As a “pretty cruisey” person, Jesse Arthars said he’s not haunted by the result of last year’s grand final but was instead looking forward to facing off against Penrith once again.
“It doesn't really affect me, I'm pretty cruisey,” Arthars said after Brisbane's win against the Rabbitohs. “I'll just go week-by-week and just get on with it.
“(But) that was the toughest game to lose, the grand final, and a lot of the boys were hurting from that, but that's just fuel to the fire.
“We had a good pre-season and started our with the campaign with a win (against the Rabbitohs), so we're just going to look to build.
“Obviously we're not where we were at the end of last year and we got some new players and things like that, so we have just got to keep working hard and building those combos.
“(But) we're excited, we're looking forward to it."
It’s been well documented that the Broncos squad spent time together watching back the final 20 minutes of their defeat to see what went wrong, but Arthars said the result was now in the past and the team were forging ahead.
“A lot of the boys have spoken about it in the past and we just can't miss our marks in attack and we just need to lock in on defence and not miss jobs,” Arthars said.
“At the end of the day, we have just got to do our job and have to keep turning up for each other and what happened last year is not what we wanted, but we've moved on from that and we just use it as motivation going forward.
“Penrith are the best team in the comp obviously after last year and they set the standard very high in that grand final and we're going to have to be a lot better.”
However, their task has been made all the more difficult with the confirmation that captain Adam Reynolds is out with a knee issue that forced him from the field in the 70th minute of last week’s win over the Rabbitohs.
Jock Madden has been named to step in to partner Ezra Mam, with Arthars saying the side had “full faith” in him to perform.
“For sure, we have full faith in anyone that steps into the role at this club,” Arthars said.
“We've got a lot of depth and the boys train really hard to fight for those jumpers.
“If Reyno is no good, we have got all the faith in Jock.”
Coach Kevin Walters also confirmed forward Payne Haas would also miss the game with injury, with youngster Xavier Willison now set to play in his first match of the season.
NRL.com
