NEWS 'My pick': Carrigan gets nod as next Broncos captain

The Brisbane Broncos captaincy is one of the most prestigious roles in Australian sport, and current lock forward Pat Carrigan has received a ringing endorsement to be next in line.

From Wally Lewis and Allan Langer to Adam Reynolds, the Broncos have been famous for fielding great and highly influential players as skipper.

Reynolds, who tasted title glory last year, will retire at the end of this season as one of just four Broncos captains to win the NRL premiership, with Langer (1992-93 and 1997-98), Kevin Walters (2000) and Darren Lockyer (2006) the others.

Test and Queensland forward Carrigan captained the side in Reynolds' absence last year and impressed with his strong leadership via actions.

The 28-year-old was earlier given the co-captaincy with Brodie Croft in the dark wooden-spoon days of 2020, when regular skipper Alex Glenn missed most of the season.

Carrigan showed great character and learned a lot during that period.

"He's done a lot of great things for this club and he's stood in a number of times," Reynolds said.

"Obviously when I'm not there he's the next man up, and he's a big part of the fabric of this club.

"He's been here for a very long time and I see him as an extremely important leader amongst our team as well, so it's a good headache to manage that.

"We've got a number of leaders in the club that could lead the team out, but he'd be my pick."

Carrigan, with 130 games for the Broncos to his credit, and centre Kotoni Staggs would be the two prime candidates for the job.

Carrigan is signed until 2028 and has the pedigree to take charge.

"I don't really think about it," he said.

"I've always been a big believer in just being myself and trying to uphold that each and every day and perform at a standard I'm proud of and the club can be proud of too.

"I've learned a lot from 'Reyno'. I'm glad he's got the reins for another 12 months, and if those things were to eventuate then they'll eventuate.

"I'm really lucky at this club. There's plenty of boys that are more than capable of leading us into the future, and I think we're in a good position."

If he does get the chance to lead the Broncos, Carrigan knows it will be one of his greatest achievements.

"It'll be massive," he said.

"Each and every day you're learning and you're growing as a person, not only as a footy player.

"I've taken plenty of lessons, ups and downs, over the last eight or nine years that I've been in the club.

"They're all hypotheticals and what-ifs and I don't really read too much into those sort of things.

"I'm loving what I'm doing at the moment and playing with this group of lads."

Canberra Times

 

[Mr Fourex]

If he said he wants to be a Bronco for life, and then does go signing for someone else (even for a justifiable pay day), he'll be called a liar and a traitor and ripped to shreds.

Maybe he could have said something along the lines of "I'd love to be a Bronco for life, but you just can't rule out anything life-changing if it happens to come along".

I don't think he said anything that even remotely needs defending.......

 

[BroncsFan]

“It's a business, mate … you learn how this game goes,"

“I will say, when I grew up, the only jersey I ever saw myself wearing was a Broncos jersey. I'm happy doing that at the moment and I'm loving that.

“But I think there'd be a fair list of boys trying to join that PNG crew if it's tax-free dollars, that's for sure.”

“I think if you ask any working Australian if tax-free dollars would be attractive to them, they would say the same, too,”

“Outside of the financial gains that you can have, there's a lot of cool things to be said in going to start a franchise in a country like PNG where they live and breathe rugby league.

“For me that's probably something that would appeal more if I was ever in that position.

“It's a national game in PNG. People love rugby league there and you would get to provide a smile to millions of people that are a little bit less fortunate than us in Australia."

“I think the financial gain would probably speak to a lot of players, but outside of that I think a lot of boys could see the upside in that (promoting the game to PNG people), too.”

I think that's pretty standard wording from Pat.

If he's ever asked anything he always talks about it in the frame of being positive towards that group.

That's usually the case with most players because their MO from media training is basically don't antagonise the opponent and don't give the media anything.

You could probably find an interview from him before we played Newcastle, Titans or Tigers where he's just heaping praise on them even though they're massive outsiders in the contest.

In general Patty wouldn't want to talk negatively about an entire population in PNG... so he says it's a nice location, being a foundation player is something someone might want to do, they're nice people, blah blah blah.

For PNG specifically I think broncos have been advocates of PNG league... didnt we used to have their bid as a sponsor at one point?

We also took the trophy across to PNG as part of the off season tour, so broncos as a team have generally talked up PNG to maintain that relationship.