I know there is a lot of water to go under the bridge before this happens BUT for years now we've been told about how good our halves prospects are and that broncos have 3 young halves coming through all with potential to be starting seven's for the next decade.
To date we have lost Tanah Boyd to the Tits and he is yet to make his mark on the game. Corey Paix is stuck in this awkward halfback filling in as a hooker kind of role (not to dissimilar to a young Ben Hunt) and is yet to make his mark on the game. And then you have dearden who is also yet to fire a shot and apparently been poached by other clubs.
How disheartening will it be while also highlighting a sign of the times at the broncos if the one position we supposedly had covered 3 times over turns out that none of these three even become regular first grade halves OR become stars for another club.
To really sink the boot in, throw ash taylor into the equation as another bronco's half who was touted by us as the next big thing and he too has achieived nothing yet.
Compare this is to the storm for example and ryan papenhuyzen. You wouldnt barely have known he existed than the storm debut him at 21 (possibly could have been 20 years old) and he's making an instant impact.
It really highlights a problem with our development ane scouting team in my opinion that our strike rate is so poor.
I think the biggest issue I've noticed from Tanah, Dearden and possibly Paix (haven't seen enough of him) is the total lack of a long kicking game. Combine that with Milf, Bhunt and Kodi, and we've basically had no long kicking game since PWall (and I dont even rate his long kicking at all) and no elite kicker since Lockyer!
Watching Clifford last year you can see he has a powerful and sweetly timed long kick... but he'll be plying his trade at Newcastle.
Corey Norman also has an effortlessly long kicking game... but his mentality is garbage when playing anything other than 7.
Taylor has a reasonable long kicking game, but not elite... and we decided to let him walk anyway.
If you dont have a strong long kicking game it is difficult to win the field position battle especially in the new NSWRL where there are no penalties, offsides, 6-agains, etc.
You just cant get to the other end of the field. The strong teams last year had great long kickers that could win field position CS9, Cleary, Moses and Reynolds, even roosters had Flannigan (not the most accurate long kick, but still decent distance wise).
I recall a set where Panthers were stuck in their own 30m and Cleary kicked it to the opposition 30m on the full on 3rd or 4th tackle. The fullback wasnt deep enough and the kick chase tackled the him on the 30m line after he finally recovered the ball... instant field position from a shithouse set
It seems like we've been going with run first/ flashy halves who look good in the juniors because they're bigger and faster... but if you have a Cleary or someone sitting in 7 you can afford to have one of those halves next to them. You cant afford to have two flashy halves with no kicking game