NEWS Croft 'honoured to be a Bronco'

[Morepudding]

I like how he said he's keen to play with our forward pack, and then listed our entire backline excluding Boyd [emoji23]

No one wants to play with Boyd.

 

[broncsgoat]

We got mauled this year because of our shoddy, shitty defence out wide, Isaako again consistently standing up to 5m in from his wing, and being caught out, and sloppy marker defence up the middle, exactly what Smith exploits so well.

The Storm standard formula is so simple. Fast play the balls to catch out sloppy marker defence, and fast ball movement out wide to catch out sloppy slide defence. Good defences don't fall for it.

Contrast this year's shambles to our win against them in 2015 where we had a fantastic defence. Remember that game? 11 straight sets defended perfectly on our line. If we gave them 11 sets on our line this year the score would have been 66 nil. If there's one thing Bennett got 100% right in 2015 it was defence (and letting Milf play his natural game). Seibold needs to take note.

My heart hasn’t slowed down since that day. One of our best wins.

 

[FaithinHook]

Nothing like a bunch of billboards and being told he’s the leader the teams been missing to lump pressure on a young player. Would w preferred a more subtle introduction for the kid.

I actually think Brodie will thrive on the pressure. He seems to have been very much shackled playing in that team of control freaks (with Cameron number 1 and Cameron 'the biatch' number 2) at the Storm. I think Crofty wants to own the halfback position with us and be the 'go-to guy' that he couldn't be in Melbourne.

 

[Marty Deutschmann]

I actually think Brodie will thrive on the pressure. He seems to have been very much shackled playing in that team of control freaks (with Cameron number 1 and Cameron 'the biatch' number 2) at the Storm. I think Crofty wants to own the halfback position with us and be the 'go-to guy' that he couldn't be in Melbourne.

I agree

 

[broncsgoat]

Let’s get a few wins under our belt before the hype train leaves the station ay?

The hype was palpable last preseason and we turned in one of our worst seasons ever.

 

[FaithinHook]

Let’s get a few wins under our belt before the hype train leaves the station ay?

The hype was palpable last preseason and we turned in one of our worst seasons ever.

Certainly bit a few of us (myself included) on the arses who got sucked in last year mate, that's for sure.

Ahh **** it, I'm already getting hyped up from the Brodie signing but am still positive we can turn a corner next year.

 

[Allo]

Let’s get a few wins under our belt before the hype train leaves the station ay?

The hype was palpable last preseason and we turned in one of our worst seasons ever.

Everyone without a brain hyped us. While we always hold optimism for every season, it was fairly obvious we weren’t going to get close to competing with the top teams unless we went on a huge unexpected run

 

[Sproj]

Fluff piece...so is Boyd the fittest he's ever been again?

 

[Super Freak]

Contrast this year's shambles to our win against them in 2015 where we had a fantastic defence. Remember that game? 11 straight sets defended perfectly on our line.

It was 11 repeat sets from goal line dropouts we defended but it wasn't 11 straight sets.

No one could defend that.

 

[Super Freak]

I hope Seibold can give him a simplified role and get him to stick to it.

He couldn't do that at the Storm and was dropped as a result. Storm were happy to let him go, they just wanted to pay as little as possible.

Croft can't be the one calling the shots. That needs to be Milford. He's better in the clutch moments. Croft just needs to play a simplified support role. Take the pressure off Milford to allow him to just focus on the big plays rather than having to do it all himself.

Would love it if he also learns how to put a backrower through a hole more than once in a blue moon and engage the line more.

 

[FaithinHook]

"Milford better in the clutch moments"? You can't be serious! Milford did 4/5s of **** all in the clutch moments this year. What, put a useless bomb up every 5th tackle? He looked bamboozled whenever the pressure was on, dancing round in circles most times.

Milford is not the superstar clutch player you dream he is. Never will be based on the past few seasons.

 

[Foordy]

Croft can't be the one calling the shots. That needs to be Milford. He's better in the clutch moments

tried that for several years ... didn't work ... time for plan B

Milford needs to be the support player, sniffing around the ruck waiting for the offload. focus on getting his running game back, rather than managing the game.

Croft should be the game manager ... i think he'll surprise some people when we hand him the keys

 

[broncsgoat]

More underestimating of Milford. I agree with @Super Freak.
We need to remember Milf has been having to do it all himself for the past two years. He’s a clearly superior player to Croft, who a lot of people here seem to be massively overrating.

 

[Kooly87]

More underestimating of Milford. I agree with @Super Freak.
We need to remember Milf has been having to do it all himself for the past two years. He’s a clearly superior player to Croft, who a lot of people here seem to be massively overrating.

I personally suspect Croft can be the superior player in a couple of years time. But that's kind of besides the point. They're very different players. They do different jobs and have different skill sets. Milford has done a decent job of trying to play the organiser and he does deserve plenty of credit for the improvements he's made in this regard. He's certainly a far more well rounded player than when he came to us.

That said, I'm not sure if he's actually a 'better' player than when he came to us. Now a lot of it isn't his fault, he was asked to do a job he wasn't familiar with and probably isn't going to ever really be suited for. We paid the money we did for Milford for his running game and his ability to create havoc on opposition defensive lines particularly in broken play. We never bought him here to be our Halfback or to do almost all of our last tackle kicking. There is no shame in this, even Lockyer struggled to excel when he wasn't given a decent Halfback to play alongside.

So we finally have a Halfback alongside him. He's not Cronk or JT or DCE, but he's definitely got a huge amount of potential, and rather than seeing it as him vs Milford, we should be looking at what they can do to complement one another.

Croft to me looks like a guy waiting to get the reigns and in Brisbane he'll have that opportunity. This means Milford can take more of a backseat if you want to call it that, but it's not meant in a negative sense. It ideally means that Milford will be more free to pick and choose when he wants the ball and where he wants to inject himself, safe in the knowledge that he has a competent Halves partner who can take pressure off him on the 4th and 5th tackle and particularly with our kicking game. This should leave Milford fresher physically, and with more time to get a feel for the opposition and the weak spots he can target.

I agree that Milford deserves credit for what he's done at Brisbane playing mostly a lone hand with a revolving door of questionable Halves partners and working on skills that he should never really have had to concern himself with. Make no mistake though, Croft is under pressure to find his feet quickly, but don't for a moment think Milford isn't either. With a genuine Halfback to play alongside him, its up to Milford to now show us he still has that attacking arsenal and moments of brilliance that he came to us with and that we pay him handsomely for. Tom Dearden is on the horizon, and there will be more behind him. No one should feel their position is safe without having to earn it, and that applies to our highest ever paid player most of all.

 

[Huge]

I was literally just thinking this.

That is honestly the way to beat Melbourne.

Just go out and bully them. Show no respect and no regard..

Haas Fifita and TPJ all in a row..........Straight at him.

I've made both points on many occasions . The Sharks gave us the blueprint in their gf win. The other point about concentrating on one player without respite would work and most especially on a lynchpin player such as Cam Smith. Destroy him and the house collapses.

 

[McHunt]

I've made both points on many occasions . The Sharks gave us the blueprint in their gf win. The other point about concentrating on one player without respite would work and most especially on a lynchpin player such as Cam Smith. Destroy him and the house collapses.

So Melbourne's plan should be: destroy Croft to collapse House Brisbane?

 

[GCBRONCO]

They seem to do a good enough job by just turning up for the matches against us, don't see why they need to do that.

 

[Huge]

Don't be surprised if Croft doesn't get first shot at half back. I can see Dearden killing it in the trials and getting the nod. It is good to have a few options in the halves. We could even have Bird at 5/8 and Milf at halfback! So many combinations. It's a healthy headache.