes to Barba. For most of the year he was anything but. Downright awful at times at fullback. Admittedly, we have different structures to the Dogs and he had a niggling ankle injury for at least 6 months. He started looking better at 5/8th, getting his hands on the ball more

'Next level' - Macca

I like Macca, and it looked like he'd gone from a decent hooker to a very very good one. For about half a season. Whether it was the threat of Smith coming and going, an at times below-par forward pack or just the workload catching up on him but this should've been his year. He's gotta increase that service speed. Too many times our forwards are catching the ball behind themselves and it's not good enough. Whether it's a problem with the forwards getting the jump on the PTB, Macca being too slow or a symptom of our too-flat attacking structure (I think it's 'd: All of the above'), it needs to change. Not sure how much Waddell will factor into his form, but it doesn't say much about him if he needs constant spot competition to make him pull his finger out and get out of 3rd gear

Fringe development - tie between Wallace and Hala

As some of you will know, I'm big fans of both these guys, especially Hala. Both played probably under 5 games. I know Wallace rode the bench for 80 mins at least 3 times. Victims of Hook's awful bench use. Really hoped both could cement one of those bench prop positions, especially while Kennedy was out of favour. Unfortunately Lowrie always got promoted ahead which I suppose reinforced Hook's 'safety first' attitude to the game.

The fact that Wallace rode the bench consecutively shows a lack of trust in his bench players. That lack of trust can be very damaging to a player's confidence. And I know the whole '7 mins' thing became a bit of a joke but it's sad how true it was. I mean it's great we have players that can play big minutes but you don't win comps with a 16 man team. It's not like football (soccer) where you can pitch a sub on with 5 to go and turn the game for you. Especially when it's a prop forward.

Another shame is that in Hala's best game this year (out of TWO) and perhaps his career, we had our worst loss for a long time. I'm not sure how much time he was injured this year, seemed to play for the Dolphins a fair bit. Hope he gets a fair go next year too.


Try of the Year - Reed's try off the kick-off vs the Knights

Giving this one the nod as it's the first time in a LONG time that we pulled something like that off

Best Game - Manly rd 12

The silence from the Manly away bay was just magical.

Worst Game - Sharks rd 16

Awful.

Buy of the Year - Vidot

I was excited by Vidot before we signed him. Seen him do some good things and always played well against us. I did know he had suspect hands but even sometimes it was shocking how bad he was with an open line. Still made invaluable metres out of our own end which we desperately needed. Next year needs to trade a few kgs for an extra few km/h in the legs and give him along with the whole team football-sized eggs to hold onto.