Broncos Roster, Signings and Rumours Discussion 2023

[BroncsFan]

Piakura off contract come November 1st and saying “I want to play for this club, but I’m looking for a starting jersey."

Kevvie and the recruitment staff are going to have some tough decisions to make with both Capewell and Riki coming off contract at the same time too.

Given they're literally the only 2nd rowers across the whole squad I daresay we should be able to keep them all

Capewell is getting older so a pathway is there for Piakura

 

[Trill Harrigan]

flick capewell, piakura and riki are the future

 

[Santa]

flick capewell, piakura and riki are the future

That type of thinking (getting rid of experience for future greats) is what got us into trouble under Seibold in the first place. Piakura can wait.

 

[Morkel]

So... this is all second-hand information so feel free to take it how you will. I posted last year about the fellow "cheer dad" who was the Maroons strength & conditioning coach for 5 years, and the same for the Broncos for a time last year. I caught up with him again at the latest comp and, of course, picked the **** out of his brains like you'd expect I would.

So the last time I spoke to him, he'd just finished up as the strength & conditioning coach. His role was supposed to be quite temporary, but after starting in the pre-season, he'd been doing it 7 months by that point and the Broncos (in his words) said "we are looking to make it permanent, are you interested in applying?". He trains a couple of high profile athletes (think olympic type sports) and one in particular was his main focus leading up to some world comps, so he said he would be interested as long as he could also train this other guy. He knew they wouldn't accept that (they didn't) but thought he'd see.

So, the really interesting part is that he finished up pretty much immediately... right before the Broncos' slide last year. I of course joked to him about this, saying that he was responsible for the excellent form, so he shared a bit of what he'd done when he worked with them. He's meticulous with his prep, and they must do all kinds of tests and monitoring on the players, and he had found that on the Wednesday, if they had a really good, focussed training session, they'd kill it on the field on the weekend. When they were off (mucking around etc), they sucked on the field. But he also found this was happening on a chemical level - that they were finding after the positive sessions their testosterone would peak just at the right time for the games, and the opposite after bad sessions. And obviously with the players not being robots, he couldn't just force them to be switched on for the sessions. He also had an ex-colleague in a different code who was finding the same thing. The Broncos were obviously interested in this (he said he had a fait bit to do with Matt Ballin with this stuff), and the Broncos were asking around elsewhere if the results were being found in other teams, and stumbled upon his ex-colleague (without knowing the two had a working relationship) who of course backed it all up.

The findings were extremely consistent, in that the performance on the field mirrored precisely the results of the training session the Wednesday before, to the point where he could tip their wins and losses (hello betting agencies). The only time he got it wrong was when he tipped them to lose, they were losing at half time but the other team copped two sin bins so they came over the top to win. Like I said, the Broncos' losing run started immediately after he left, so we really only have just over half a season to go off here though.

One of the other things he said was that he made sure to tailor the training to the player - ie, Ezra has an ongoing knee issue (must have had it since last year evidently) so making him do copious squats with all the others was not the best idea in his opinion. Same for some of the outside backs, who had previously been training more as generic strength-based footy players, instead of concentrating on speed and accelerative power etc.

He said the guy that took over from him was a bit more regimented, so the training was less tailored. BUT he said that he's pretty sure it's the same guy still doing it now, so either his methods were adjusted as part of the off-season review (and they carried on the training style that was working for previously), or the methods were actually quite sound and they just needed time to work, who knows, but obviously with the results this year whatever they are doing is working.

 

[Swordfish]

View attachment 23911

Totally love the guy. As much as I want him to atone the deep scars of 2015 by winning a premiership, I honestly can’t can’t see a way for him to break into the 17 now unless there’s an injury to our outside backs.

I hope the club looks after him post his playing career. Blokes like him should be rewarded.

 

[Morkel]

And to follow up the above, none of this was said to big-note himself. He is a very quiet guy, not one to toot his own horn. It was pretty much all me excitedly asking him "and then, and THEN???". He was actually making sure he wasn't boring me with it all, but of course I was like a kid speaking to the guy who choreographed the Ninja Turtles' fight scenes in the movies - could not get enough.

So I asked him about some of the players, who he sees as the next big thing, and who surprised him. So... gossip time.

He said Flegler was always looking like he'd be a beast, and it's a shame he's leaving because he is about to hit his prime. But Willison is definitely looking like the next in line and was coming along well. Riki.... "if he spent as much time on his lower body as he did his upper body, he could be anything..." hahahhaha.

Surprise packets were Jensen and Pereira. Both just way stronger and more powerful than you would think (and Pereira was one of the ones he was talking about last year, who he found benefited from a more tailored approach in terms of speed and explosiveness).

Carrigan is everything we have come to believe and more.

And Haas? Obviously just a mountain of a human, but despite being a machine he's not like THE strongest like a lot of us would expect. However, and again in (close enough to) his words, "he feels like Haas doesn't give absolutely everything in his training, like there is always just that little bit in reserve, however, he feels it's because he gives absolutely everything out on the field, doesn't leave anything out there".

If I had the choice I would have got a notebook out and asked about EVERYONE of course, but that would be even more annoying of me. So I'll ask him more next cheer comp after he's had a break from me.

 

[Swordfish]

So... this is all second-hand information so feel free to take it how you will. I posted last year about the fellow "cheer dad" who was the Maroons strength & conditioning coach for 5 years, and the same for the Broncos for a time last year. I caught up with him again at the latest comp and, of course, picked the **** out of his brains like you'd expect I would.

So the last time I spoke to him, he'd just finished up as the strength & conditioning coach. His role was supposed to be quite temporary, but after starting in the pre-season, he'd been doing it 7 months by that point and the Broncos (in his words) said "we are looking to make it permanent, are you interested in applying?". He trains a couple of high profile athletes (think olympic type sports) and one in particular was his main focus leading up to some world comps, so he said he would be interested as long as he could also train this other guy. He knew they wouldn't accept that (they didn't) but thought he'd see.

So, the really interesting part is that he finished up pretty much immediately... right before the Broncos' slide last year. I of course joked to him about this, saying that he was responsible for the excellent form, so he shared a bit of what he'd done when he worked with them. He's meticulous with his prep, and they must do all kinds of tests and monitoring on the players, and he had found that on the Wednesday, if they had a really good, focussed training session, they'd kill it on the field on the weekend. When they were off (mucking around etc), they sucked on the field. But he also found this was happening on a chemical level - that they were finding after the positive sessions their testosterone would peak just at the right time for the games, and the opposite after bad sessions. And obviously with the players not being robots, he couldn't just force them to be switched on for the sessions. He also had an ex-colleague in a different code who was finding the same thing. The Broncos were obviously interested in this (he said he had a fait bit to do with Matt Ballin with this stuff), and the Broncos were asking around elsewhere if the results were being found in other teams, and stumbled upon his ex-colleague (without knowing the two had a working relationship) who of course backed it all up.

The findings were extremely consistent, in that the performance on the field mirrored precisely the results of the training session the Wednesday before, to the point where he could tip their wins and losses (hello betting agencies). The only time he got it wrong was when he tipped them to lose, they were losing at half time but the other team copped two sin bins so they came over the top to win. Like I said, the Broncos' losing run started immediately after he left, so we really only have just over half a season to go off here though.

One of the other things he said was that he made sure to tailor the training to the player - ie, Ezra has an ongoing knee issue (must have had it since last year evidently) so making him do copious squats with all the others was not the best idea in his opinion. Same for some of the outside backs, who had previously been training more as generic strength-based footy players, instead of concentrating on speed and accelerative power etc.

He said the guy that took over from him was a bit more regimented, so the training was less tailored. BUT he said that he's pretty sure it's the same guy still doing it now, so either his methods were adjusted as part of the off-season review (and they carried on the training style that was working for previously), or the methods were actually quite sound and they just needed time to work, who knows, but obviously with the results this year whatever they are doing is working.

Appreciate the long write up.

Going by what’s been shared, hopefully, we had a laser focused & perfect training session this Wednesday. Our boys will smash those cheat grubs Friday night.

 

[Mr Fourex]

What the hell is a cheer comp......?

Are you sure you're spelling it right.........

 

[Jedhead]

So... this is all second-hand information so feel free to take it how you will. I posted last year about the fellow "cheer dad" who was the Maroons strength & conditioning coach for 5 years, and the same for the Broncos for a time last year. I caught up with him again at the latest comp and, of course, picked the **** out of his brains like you'd expect I would.

So the last time I spoke to him, he'd just finished up as the strength & conditioning coach. His role was supposed to be quite temporary, but after starting in the pre-season, he'd been doing it 7 months by that point and the Broncos (in his words) said "we are looking to make it permanent, are you interested in applying?". He trains a couple of high profile athletes (think olympic type sports) and one in particular was his main focus leading up to some world comps, so he said he would be interested as long as he could also train this other guy. He knew they wouldn't accept that (they didn't) but thought he'd see.

So, the really interesting part is that he finished up pretty much immediately... right before the Broncos' slide last year. I of course joked to him about this, saying that he was responsible for the excellent form, so he shared a bit of what he'd done when he worked with them. He's meticulous with his prep, and they must do all kinds of tests and monitoring on the players, and he had found that on the Wednesday, if they had a really good, focussed training session, they'd kill it on the field on the weekend. When they were off (mucking around etc), they sucked on the field. But he also found this was happening on a chemical level - that they were finding after the positive sessions their testosterone would peak just at the right time for the games, and the opposite after bad sessions. And obviously with the players not being robots, he couldn't just force them to be switched on for the sessions. He also had an ex-colleague in a different code who was finding the same thing. The Broncos were obviously interested in this (he said he had a fait bit to do with Matt Ballin with this stuff), and the Broncos were asking around elsewhere if the results were being found in other teams, and stumbled upon his ex-colleague (without knowing the two had a working relationship) who of course backed it all up.

The findings were extremely consistent, in that the performance on the field mirrored precisely the results of the training session the Wednesday before, to the point where he could tip their wins and losses (hello betting agencies). The only time he got it wrong was when he tipped them to lose, they were losing at half time but the other team copped two sin bins so they came over the top to win. Like I said, the Broncos' losing run started immediately after he left, so we really only have just over half a season to go off here though.

One of the other things he said was that he made sure to tailor the training to the player - ie, Ezra has an ongoing knee issue (must have had it since last year evidently) so making him do copious squats with all the others was not the best idea in his opinion. Same for some of the outside backs, who had previously been training more as generic strength-based footy players, instead of concentrating on speed and accelerative power etc.

He said the guy that took over from him was a bit more regimented, so the training was less tailored. BUT he said that he's pretty sure it's the same guy still doing it now, so either his methods were adjusted as part of the off-season review (and they carried on the training style that was working for previously), or the methods were actually quite sound and they just needed time to work, who knows, but obviously with the results this year whatever they are doing is working.

Does anyone recall the attitude at training yesterday?

I do recall reading somewhere that Wally had watched them train and said he had never seen them so switched on, but I don't know if that was teh Wednesday or not.

Anyway thanks for the insight it was very interesting - second-hand or not it is always good to hear some background chatter.

 

[Morkel]

What the hell is a cheer comp......?

Are you sure you're spelling it right.........

It's everything as soul-destroying as it sounds. You're lucky though, if it wasn't so boring I probably wouldn't have been able to extract all the above information. I do these things, so you guys can enjoy the good things in life (Broncos gossip), you're welcome.

 

[Mr Fourex]

 

[Evander]

I think the time has come to move Capewell on......

I'd much rather see Kobe get a crack as the starting lock.

And this is why we leave the recruitment and retention to the pros.

 

[Evander]

Flicking Capewell and resigning Piakura someone would think Seibold and Griffin are in the forum. I really hoped we’ve learnt from the days of putting talent ahead of everything else. Capewell provides solid defence, consistency, leadership, tutelage for our young forwards coming through. Would be a complete backwards step. Him and Reynolds came to this club to restore it to its glory days and they’ve done a stellar job as senior players. To think some people in here would get rid of Capewell is baffling

 

[ChewThePhatt]

That type of thinking (getting rid of experience for future greats) is what got us into trouble under Seibold in the first place. Piakura can wait.

I agree, though I do think Capewell's experience & leadership on the bench next year could be all time!

 

[theshed]

Flicking Capewell and resigning Piakura someone would think Seibold and Griffin are in the forum. I really hoped we’ve learnt from the days of putting talent ahead of everything else. Capewell provides solid defence, consistency, leadership, tutelage for our young forwards coming through. Would be a complete backwards step. Him and Reynolds came to this club to restore it to its glory days and they’ve done a stellar job as senior players. To think some people in here would get rid of Capewell is baffling

I would pick Riki to be the one to miss out if I head too. He can kick chase as a middle off the bench. As amazing as it is, he doesn’t offer much else

 

[Mr Fourex]

That type of thinking (getting rid of experience for future greats) is what got us into trouble under Seibold in the first place. Piakura can wait.

Its a fair enough point of view.....but its not like our forward pack are the baby broncos any more.
There's a bit of of experience within the team besides Capewell.

Billy, Pat, Payne....have been around long enough, the latter having played at the highest level for a few seasons
Tapou (I'd rather he leave and keep Capewell)...but

and even Corey Jensen has been around the block.

Maybe flicking Capewell was too harsh a comment, but I'd like to see him spend less time on the field, going into the future.

 

[BroncosFever]

People suggesting to get rid of Capewell, they need to steer clear of the highlight reels and watch the effort plays.

 

[Swordfish]

exactly. Capewell contributions are all effort and the 1%’s. Agree that he does have lapses at times but who doesn’t? Most of his 1%ers go unnoticed which is why people think he can be flicked to someone. I hope he proves it wrong by putting in monstrous displays starting tomorrow.