THE COACH Kevin Walters

[bazza]

Struggling like getting flogged 40-12 and half the fans think that is ‘not too bad’?

Bleak…

I was thinking struggle as in the way we've struggled since Lockyer retired. We've never really been able to replace him. I think that will happen again with Reynolds since this club is so bad with its recruitment and roster management.

How do Melbourne do it so well? They've essentially lost 3 future immortals, and they've barely skipped a beat. We substitute Turpin and get 40 put on us.

 

[Skathen]

I was thinking struggle as in the way we've struggled since Lockyer retired. We've never really been able to replace him. I think that will happen again with Reynolds since this club is so bad with its recruitment and roster management.

How do Melbourne do it so well? They've essentially lost 3 future immortals, and they've barely skipped a beat. We substitute Turpin and get 40 put on us.

Power begets power, money begets money and being a top tier team begets top tier players.

We had this for years, getting high quality up and comers wanting to play for the Broncos and willing to take a cut price deal to do so.

Storm lost 3 immortals and had B Smith, Munster, Grant, Hughes and picked up Paps - ready to rock and roll, playing with these blokes and learning from the best.

If we wanted to get back to that, we'd need years of success, a prem or two, then and only then would we have players like Grant/Hughes/Paps taking less to stay loyal.

We had that and through terrible management/board decisions, let the genie out of the bottle. Even when locky retired in 2011 we were already on the decline then. Years gone we would have had a few new stars. Not the once in a generation blokes like Locky, but your Tonie Carrolls, Pearls, Hodgos, Berrigans, Hunts etc. We haven't produced the quantity or consistency of these types of players in order to keep enough to build a great team.

We get the rare gems and have to pay them a mint to keep them, or someone else swoops in and offers them overs to go to the gold coast, warriors and other perennial cellar dweller teams desperate to stay relevant. We have the media blowing up the heads of these kids making them think they are god's gift to rugby league. Agents telling them are worth a mint and we don't have the aura any more to convince them to stay. Blokes like Piakura - been on the field what 5 minutes and he's on 400k per year. 400K! Broncos 15 years ago would have laughed the agent out of the room and thrown him a base contract for a year to prove himself.

It's not even so much scouting, we are identifying a lot of these blokes, we just can't seem to keep them.

Ponga was a broncos junior.
Gagai - sacked by the broncos because the coach couldn't keep him under control.
Fifita - GC on dumb money.
Lindsay Collins - Broncs NYC
Tino - Broncos Junior
Munster - Broncos Junior
Reece Walsh - ffs don't get me started
Jai Arrow - golden decision to let him go that one.
Corey Allen - Career in limbo at the dogs
Sam Walker - we had his two uncles and his dad play for the club, how did the club **** that up so badly.

List goes on - that's just some of the class we've fumbled.

Ikin and Donuts I think will eventually fix a lot of problems, but it's going to take 5+ years to get back to being a quality unit. We've badly damage our brand and we need a coach that players admire and want to play for.

Kev's instilled some broncos culture in the team - I think it would be good to have him around the club in some capacity, but he's not a head coach for mine. We need someone far more tactical and ruthless. At the very least we need a coach who's got the balls to drop a top tier player when they are stinking it up, even if it's just for a week to fire a rocket up their arse.

The quality of Kev as a coach was exposed badly at Origin level. Same players that he got off Meninga and his game plan and bench usage was woeful. He is worse than a guy who's coach of nothing (thanks to Covid).

 

[BroncosFever]

I was thinking struggle as in the way we've struggled since Lockyer retired. We've never really been able to replace him. I think that will happen again with Reynolds since this club is so bad with its recruitment and roster management.

How do Melbourne do it so well? They've essentially lost 3 future immortals, and they've barely skipped a beat. We substitute Turpin and get 40 put on us.

There can be no doubt systematically rorting the cap absolutely played a role.

You could almost say it was worth it.

 

[Emanon]

Power begets power, money begets money and being a top tier team begets top tier players.

We had this for years, getting high quality up and comers wanting to play for the Broncos and willing to take a cut price deal to do so.

Storm lost 3 immortals and had B Smith, Munster, Grant, Hughes and picked up Paps - ready to rock and roll, playing with these blokes and learning from the best.

If we wanted to get back to that, we'd need years of success, a prem or two, then and only then would we have players like Grant/Hughes/Paps taking less to stay loyal.

We had that and through terrible management/board decisions, let the genie out of the bottle. Even when locky retired in 2011 we were already on the decline then. Years gone we would have had a few new stars. Not the once in a generation blokes like Locky, but your Tonie Carrolls, Pearls, Hodgos, Berrigans, Hunts etc. We haven't produced the quantity or consistency of these types of players in order to keep enough to build a great team.

We get the rare gems and have to pay them a mint to keep them, or someone else swoops in and offers them overs to go to the gold coast, warriors and other perennial cellar dweller teams desperate to stay relevant. We have the media blowing up the heads of these kids making them think they are god's gift to rugby league. Agents telling them are worth a mint and we don't have the aura any more to convince them to stay. Blokes like Piakura - been on the field what 5 minutes and he's on 400k per year. 400K! Broncos 15 years ago would have laughed the agent out of the room and thrown him a base contract for a year to prove himself.

It's not even so much scouting, we are identifying a lot of these blokes, we just can't seem to keep them.

Ponga was a broncos junior.
Gagai - sacked by the broncos because the coach couldn't keep him under control.
Fifita - GC on dumb money.
Lindsay Collins - Broncs NYC
Tino - Broncos Junior
Munster - Broncos Junior
Reece Walsh - ffs don't get me started
Jai Arrow - golden decision to let him go that one.
Corey Allen - Career in limbo at the dogs
Sam Walker - we had his two uncles and his dad play for the club, how did the club **** that up so badly.

List goes on - that's just some of the class we've fumbled.

Ikin and Donuts I think will eventually fix a lot of problems, but it's going to take 5+ years to get back to being a quality unit. We've badly damage our brand and we need a coach that players admire and want to play for.

Kev's instilled some broncos culture in the team - I think it would be good to have him around the club in some capacity, but he's not a head coach for mine. We need someone far more tactical and ruthless. At the very least we need a coach who's got the balls to drop a top tier player when they are stinking it up, even if it's just for a week to fire a rocket up their arse.

The quality of Kev as a coach was exposed badly at Origin level. Same players that he got off Meninga and his game plan and bench usage was woeful. He is worse than a guy who's coach of nothing (thanks to Covid).

Getting rid of Kevie won't change anything, it will just set everything back a year or two while we adapt to a new coach with different ideas. Funny that you brought up Meninga though. He wasn't that great a club coach, but even Bellamy couldn't put a side together to beat that QLD team.

If a kid showing potential doesn't get a look in, they go to another NRL club, not back to Wynnum Manly or Souths Logan to bide their time. That doesn't fall on the coach, that's on recruitment and development.

Would Walsh of stayed if he could see a pathway as to how he gets into the first grade side? What about Walker? He saw no benefit to his career by staying here. He actually said that he felt more loved by the Roosters. Pretty sure Coates said something about benefitting his career after he signed with Melbourne. Hell, even Deardon left when we signed Reynolds, and he was touted by the club as the next Lockyer.

Should we still be playing 3 props instead of a ball playing lock? No, but Carrigan will probably return at lock anyway. Is Nui the right guy to play at Fullback? Possibly, but he's a work in progress. Should Billy be at Six? No, it should be Staggs. Mam's current form may be due not knowing why Billy keeps getting the nod. It sounds eerily familiar.

If they play their first choice team I can't see them making the 8. Thing is, I can't see Flanigan doing much better with this team at the moment either though.

 

[Renegade]

It's all getting a bit too familiar isn't it?
Put in a spirited performance against a top team, compete for 40-50 odd minutes, collapse, lose by 20+.

Not sure if it's a fatigue or mentality or coaching. Might be mentality if kev is truly thinking results like these aren't too bad. Conceding 40 points is always bad.

 

[Kaz]

Sam Walker - we had his two uncles and his dad play for the club, how did the club **** that up so badly.

Because we didn't pick his dad & uncle as coach.

 

[lynx000]

It's all getting a bit too familiar isn't it?
Put in a spirited performance against a top team, compete for 40-50 odd minutes, collapse, lose by 20+.

Not sure if it's a fatigue or mentality or coaching. Might be mentality if kev is truly thinking results like these aren't too bad. Conceding 40 points is always bad.

The thing is, we had effectively 1/3 of our top 17 out and we hung with them until tesi went down which caused a reshuffle. Even then, it was the constant leg ups Penrith were getting, like 6 agains on the 4th or 5th tackle that ultimately broke us.

We do not have the quality depth in our squad to cover that many outs - Carrigan, Haas, Flegler, Piakura, Kelly, Farnsworth and then Tesi on top of that leaving us with 16 playing against Penrith at Penrith, the result was no surprise.

 

[Foordy]

Would Walsh of stayed if he could see a pathway as to how he gets into the first grade side?

If Walsh couldn't see a pathway into the first grade side when Isaako was fullback he was blind.

Walsh left for more money and a quicker (but not better) route

 

[Gaz]

List goes on - that's just some of the class we've fumbled.

The biggest fumble of all - Craig Bellamy.
Melbourne noted what he did with the young Broncos up against men and swooped.
We didn't.

 

[K-Style]

Because we didn't pick his dad & uncle as coach.

He grew up a Roosters fan apparently. Only way we would get him is if we did make it a package deal.

 

[Alec]

I don't really rate Kevin as a coach, but when 3 of your 4 spine players are arguably the worst in their position NRL wide, there's really not much you can do. According to the people in charge the Broncos aren't really in the hunt for anyone else, so I guess the hopes are being pinned on a rookie hooker being a great player in 5 years.
I think it's really time to go big in spine recruitment and just sacrifice some of the promising young non-spine players if the Broncos have to.

 

[winslow_wong]

I don't really rate Kevin as a coach, but when 3 of your 4 spine players are arguably the worst in their position NRL wide, there's really not much you can do. According to the people in charge the Broncos aren't really in the hunt for anyone else, so I guess the hopes are being pinned on a rookie hooker being a great player in 5 years.
I think it's really time to go big in spine recruitment and just sacrifice some of the promising young non-spine players if the Broncos have to.

It’s a tough one for the broncos lacking in so many spine positions. Which spine position do you spend big on? As someone mentioned before, Reynolds is more a short term fix and inevitably we’ll desperately need a half back again which is probably the most important spine position. We really need someone who can fill multiple spine positions.

My pipe dream candidate would have been nicho hynes while keeping Milford on a much lower wage. Hynes is ideal as he could have been fullback and then transitioned into half back.

 

[bazza]

There can be no doubt systematically rorting the cap absolutely played a role.

You could almost say it was worth it.

Haha sure. But systematic rotting aside, they are just better at identifying players worth spending the cap on. They have been able to pick out players like Munster, Hughes, Hynes, Papenhuyzen, Grant etc from lower tier competitions before they even became elite.

In comparison, for the best part of the last decade, we've been spending our cap on the wrong players entirely. it's even been blatantly obvious which positions we should be spending it on, and instead we go and spend it elsewhere. It's just been so frustrating as a fan to see some of the decisions the club has made. Our club has been run like an amatuer club, and I suppose it's also how we've also been playing too.

 

[theshed]

We need a new defensive coach. The best spine players in the world won’t stop our forwards leaking 20 points in one half.

 

[Wolfie]

We need a new defensive coach. The best spine players in the world won’t stop our forwards leaking 20 points in one half.

You are right, we need somebody coaching defence into them, but its got to be more than just technique. I dont think its all on the forwards. Ever since i've been watching the game, even god tier forwards like Webcke have been beaten by quicker, more agile players. Even our more mobile players like Staggs and Haas get beaten too easily in defence, which leads me to believe its the structures and our ability to stick to the game plan rather than technique.

 

[bazza]

I think we needed an assistant coach overhaul in the off season after reviewing last season. Even if it was just a few astute additions to help in both attack and defence. Instead we just stuck with what clearly didn't work last season.

Now I can't for certain comment on what Cartwright and Matterson bring, but I can't imagine it's much that could match the top sides in the competition.

Kev as a figurehead coach could totally work if he had strong assistants. But at the moment, I would imagine Walters needs better help from his assistants. Walters was also in charge of our attack in 2015, so maybe he can still be good with tactics, but I am not sure either Walters, Matterson, or Cartwright are able to put in place the correct defensive or attacking structures.

 

[LittleDavey]

This is a hard one because IMO we are improving, but nowhere near fast enough and not in the areas that matter most. There were times under Siebold where the team clocked off and gave up. I'm not really seeing that since Kevvie got his claws into the players so that's a good thing. We are not being beaten on effort, but class.

It's also apparent that Kev has changed everything again since Siebold, who changed everything from Wayne. Our attacking and defensive structures are both different - again. This takes some time to bed down, but defensively I can see we're working better as a team than we were 12 or 24 months ago. This is also promising but it's taking some time. Our scramble is also much improved and I put this also down to a better attitude and pride in the team/club.

The biggest problems for me are that 1) we seem unfit compared to other teams, which is leading to more fatigue and zero line speed and therefore no pressure or stopping the opponent's momentum; 2) there still seems to be a lack of trust at times in the adjacent defender; and 3) we get slaughtered in the ruck. I presume our lack of line speed is coached on purpose so we keep a set line...so the line is only as fast as the slowest player. In which case we really need to work on that. The trust, it's getting better but still lacking, again this is a time thing.

The ruck, well...until we get the same leniency as other teams do, I don't know the answer here, but it's huge because it flows through to everything else - the defensive line having time to get set, then line speed, etc etc. Someone at the club needs to time tackles and put together a dossier for the NRL if warranted because it feels like we get the rough end of the stick. Lastnight the Panthers were not being told to get off us as fast as we were told to get off them, and even when they were told to release there were times it was another 2 whole seconds until they did. Might not be much but across the number of tackles in the game that is more than significant. This is a hard one since it's basically ref's discretion, there's dominant/submissive tackles etc. I don't know the answer.

 

[I bleed Maroon]

The biggest fumble of all - Craig Bellamy.
Melbourne noted what he did with the young Broncos up against men and swooped.
We didn't.

because at the time we thought Bennett was going to be coach until the day he died. So much for that.