NEWS Broncos to field star studded Nines team

......Tiiiiime, Mr Freeman.....Is it really that...Time again?
 
It could be on at 3am in the morning and I would still be happy to stay up and watch.
 
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Cant wait for nines to start now. I do hope however we dont go too overboard if we do well and we dont get too critical if we struggle a bit. Nines is a very different game and i don't think it will have too much impact on what we do in the NRL

Our style of play changed significantly for the Nines I noticed. We introduced such significantly ‘new’ strategies as a flat attacking line, no support runners, passive defence, with the added extra spiciness of poor one on on one contact and our traditional shonky ball-handling and poor kicking.

Good to see things appear to have been shaken up a lot heading into season 2020...
 
Our style of play changed significantly for the Nines I noticed. We introduced such significantly ‘new’ strategies as a flat attacking line, no support runners, passive defence, with the added extra spiciness of poor one on on one contact and our traditional shonky ball-handling and poor kicking.

Good to see things appear to have been shaken up a lot heading into season 2020...
Yep, I know it's only nines but we still look behind other teams in most ways.
I wonder if the coach is starting to pucker a bit, he will be fully exposed this year one way or the other..
 
Yep, I know it's only nines but we still look behind other teams in most ways.
I wonder if the coach is starting to pucker a bit, he will be fully exposed this year one way or the other..
Couldn’t agree more. My compost worms show more enthusiasm. Always been a Seibold fan but all bets are off now. I do hope for his sake we hit the ground running at the start of the season because anything less is totally unacceptable.
 
To be fair, the Broncs lost to the eventual champions and beat the other side they played in the Storm who are always a bogey side no matter the format or who is playing. Hard to say they seemed behind everyone else who played. That said, it also seemed that the main first team guys didn't really want to be there and seem to be self preserving a little.
 
To be fair, the Broncs lost to the eventual champions and beat the other side they played in the Storm who are always a bogey side no matter the format or who is playing. Hard to say they seemed behind everyone else who played. That said, it also seemed that the main first team guys didn't really want to be there and seem to be self preserving a little.
This is a great point. We played 36 minutes of football total. . That's less than one full half. The guys who played the Capras on Saturday night got a better hit out. In that time we were beaten by the team that beat everyone else, and we actually narrowly beat Melbourne who seemingly are able to beat us standing on their heads these days.

It's not like we played any of the really poor sides and even if we did, there just isn't enough sample size to gauge anything from. The Nines are a poor barometer at the best of times, and when it then gets reduced to only two pool games, it becomes almost irrelevant in judging where we're up to.
 
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This is a great point. We played 36 minutes of football total. . That's less than one full half. The guys who played the Capras on Saturday night got a better hit out. In that time we were beaten by the team that beat everyone else, and we actually narrowly beat Melbourne who seemingly are able to beat us standing on their heads these days.

It's not like we played any of the really poor sides and even if we did, there just isn't enough sample size to gauge anything from. The Nines are a poor barometer at the best of times, and when it then gets reduced to only two pool games, it becomes almost irrelevant in judging where we're up to.

I agree that 9s don’t mean much of anything. While it definitely isn’t time to hit the panic stations, there are some causes for concern that don’t seem to be a explained by the different format.

for one, Croft’s kicking game seemed quite ineffective and there were some poorly weighted kicks.Turpin and Paix both displayed a crisper short kicking game. He also seemed to be less effective at organising and creating attacking chances than Dearden (who was quite good). Though admittedly this one may be due to inexperience playing 9s. He defended well though and looks a good tackler.

Isaako’s ball playing looked ugly. He would probably reel it in a bit during actual games but it’s definitely not his strong point.

Fifita looked a bit undercooked, lacked effort and urgency at times.

hopefully all of this is just due to pre-season rust and will be improved by round 1.
 
I agree that 9s don’t mean much of anything. While it definitely isn’t time to hit the panic stations, there are some causes for concern that don’t seem to be a explained by the different format.

for one, Croft’s kicking game seemed quite ineffective and there were some poorly weighted kicks.Turpin and Paix both displayed a crisper short kicking game. He also seemed to be less effective at organising and creating attacking chances than Dearden (who was quite good). Though admittedly this one may be due to inexperience playing 9s. He defended well though and looks a good tackler.

Isaako’s ball playing looked ugly. He would probably reel it in a bit during actual games but it’s definitely not his strong point.

Fifita looked a bit undercooked, lacked effort and urgency at times.

hopefully all of this is just due to pre-season rust and will be improved by round 1.
This was Croft's debut game for the club. Sure, he's had a preseason, but nothing can replicate getting out on the field. I'm not even slightly concerned about what I saw from Croft at this stage. I think all of the small problems he had will improve in the proper 80 minute format with time to gel, and some of them may well correct almost overnight.

As for Isaako, we don't need him to ball play. Hardly any of the elite Fullback's ball play these days. I'm 100% sure this was a Nines problem and that it won't be an issue in regular games. We finally have two very competent Halves and we now even have a Dummy Half who is coming on leaps and bounds with his pay making, so I'd be very concerned if we had plans to use Isaako as a ball player as well. The only time I want him to see the ball on the 4th and 5th tackle is when he's putting it down over the try line, passing it on to someone who is putting it down over the try line, or taking a shot at a field goal.

Fifita has hardly had a great off season and it should come as no real surprise that he's started out looking a bit flat. Let's see where he's up to in a month from now when he's ideally in better shape and hopefully the off season problems are long behind him before we start to get too concerned.
 
This was Croft's debut game for the club. Sure, he's had a preseason, but nothing can replicate getting out on the field. I'm not even slightly concerned about what I saw from Croft at this stage. I think all of the small problems he had will improve in the proper 80 minute format with time to gel, and some of them may well correct almost overnight.

As for Isaako, we don't need him to ball play. Hardly any of the elite Fullback's ball play these days. I'm 100% sure this was a Nines problem and that it won't be an issue in regular games. We finally have two very competent Halves and we now even have a Dummy Half who is coming on leaps and bounds with his pay making, so I'd be very concerned if we had plans to use Isaako as a ball player as well. The only time I want him to see the ball on the 4th and 5th tackle is when he's putting it down over the try line, passing it on to someone who is putting it down over the try line, or taking a shot at a field goal.

Fifita has hardly had a great off season and it should come as no real surprise that he's started out looking a bit flat. Let's see where he's up to in a month from now when he's ideally in better shape and hopefully the off season problems are long behind him before we start to get too concerned.

Your kidding right. The most elite fullbacks in the game have the ball playing ability needed for a fullback these days. And in case you've missed it, our attack is very fullback ball playing orientated and has been for the last 20 years
 
Your kidding right. The most elite fullbacks in the game have the ball playing ability needed for a fullback these days. And in case you've missed it, our attack is very fullback ball playing orientated and has been for the last 20 years
You and I have very different definitions of what makes a ball playing Fullback then. When I talk ball playing Fullback I'm thinking Lockyer, so which one of the current elite Fullback's ball plays at that standard or even close to that standard?

As for that 'ball playing Fullback' strategy, it has netted us precisely one Premiership in almost 20 years (coincidentally, we secured that Premiership year with Hodges, not a noted ball player, playing for us at Fullback).

Perhaps it's time to shelve that plan, get with the times and evolve.
 
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Your kidding right. The most elite fullbacks in the game have the ball playing ability needed for a fullback these days. And in case you've missed it, our attack is very fullback ball playing orientated and has been for the last 20 years
Who ?? Tedesco, RTS .... nothing like ball players.
 

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