Halves situation

[rnabokov]

I feel like people are trying to give Croft the benefit of the doubt because he is new at the Broncos, but he just isn't the answer and the sooner that we work that out and move on to the future (Dearden) the better for all involved.

Like any new signing, especially a young one, to a club with a drastically different coaching style to the one previously, and a different roster and culture, I think Croft deserves a chance, although again, I agree Dearden ought to have been given that role ... in hindsight, which is a luxury we don't have, although a lesson for recruiting the future.

 

[heartly87]

To me the combination of Milford and Croft is not looking viable as our long term one.

That's based off how much Milford is going to want to stay (as much as I would want to keep him if he took less and actually had a halfback he combined well with) and how I just don't think Croft is that great a halfback and lacks the kicking game, game management and awareness we thought we were getting with him.

If it was my choice with the players we currently have, I'd go with Dearden at halfback and Paix at five-eight.

I think most people would agree that Dearden deserves a shot considering the potential he has, but many wouldn't get the Paix suggestion.

I honestly don't get the obsession with try to turn Paix into a hooker. To me he is a natural half and always has been and should be groomed as such. I would rather go out and try and get Grant if Smith plays on than make Paix play somewhere he is not comfortable.

6. Paix
7. Dearden

9. Grant

Ahhh i think we have not had enough time to judge this combination but if it fails I think Milf will have to be the one who gets scrapped. You can keep blaming others when the combo breaks down. This will be like 5 combinations if you count boyd and bird

 

[Dee]

All the people making excuses for Milford - get real.

He's had SO many chances and opportunities to show us his '2015' form. It's over. He cannot deliver no matter who the 7 is, how much our forwards dominate and give him room etc.

The excuses are done. Get rid of Milford, free up that money and pay it to Dearden or another solid number 6.

Right now, I'd prefer Dearden and Croft in the halves however I'm not totally sold on Croft atm.

 

[PNG Broncos fan88]

Milford and Nikorima had something special going on but no - we had to listen to Andrew Johns and his Nine commentators that they weren't good enough.

Stat Attack: Milford and Nikorima's six-week blitz has Broncos bubbling

They are what Brisbane Broncos coach Wayne Bennett calls the "eye opener" statistics which reveal why Anthony Milford and Kodi Nikorima have been the form halves over the past six weeks as the club surges towards a top four position on the NRL ladder.

www.nrl.com

Meanwhile Kodi was sublime for NZ against NQ, some of his kicks and try assists and hole running were top notch. The Warriors are lucky to have him, maybe Seibold traded the wrong guy

Or maybe now we should get rid of Langer instead, his always chirping mixed messages to the halves every 5 mins on his water runs. The legend should be up in the corporate boxes having all the xxxx he wants, he had his time - let the young ones forge their own destiny.

 

[007]

I don't think we really had a choice with Niko. $$$$$

 

[Shane Tronc]

When your team drops as much ball as we have you’re on a hiding to nothing as a half. Croft and Milford have never been able to get any rhythm in a game.

 

[Lockysillegitimatechild]

Milford and Nikorima had something special going on but no - we had to listen to Andrew Johns and his Nine commentators that they weren't good enough.

Stat Attack: Milford and Nikorima's six-week blitz has Broncos bubbling

They are what Brisbane Broncos coach Wayne Bennett calls the "eye opener" statistics which reveal why Anthony Milford and Kodi Nikorima have been the form halves over the past six weeks as the club surges towards a top four position on the NRL ladder.

www.nrl.com

Meanwhile Kodi was sublime for NZ against NQ, some of his kicks and try assists and hole running were top notch. The Warriors are lucky to have him, maybe Seibold traded the wrong guy

Or maybe now we should get rid of Langer instead, his always chirping mixed messages to the halves every 5 mins on his water runs. The legend should be up in the corporate boxes having all the xxxx he wants, he had his time - let the young ones forge their own destiny.

Imagine nikorima (or even segeyaro) off the bench as a dummy half with the recent rule changes though... my god we have had some absolute bad luck body blows the past 6 months...

 

[Cult]

Signing Croft wasn’t the problem. Giving him a starting spot and a lot of responsibility from the get go was though. He shouldn’t have come straight into the team. Dearden, in my opinion, earned the right to that halfback spot last year.

Also not even I would like a halves pairing of Paix and Dearden just yet. Milford has needed a kick in the ass for years now but that isn’t a better option.

 

[Foordy]

Croft show that in the first two rounds that he needs an absolutely dominant forward pack to be successful and we even won without him against the Rabbitohs.

He just isn't that good and we have all the evidence we need for that.

Dearden is the future.

show me any half that can win you a game behind a beaten pack and only 35% possession

 

[rnabokov]

show me any half that can win you a game behind a beaten pack and only 35% possession

So much THIS

 

[Maroon4life]

I’m hopeful of a future without Milford in ‘22. Happy to give Croft more time but I wouldn’t keep Milford even on base salary.

I hope he has a great 2 years prior too that, if he’s re-signed the club will be making a 3 year mistake.

Still hurts to look back on but he should of been able to say he was a premiership winning Clive Churchill recipient in 2015.

 

[Footy Fanatic]

Can I ask people, what do you think Crofts skillset is as a half?

 

[Sproj]

The thing is, the club and supporters need to be ready when Milf goes somewhere else on a far lower deal but carves up for that team. He has been coached extremely poorly in his time at the club. He needed tough love and trained to enhance his strengths, not have them totally coached out of him. He'd be a great fit at any of the Knights, Storm, Sea Eagles or Tigers. He will look like a million dollars under a coach who knows what he is doing with a player like this and there is just too much scar tissue at the Broncs now.

That all said, I thought he started to figure it out in the last five minutes last week. The problem is, he won't do it again this week. He needs to do the JT-thing and just touch the ball 800 times a set, that gives him far more chance to do something with it, even if it screw it up, just take the risk and do more than three things a game.

 

[KnToad]

And I get loud and clear that you don't like Croft. I do .. so far

FWIW me too.
I see him having a crack at the line far more often than Milf.
He might not be setting the world on firs so far but you don;t hear anyone yelling "he needs to run the ball more..." like you do an nauseum about our million dollar milf

 

[KnToad]

I feel like people are trying to give Croft the benefit of the doubt because he is new at the Broncos, but he just isn't the answer and the sooner that we work that out and move on to the future (Dearden) the better for all involved.

given that he's been here five minutes how does this view stack up when it comes to milf?
He's been here for years and has steadily gotten worse.
Blame the coaching, blame the combinations, blame the need for an "organising" 7, the blame game just keeps on and on.
Like someone else has already said, this will be yet another 6/7 combo that includes milf that is, apparently, already doomed to failure. And once again it is the other players fault.
Milf has had plenty of time to "step up" and all the excuses in the world aren't gonna change the fact that he just has never reached the heights we all hoped and prayed for after the retirement of Lockyer, our last great half.

 

[NSW stables]

Both milford and croft seem intent on either bombs when we are in mid field or big looping kicks when seeking territory, which are inevitably caught on the full, for the receiver to run 20-30 metres back because of a poor kick chase. I can only assume this is another coach directive. I think seibold tries to be too smart for his own good. He is probably thinking 'hang time' will give our team time to get down the field and chase, but our kick chase is crap, it gives the receiver more time to get to the ball.

Milfords better kicks have been flatter kicks, his 40 20s have been flat (and prime kicking game was probably 2018 with a different coaching strategy). Crofts kicking game appeared better at melbourne too.

Prime example of the difference between the kick styles/strategy was the parra game. Gutherson caught just about every kick on the full whilst moses used flatter kicks, kicking the ball and rolling it behind oates who would stress about possibly fumbling it and by the time he felt safe to pick it up, parra were there.

Unfortunately i dont think any of our players, including our halves, will reach their potential under seibold.

 

[BroncsFan]

Both milford and croft seem intent on either bombs when we are in mid field or big looping kicks when seeking territory, which are inevitably caught on the full, for the receiver to run 20-30 metres back because of a poor kick chase. I can only assume this is another coach directive. I think seibold tries to be too smart for his own good. He is probably thinking 'hang time' will give our team time to get down the field and chase, but our kick chase is crap, it gives the receiver more time to get to the ball.

Milfords better kicks have been flatter kicks, his 40 20s have been flat (and prime kicking game was probably 2018 with a different coaching strategy). Crofts kicking game appeared better at melbourne too.

Prime example of the difference between the kick styles/strategy was the parra game. Gutherson caught just about every kick on the full whilst moses used flatter kicks, kicking the ball and rolling it behind oates who would stress about possibly fumbling it and by the time he felt safe to pick it up, parra were there.

Unfortunately i dont think any of our players, including our halves, will reach their potential under seibold.

You mean the same kicking plan that Peter Wallace, Ben Hunt and even Darren Lockyer implemented was Seibold coaching from the future or something

Hell even Moses, DCE and Cleary utilise the same approach to kicking... is Seibold coaching the whole comp now!!

I can't remember how many posts have been done over the years about wishing Hunt would stop lobbing up bombs into the corner

This kick is utilized to trap the opposition in a corner and I'd imagine there is an attempt to kick it only as far as your kick chase is going to get... it's another area the team is lacking in at the moment with basically only the winger, center and backrower chasing kicks through. Compared to the roosters where there is a full defensive line on the kick chase.

Most of the time the low angle driving kicks are done on the back of momentum and at the moment our forward pack is going no where or there isn't enough focus on generating quick ptb's to lay that platform.

I would hardly say that Milf is doing these driving low kicks either... his 40/20's look like lobbed drop punts more than anything, he just has a massive boot on him so it goes a long way. If he had more confidence in his boot he'd be kicking them more regularly.

I would say that I had concerns about Croft's kicking game... but Cronk didn't exactly have a stellar long kick either... it's usually Smith that does the big momentum changing kicks on 3rd tackle to the in goal. Cronk's short kicking game inside the 30m was great, but long kicking for territory and field position, not so great.

In Croft's case he did produce one absolutely perfect kick from about 40 or 50m out which stayed low and curled around the winger to find touch about 2m from the in goal. That is not an easy kick as it occured on 5th tackle so both wingers and the full back were waiting yet he found the grass and curled it around the winger for touch.

To produce that kind of kick he would've had momentum from the previous ptb (something he's not getting a lot of), but I think it shows some potential for a decent kicking game... it also shows that he works on his kicking game as I doubt a low curling banana kick is something that just comes naturally.

I think it is difficult to get a gauge on his kicking game as yet, because we haven't really been in a position where the forward pack is dominating an arm wrestle... even in rounds 1 & 2, it was more back and forth and penalties providing field position. I'll wait to see how his kicking game is going when we have momentum and confidence, and maybe the same 17 on the park several weeks in a row

 

[Unbreakable]

Can I ask people, what do you think Crofts skillset is as a half?

1) Look pretty
2) Occasionally dummy and run
3) Land 2-3 accurate kicks per game

Think that's about it at the moment