Broncos Roster, Signings and Rumours Discussion 2021

[Morkel]

How the **** would Hooper know? Does he really expect us to believe that after his 'report' last night Kevvie called him up to tell him that he is offering him 400k for 3 years?

I think the problem with Hooper is he is a confirmed halfwit and assumes that everyone else is the same.

Mate, it's player managers trying to get more money for their client (and their sweet commission). The bulldogs have almost signed him, on big money, "oh the Broncos have now made a counter offer for him to stay", what do the bulldogs do? "Here's another $100k on the the third year of your deal to get you over the line".

95% of what the media get as "Scoops" is from player agents, not from clubs.

 

[Bull Shark]

Gotta love the way these things are portrayed in the RL media down there.. It's a 'desperate bid by a desperate club' when it's Brisbane trying to hold onto one of its own.. if / when another club signs him, it'll be a 'massive coup' and they'll all break into song.

 

[Sproj]

So they'll build it up to make us look desperate and then when he leaves make out that no one wants to stay and we can't get shit done.

This is NRL media 101 my man.

 

[BroncsFan]

Then you have to be really strong and say we will take our time down here and build up, and you can stay in ISC.

That takes unbelievable strength.

I think with the way the comp is, the club just need to bite the bullet and accept the fact that we're going to cop some floggings from the good teams.

I say club, because I'm sure Kevvie wants to let these guys develop in ISC, but 1 poor showing against the titans and apparently there is pressure to abandon all the work from preseason and rush Dearden into grade after 1 ISC game... and even from the 1 game it appears from reports on here that he merely done his role rather than bossed the game.

The board need to back Kevvie for the next 2-3 yrs and accept that the current squad is miles off the pace and requires serious work and commitment to right the ship. There is no magic bullet to turn around the burning heap that they have created.

We need everything to go our way to be competitive (injuries, ref, judiciary, home ground, weather, opposition form, etc.), but the one thing we can control is how we play (100% commitment for the full 80, ball control and discipline).

Against the top tier teams (rooster, storm and rabbits) we need to stay competitive, but if we get flogged learn from it and not be reactive to it... if Storm beat us by 30 shut out the media white noise and move on from it without mass changes... changes should come if needed but dont let media pressure control make up of the team.

Similar for the next tier down (penrith, parra, raiders)... remain competitive and fight the whole 80. If we jag a win great, but everything would need to go our way.

Against the rest we should be competing for wins and not succumbing to any floggings.

If we accept our short term fate and allow the young guys to develop in ISC and demand a place in the team we will be better off... the media will always take pot shots at us and pretend that they care about us and worry about us losing, but they don't give a shit... they want us to keep failing and fall further and further behind so we can never recover.

Shut out the white noise, back the players, back your plans, control our game... siege mentality... **** the media... **** NSWRL

 

[IceWorks]

Play the long game.. It's the best strategy. Very hard to do if you have a coach who is being judged on short term success in charge of those long game decisions though.

 

[Kooly87]

100% fact but that's a result of being in the cellar at the moment, you need answers so you rush things and try and find the answer you need. Compare it to the strong clubs up the top- Grant plays 41 games- nearly two years of ISC.

Walker won't be rushed at the Roosters if he's not ready this year, Robinson won't play him. Brisbane don't have that luxury. You can only do it when you're going well.

Pressure goes on, people write he's killing it in ISC articles and you pick him, he plays five ok or average games and the pressure just builds.

Brisbane used to just ease players in, have your 10 minutes off the bench. Lockyer played 4/11 games his first year off the bench- second year 13/20.

If Lockyer was playing ISC today he'd be rushed in and expect to fix it.

I'm absolutely loathed to absolve Seibold of much in the way of blame but at least in 2020 and partially in 2019 he was literally forced to play a lot of these kids through injury and NRL rules requiring us to use the rest of our squad positions before you can bring anyone else in.

If Robinson and Bellamy were that deep into their squads they'd obviously be forced to do the same thing too, but I agree, as a general rule, they're much better at holding kids back than we are.

 

[Kooly87]

Then you have to be really strong and say we will take our time down here and build up, and you can stay in ISC.

That takes unbelievable strength.

I imagine it's much easier to get a kid to accept that Wayne Bennett or Craig Bellamy want you to go back and work on stuff in the Queensland Cup than being told the same thing by someone like Seibold or probably even Kevin Walters.

 

[lynx000]

How the **** would Hooper know? Does he really expect us to believe that after his 'report' last night Kevvie called him up to tell him that he is offering him 400k for 3 years?

I think the problem with Hooper is he is a confirmed halfwit and assumes that everyone else is the same.

I think you are being generous with the half.

 

[nopatience101]

I probably misspoke, it’s the first I’ve heard about it since Seibold left. I got the impression centre was where they see his future.

It would have been interesting to see where he played had Staggs been fit.

 

[Big Pete]

I hate how people forget what players like Milford and tpj were when they were re-signed. Milford was in top form, career form and deserved a big contract. Tpj was one of the best up and coming players. Oates was also one of the top wingers in the comp. Obviously the boyd and lodge contracts were shambles.

Milford re-signed before the Round 10 2017 clash against Manly after an indifferent start to the season. An argument could be made that Milford hadn't played his best football in a year where he and Hunt combined wonderfully to beat Manly in Round 10 2016 30-6.

Pangai Jr officially re-signed in the lead up to the Round 17 2019 clash against the Warriors after a quiet season. Pangai had only produced two performances that lived up to his 2018 output - Round 2 vs. North Queensland and Round 16 vs. Cronulla which is when I believe he had actually committed to the club. With the state of the roster, there was enough signs there to suggest the Broncos could let Pangai Jr walk and re-sign Fifita.

I'm absolutely loathed to absolve Seibold of much in the way of blame but at least in 2020 and partially in 2019 he was literally forced to play a lot of these kids through injury and NRL rules requiring us to use the rest of our squad positions before you can bring anyone else in.

If Robinson and Bellamy were that deep into their squads they'd obviously be forced to do the same thing too, but I agree, as a general rule, they're much better at holding kids back than we are.

To an extent he had his hands tied because he inherited a roster who had all made long term commitments to stay with the club with the understanding that Bennett would be coach. Brisbane were not ready for a change in direction.

However, Seibs didn't help himself with his roster management. There were far too many inexperienced players so they found themselves in a position where they were relying on 19 year old prospects to turn their hopes around - it was never going to end well.

 

[Kooly87]

To an extent he had his hands tied because he inherited a roster who had all made long term commitments to stay with the club with the understanding that Bennett would be coach. Brisbane were not ready for a change in direction.

However, Seibs didn't help himself with his roster management. There were far too many inexperienced players so they found themselves in a position where they were relying on 19 year old prospects to turn their hopes around - it was never going to end well.

That's all absolutely correct, but it's still also correct that had injuries and suspensions not been as overwhelmingly severe as they were in 2020 and also the back of 2019 then it's likely that a lot of those young guys would have played far less First Grade or in far smaller roles and in some cases they would have possibly not played at all.

In cutting so many of our experienced players to make cap space and room to upgrade the youngsters it ran a very fine line for the club where we could basically not afford to suffer any serious run of injuries because outside of full strength we were extremely thin in several areas.

Unfortunately, we we then confronted with perhaps the worst injury crisis we've ever endured and simply didn't have the right standard and experience of footballers as reinforcements, and the rest of course is history.

The gamble and roster management is 100% the fault of the Coach and the people who manage our roster. It was always a very high risk strategy, but I do think it's fair to say that without the horrific injury toll there was at least some potential for it all to have worked out a little differently.

 

[Big Pete]

I should point out that I didn't have an issue with the Milford re-signing and was adamant he could lead the club to success. All bets were off as soon as Bennett was ousted and the roster became a shambles off the back of that.

It didn't help that Brisbane re-signed him before the salary cap had been set so clubs were making outrageous projections. With the benefit of hindsight a $700,000 deal would have been on the money. However that would have been impossible to negotiate, especially when you have clubs like Newcastle throwing a reported $3.2 Million contract 4 year contract at Kalyn Ponga after two NRL games.

 

[Huge]

It actually makes sense if you think about it. If he could transition to the backrow successful, it gives us another forward and goodness me we need all of those we can get.

I don't know qbout that. He had enough forwards the other night AND we still had Haas and Lodge to come back into the team. With Oates on top of the others( I'm pointing out here that we have three nrl experienced forwards available) we have a bit of depth. I don't think it's too dire a situation.

 

[Big Pete]

That's all absolutely correct, but it's still also correct that had injuries and suspensions not be as overwhelmingly severe in 2020 and the back of 2019 then it's likely that a lot of those young guys would have played far less First Grade and in some cases they would have possibly not played at all.

In cutting our experienced players to make cap space and room to upgrade the youngsters it ran a very fine line for the club where we could basically not afford to suffer any serious run of injuries because outside of full strength we were extremely thin.

Unfortunately we we then confronted with perhaps the worst injury crisis we've ever endured and simply didn't have the right standard and experience of footballers as reinforcements, and the rest of course is history.

The gamble and roster management is 100% the fault of the Coach and the people who manage our roster. It was always a very high risk strategy, but I do think it's fair to say that without the horrific injury toll there was at least some potential for it all to have worked out a little differently.

The issue was that the risk outweighed the reward. I also think he has to accept some responsibility for that toll as well either by picking players to play through injury, picking players before they were ready causing them to over-exert themselves and hiring staff that weren't as effective as looking at the well-being of the players.

That roster was an accident waiting to happen.

 

[Sproj]

I don't know qbout that. He had enough forwards the other night AND we still had Haas and Lodge to come back into the team. With Oates on top of the others( I'm pointing out here that we have three nrl experienced forwards available) we have a bit of depth. I don't think it's too dire a situation.

Fair point, I guess I'm just used to having at least three forwards unavailable at any given time.

 

[Dazza 92]

i dont believe Piakura is worth what the Dogs are "apparently" offering..

I also dont believe he is worth what the Broncos are apparently offering either...

Walsh was a guy who played in a position we have virtually no depth at. Piakura can be covered right now. Beside he is on the development squad huh...he cant play right now if he signs with us..? (is that accurate?)

There is zero logic with the numbers being bandied around.

Maybe, the majority of guys here dont want to play here anymore, they have had enough of being involved with a laughing stock, or they are all mercenaries etc...

I dunno, but how do you "make" these guys play here....if they dont want to?

 

[Waynesaurus]

Maybe, the majority of guys here dont want to play here anymore, they have had enough of being involved with a laughing stock, or they are all mercenaries etc...

I think it's also partly the scrutiny of being at the Broncos, why wouldn't you take more money to go elsewhere and be out of the Brisbane spotlight and away from the hammering these guys cop from media. The Titans are probably very appealing for that reason.

The media are just relentless at attacking, making shit up or twisting things to make headlines.

Wayne really was a master at handling the media attacks and protecting the players from all that, we are really missing that now.

 

[Foordy]

Maybe, the majority of guys here dont want to play here anymore, they have had enough of being involved with a laughing stock, or they are all mercenaries etc...

IMO, it has more to do with the massive overs they are being offered rather than not wanting to play for us (especially now seibold is gone)