Round 12 - Broncos vs. Warriors - Post Match Discussion

[subsbligh]

Whitchurch... fucking hell, what is it with our manchild wingers that can't catch the ball?

Jarrod Wallace I thought was impressive. He should have seen more minutes. His last few outings have been impressive. Hope Hook continues to support him.

Hoffman, this man is back in awesome form. I think though as others have said he seems to have found a place hitting it at pace out on the edge/wing.

Hala, good effort but to be a NRL prop you need to be much fitter.

McGuire and Anderson, our forward leaders this week; one gave up and one just got shitty.

 

[Renegade]

Don't worry boys, we have the talent.

 

[Waynesaurus]

The really alarming thing about this whole fiasco is that our draw this year has been against mostly the weaker teams on the ladder. We only play the Rabbits, Roosters and Sea Eagles once with the biggest challenge being two matches against the storm.

 

[Dexter]

This 100000%. this pisses me off, we don't spend shit. We obviously aren't spending shit on scouting or coaches, let alone players. I remember an interview a while ago with some high up broncos official, maybe Bruno Cullen and he said that if their was no salary cap then the Australian team would be running out in maroon and gold every week. Well theres no salary cap for coaches, no salary cap for scouting.

I am told we have only recently fired up our recruiting program which was largely let go when Hook came along.

 

[Morkel]

My extensive notes:

* The 10 metres was atrocious. If anyone cares to watch this game again (yeah I won't blame you if not), look how far the Broncos are being taken back. Stupidly, one ref handled the Broncos, the other the Warriors, so we were being held back literally 12 - 15 metres every set, the Warriors 8-10 max. It's amazing how easily a game can be influenced by an inconsistent 10. The Warriors were at full speed before the Broncos could even get back. Glenn should seriously have had a word to the ref because it was blatant. The play the ball would be, say 3 metres behind the 30, but the ref would hold the line way past the 40. No wonder the Broncos had no juice left.

* Yeah blaming Origin is a weak excuse. But it's valid. The Warriors would have troubled us even with Thaiday, Parker etc there. But with Q-Cup forwards, it was always going to be difficult holding back units like Packer & Matulino.

* The first few tries were extremely lucky. Mateo's pass after his chip went 6 metres forward.

* Ben Hunt needs to go back to Q Cup. 11 missed tackles? That's Sandow-esque. Prince was worlds above him in attack.

* McCullough back-row experiment backfired. He's great defending in the middle, up close before the runner has hit full speed, with the bigger defenders coming in over the top. In the back-row he was a speed hump. Far too small and giving up too much momentum.

* On top of all that, once you consider the fact that we had a second-rate Q-Cup pack, who were forced to run an extra 6-10 metres EVERY SET in defence due to the blatantly bad 10 metres, and with a patched-up defensive unit with little experience playing beside each other, I'm not surprised what happened. It played in to the Warriors hands perfectly. Steamroll through, keep the ball alive, and the inexperience and fatigue had the Broncos defenders following each other around like lost ducks, leaving gaping holes everywhere.

* Norman has no heart. Not once did he take a kick-return in a straight line to the defence. Even when he was in the middle of the park he ambled sideways and surrendered. An extra ball-playing link in attack is worthless if you can't even start off your sets with enough go-forward to even get in to an attacking position.

* The only positive was that they actually showed depth in attack. And it looked beautiful.

Solution? Ben Hunt to Q-Cup. No questions. McCullough can stay for now, but Granville on the bench to keep him honest. Norman can piss off to the Eels. Now.

It brings me back a few years ago to the big defeats against the Raiders and Rabbitohs. Everyone got a rocket up them, weak links were removed (cough Michaels), and the seasons improved. I seriously hope this will be the case again. But I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Porthoz]

Didn't watch the game as was caught up with work, and in a perverse way, I'm glad one of my mates at work made question of informing me of the Broncos annihilation. That way, death came quick instead of through 1.5 hours of torture... :001_rolleyes:

The stupid thing is that I am considering watching this disaster to see how certain things panned out, like Wallace at hooker, Hoffman at centre, and whether there is anything salvageable from yesterday's lesson. Not sure I will though, and if I don't, I'm pretty sure it will be the first Broncos game I miss in many years. :001_unsure:

EDIT: After reading Morkel's post, I will probably watch this game...

 

[Coxy]

Well, that was brutal and I was stupid enough to suggest that the Broncos would win tonite, blind faith has always been a character flaw of mine. It's not the loss that irritates me, it was the nature of it, make no mistake, every Bronco gave it 100% tonite and that is what is so disturbing, they were trampled on and if this is the future, then I won't be needing my shades for quite some time.

I disagree. I don't think every player gave 100%, particularly after the 50 minute mark. I think a fair whack of the team just turned it up. That's what's so disgraceful.

 

[Nashy]

I disagree. I don't think every player gave 100%, particularly after the 50 minute mark. I think a fair whack of the team just turned it up. That's what's so disgraceful.

I got the sense that they had no idea what they were doing. Honestly, look at Macca, all game he looked confused because he was out of position. They had no idea where to pass, who to pass to, who to kick etc.

They knew from the get go that they would lose. And they ran with it. Pathetic.

It has to be at the coaching level, I can see no other reason for such a terrible performance.

 

[Coxy]

I got the sense that they had no idea what they were doing. Honestly, look at Macca, all game he looked confused because he was out of position. They had no idea where to pass, who to pass to, who to kick etc.

They knew from the get go that they would lose. And they ran with it. Pathetic.

It has to be at the coaching level, I can see no other reason for such a terrible performance.

To get to 8-8, have momentum and then capitulate is just pathetic. That doesn't come down to coaching. That comes down to attitude and commitment. It was lacking in that period leading into half time. To go from 8-8 to 8-26 in the space of about 15 minutes was disgraceful.

 

[Charmamba]

I'm wondering how often they ran with that setup at training.

 

[rnabokov]

To get to 8-8, have momentum and then capitulate is just pathetic. That doesn't come down to coaching. That comes down to attitude and commitment. It was lacking in that period leading into half time. To go from 8-8 to 8-26 in the space of about 15 minutes was disgraceful.

That's what happens when (a) you don't have a leader/organizer on field and (b) 6 of your best players are out and (c) the idiotic coaching staff make idiotic selections

 

[Bucking Beads]

Prince looked quite sharp last night. Hunt was shocking. Please Hook just let him develop his game in Q cup FFS. Wallace looked good at dummy half but is our best option at halfback at this stage. We have no depth in the forwards. None of these young blokes stood up tonight. We are only missing Stagg of our depth forwards and he would have been handy but still we need to look at getting a few cheap older heads in our pack.

 

[Coxy]

That's what happens when (a) you don't have a leader/organizer on field and (b) 6 of your best players are out and (c) the idiotic coaching staff make idiotic selections

I know the Warriors players were bigger than ours, so they were going to make more ground. But every single time they got in our half you just knew if they didn't make a mistake they would score. Defensively we're weak. That's not got a lot to do with tactics. I don't even think it has that much to do with positioning. There were some bad reads, but most of the defensive errors were simply weak tackles. Weak tackles are caused not by lack of strength, but lack of commitment. The players weren't desperate to stop the Warriors.

And so they didn't.

 

[rnabokov]

.... and lack of technique

 

[tkday]

If Locky was playing last night each and every member would have been given an earful from him on the field, no-one would have been able to get away with the poor defeatist attitude.

 

[tkday]

I think quite a few of us have been saying for a while now that the attitude of the team as a whole is very poor. We have no heart and give in too easily. Even when we are winning we decide that we have done enough and stop trying.

 

[rnabokov]

I think quite a few of us have been saying for a while now that the attitude of the team as a whole is very poor. We have no heart and give in too easily. Even when we are winning we decide that we have done enough and stop trying.

I think it is more than that.

The whole issue of poor defensive technique as a team , and individually is also a major root cause

 

[Anonymous person]

why do people want hunt to go back to Q-Cup? thatd be idiotic.

what needs to happen is he needs to be our starting half every week for the rest of the season. if by the end of the year he has not improved, thats it, hes done with the broncos in first grade. putting wallace back to half and dropping hunt doesnt help us at all. wallace isnt going to win us a premiership. wallace also isnt the future halfback of our club, so just having him there filling the numbers and being mediocre is pointless.

we need to stop giving players a game here and there and expecting them to set the world on fire. norman was given an entire season in the halves, sucked, and then moves to fullback. hunt has had what, 3 games this season in the halves? now that our season is essentially over, give him the reigns to prove what he can do. we know what wallace can do - not much - so we lose nothing by giving hunt a go for the rest of the season. itll give us a better indication of our halves once we know if hunt is going to be a successful full-time half, and the only way to do that is to make him a full-time half. better to do it when its not going to cost us the season than at the start of next season.