Peter Ryan moving on

[Burg]

Broncos and defensive coach agree to part ways PHIL LUTTON
February 2, 2010
The Brisbane Broncos will put the finishing touches on their NRL season preparations without defensive coach Peter Ryan, although the club has denied he was given his marching orders.

Ryan, a fearless back-rower who spent 10 seasons dishing out pain in Brisbane colours, has been a defensive consultant at the Broncos since hanging up his boots in 2002, after playing for rugby union's ACT Brumbies.

A spokesman for the club confirmed Ryan had moved on, saying he had come to a mutual agreement with management to depart Red Hill and focus on business interests, which were increasingly clashing with his coaching commitments.

It is understood Ryan has had several disagreements with head coach Ivan Henjak, leading to a decision to finish his tenure at the club before Brisbane take the field for their NRL opener against the Cowboys on Friday, March 12.

Ryan was also a defensive consultant at the Queensland Reds before leaving Ballymore to concentrate on his work with the Broncos.

In his playing days, he was one of the most feared hitmen in the game, playing 155 games for the Broncos after making his debut in 1989. He switched codes at the end of 1999, playing 35 games of Super rugby for the Brumbies before retiring. (http://www.smh.com.au)

As many of you would know I have been an open critic of the Broncos tackling style for many years with the Broncos typically among the worst performing teams in the NRL for missed and ineffectual tackles (including offloads conceded). I have pointed the finger at Ryan during his tenure because it has been his responsibility as defensive coach to work on these areas and I’ve seen little or no improvement in the statistics relating to defence. The simple fact that plays in my mind is that the more tackles you miss, the more you have to make, which not only tires out the players but creates more opportunity for the opposition to score. Good teams with good defensive patterns that make quality one on one tackles win more games then they lose because it frustrates the opposition into mistakes. My concern is that the change has been made too late and we should have had a full offseason to work on new techniques. Still I think it’s a positive change. We just need to get his replacement right.

 

[Coxy]

Agree with all you said Burg. However, it's still better to happen now rather than midseason. At least early season teams are still getting into the swing of things, so defensive patterns aren't AS crucial to have down pat.

As long as the team is getting on a roll with defence by Origin time we should be OK.

Now the key, as you say, is to get the RIGHT replacement.

 

[QUEENSLANDER]

Tunza?

 

[Coxy]

Great as Tunza is as a defender, can he coach?
Peter Ryan was a great defender...but clearly couldn't coach.

 

[m1c]

As big a Tunza fan as I am.. not too sure how well he would go tactically. Agree with pretty much everything that has been said in this thread. Thanks Rhyno, but glad to see you move on. Our tackle effectiveness has been bugging me for years.

 

[gUt]

Defense in RL is not all about having the best hitting/wrestling/ball stopping technique, it's about getting the team moving up, back and sideways together, learning how to cover each other etc. Warren Ryan and Ricky Stuart are two standouts in this area. Does a "defensive coach" work on this aspect of the team or is he all about hitting and wrestling skills, with the team aspect of defense the domain of the head coach? Either way as Burg says Brisbane has been somewhat behind the curve in team structure and stopping the ball.

 

[mick]

Agreed with almost the whole thread so far, but while Ryan was never effective in getting our stats to improve and front-line defense up there with the best in the comp, IMO he helped us become one of the best scrambling defence teams in the competition.

Okay, that wasn't the case for 8 weeks or so last year, but in general it was amazingly good. We were conceding less points than many teams and finishing in the top six despite conceding a huge amount of line breaks and missing plenty of tackles.

 

[Coxy]

True mick, but as Burg said, scrambling defence is tiring. We have had to do more scrambling defence than we should need to purely because too many tackles in the front line were missed, or players were out of position and causing line breaks/overlaps.

 

[schmix]

It also seems to me that scrambling defence is more a desire/pride thing than actual technique or tactics. I'm sure there are basic rules to follow when you're defending on your line but i think it pretty much just comes down to whether you can put your body on the line and make the tackles when they count the most.

 

[ningnangnong]

It also seems to me that scrambling defence is more a desire/pride thing than actual technique or tactics.

Yep, agree with this.

'Scrambling defence' can't really be coached, it's more of a mental thing IMO. As you said schmix, it's all about the desire of the players and how much they want to stop an attack.

We are definitely one of the best teams at scrambling in defence, and i think that's a good thing because it means our players have heart and want to get a result.

 

[m1c]

Agree as well, scrambling defense is all about attitude. Ryan and Henjack might have instilled a great pride in our clubs defense, however this doesn't mean as much if we can't get the basics correct first.

 

[Coxy]

True. It's like people who say they perform better under pressure. That's basically saying they procrastinate while there is no pressure and then bust a gut when they need to.

That's actually more exhausting than putting in consistent effort.

I think if the Broncos can tighten up the defence in the middle third of the field they'll have much more energy at the back end of the game to either drill home a win or snatch victory in a tight game.

 

[Burg]

Having good scrambling defence is great and there are times when you need it, even with good defence structure, eg the Storm. The ability to to scramble when or if your line gets broken is important, however I have felt that we are FORCED to have good scrambling defence because our first line gets broken through missed tackles or failing to wrap up the ball player. Then it becomes a habbit, players stop taking responsibility for their defence because the rest of the team will scramble. There have been so many games that we have lost because of a missed tackle or an arm grab that fails to lock up the ball allowing for second phase play. The Panthers game a few years back is a classic example. Now of course other teams lose games like this and miss tackles, naturally, its part of the game, however if you tallied all the defensive stats over the past 5-8 years I would expect that the Broncos would have the worse average. (Missed, ineffectual and one on one tackles, as well as offloads conceeded). This give other teams confidence that if they start throwing the ball around we will faulter.

 

[Burg]

This is straight from the NRL website, and has been a common thread for some time.

"Where They Struggled… Defensively, especially in the middle part of the year, the Broncos were abysmal.

In an eight-week stretch, the Broncos were averaging over 38 points conceded a match and rightfully were dismissed as premiership hopefuls. At one stage they had almost all of their players occupying a place in the top five of the most ineffective tacklers by position in the competition. Honestly, there were times when the fans must have been embarrassed to support the team as it started to appear they weren’t having a fair dinkum go, but to their credit, after they were humbled 56-0 by the Raiders in Canberra, the Broncos found some defensive resolve.

Other areas the Broncos struggled in included offloads – they were ranked last in the NRL – and conceding tries from long range. And in the turnovers category they were up amongst the worst in the competition."

 

[gUt]

Not sure we could blame that on the SOO slump last year either.

 

[joshobro]

I am stoked he is gone, now finally we can get someone with half a brain in to run the defense. Get Gilly off the Titans!

 

[Burg]

Spot on Rock, exactly my point

 

[Fozz]

Glad he's gone. Our defence has been a low point these last couple of years.