5 and 6 with the first win on the road of the season.
I actually thought the Broncos were unlucky to not establish an early lead. They were making easy yards through the middle and went very close to scoring on a number of occassions. Outside of Milford's poor kick that was easily marked in the in-goal, I thought the last tackle plays were well executed, they just didn't get the results they deserved. Tom Dearden put through a great grubber kick and Nikorima was just able to get a hand to it that looked suspiciously like a knock on and instead the Broncos found themselves penalised. Later on there was an instance where Milford put up a great bomb, but it happened to bounce past a lot of chasers and forced Gillett to basically put in a bomb without much of a chase. I thought those moments summed it up for the Broncos with the football in the first half.
Defensively the Broncos rarely looked fazed. Outside of their inability to diffuse kicks, the only time the Broncos defensive line looked troubled was when Pangai came rushing out of the line and failed to take anyone. Fortunately the cover was quite strong, Jake Turpin in particular came up with a try-saver early on that helped set a tone for the Broncos.
I thought the second half was more of the same from Brisbane. I thought they made good metres through the middle but couldn't quite penetrate the Warriors defence with only Staggs looking likely. Mid-way through it appeared that the Warriors had the better of it, then Matt Lodge came up with a huge run and won a penalty off the back of it. From that ensuing set, Milford pins the ears back and scores a signature try by isolating Ligi Sao close to the line. It's what I like to see from Milford and what makes him so dangerous for the Broncos.
The Broncos were entitled to go on with it, but couldn't quite establish any rhythm. I thought the passing game was clunky at times for the Broncos and the forwards did extremely well to take some tough passes. They made it more difficult than they should have, but it was good to see in the pressure situations, the Broncos handled it better than their opposition.
Tom Dearden used tonight's game to make a case on why he's a better option for Brisbane than Nikorima and I think he just got the biccies tonight. It's fair to say that Dearden has been something of a passenger so far for the Broncos and while he's performed well considering his age, he hasn't had to inject himself all that much. Tonight, I thought he made it a mission to get a lot of early plays in and I thought they were really solid. He was also only a whisker away from scoring his maiden try and it's only a matter of weeks before he'll cross. Watching him run, you can see where the JT comparisons come from, he loves to jink.
