By the time I got home last night I knew enough of the score to not bother watching. Haven't seen a minute of the game since and don't intend to. Would be a waste of time. All I know is that judging by the score and the comments on this site, the performance must have been a world away from what it has been the last 7 weeks, and I put it down to the occasional poor effort that most teams put in occasionally coming at a particularly bad time. But it happens, not much anyone can do about it. No doubt the absence of Wallace contributed, and it seems Ivan could have done a better job of covering for that. Whether that would have resulted in a win, who knows. But for what it's worth, I'm putting it down to an unlucky and ill-timed injury to a key player that we're not in a Grand Final.
It's certainly a credit to the team and the coach how they turned it around after the Canberra flogging. I still think questions have to be asked post-season in the cold hard light of day how we ever got into that slump in the first place. But to all the doomsayers saying that game is evidence that we don't have what it takes, I'll just point to the 2 defeats we handed to the Dragons and other performances in the 7 game winning streak to say the team can clearly perform a lot better than they did last night. Some of the comments about a lot of the team being young and inexperienced are right and no doubt that played a part last night. That raises the obvious question of how we lost Stagg, Ennis, Hannant, Boyd, Taylor and Hunt all within 2 years. Bruno needs to be deadset crucified for this. It is a needless position for the club to be in. But hopefully with the likes of Winterstein, Yow Yeh, Ben Hunt and Glenn coming through and continuing development of the mongrel factor of Sims, Clinton et al and the old heads of Lockyer, Hodges and Thaiday to keep guiding them all for the next couple of years, there's every reason to be optimistic about the future IMO. It's still a pity we don't have Bennett any more to be the X factor that always attracted players and made them willing to play at the Broncos for less money than elsewhere for the chance to be in a winning team under a unique genius of a coach. Ivan has done pretty well for a 1st year coach, especially turning around the slump. Time will tell if he's able to be the great coach we need in the future. I hope he learns a lot from last night for a start.
Finally, my complete and utter contempt for the Melbourne Scum continues to grow and grow. It would have almost been OK last night if it was against almost any other team. The hate was so intense last year that I was actually reasonably happy to see Manly win a Grand Final, if only to see Melbourne lose. Amazing! Now we have so sweetly avenged years of BS results against the Dragons by beating them twice and ending their season, I'd say there is no team I want the Broncos to completely smash and humiliate more next time than Melbourne. Their farking wrestling, their grappling, their all-round cheating and their complete tosser of a coach, that smug Bellyache - damn it will so make my day next time we beat them. Also on Billy Slater and his brilliance vs inconsistency, I can't stand how all his stuff-ups are in the games I most want him to play well in, like that memorable one in the World Cup for Australia and a few ordinary Origin performances, and the times he plays most brilliantly are always for the Melbourne Scum against us. So sh!ts me!