At that point, the injury toll we had in 2001 was the worst in the club's history. To make it as far as we did just shows how professional the team was.
And I wouldn't really say there weren't any excuses in 2004. We went through that season without our starting half and hooker and things got so bad we had Costigan playing hooker and had recalled Ikin and Green out of retirement. I don't think we were a chance that year, but it was still a very good year for the club and I thought it set us up well for a premiership.
Injuries also hit us at the wrong time of the season in 2005. I still remember that Penrith game where we suffered a few injuries and they exploited it by targetting Hodges who was virtually on one leg to break our hearts in the dying minutes. Then there was a similar story against the Eels where we were actually leading and looking like the better side until Moi Moi took out Barnes with a head high. By the time all our players came back, it was finals time and we had no form to show for it. After going down to the Storm (in trying circumstances, f**k Orford the diving mole) we were absolutely tearing the Tigers apart...but then had nothing to show for it. That had to be right up there as one of the weirdest halves in Broncos history, next to that last round loss we suffered against Parramatta. We made something like six linebreaks, yet trailed by ten points.
mrslong - Actually, that win didn't really trigger our big comeback as we went onto lose against a rat-s**t Dragons side the next week. We would turn it around against the Doggies after backing up from Origin. From there we won something like 5 in a row until Lockyer went down like he was shot by a sniper. Sucked big time because I think out of any other team, the squad we had were the only ones who could have challenged the Storm at the time.
