Brent Read did a fair job defending us on the weekend on 9. Stuck it to that **** Riccio from the Telegraph.
One thing I enjoy that gets bandied around is that ‘Broncos have pick of the juniors from a whole state’. That comment just screams of ignorance when you consider that half our team are dirty Blues, and that we have the Cows and Melbourne in particular, along with the rest of the comp trying to get the same kids. Not saying we haven’t made some major ****-ups in recruitment, but we’re not the first, second or only choice for players anymore.
Qlders being good are no secret post-Lockyer/Thurston/GI/Slater/Cronk/Smith etc, (not that it ever really was when you go back through the rest of the names) but everyone will now take a kid from QLD just as soon as one from NSW.
Also when you look at internal movement of the population in general, it’s a lot different than it was 20 years ago. There’s at least a 50% split of Broncos fans to fans of other teams amongst people I work with, and that’s only about 20 people, small sample sure but extrapolate it and we might be a ‘one-team-town’ on paper, but we certainly aren’t a ‘one-team-population’.
People are willing to move around which goes the same for players in that they won’t always sign for Brisbane (often for less too) to stay near home. Outside of a few, players no longer really care who they play for, so long as they’re playing first grade. Which I’m not holding against them at all.
We’ve also been on the receiving end of some very unfortunate situations. Special K and Folau going to AFL, GI back flipping, the Petero thing. We’re at fault for a lot of what happened, but they’re also players that every other club would’ve cut half the roster to make room for, and they all left and we had to try and recover. Add in things like Cronk leaving Melbourne, the Roosters were lucky Tara worked in Sydney. If she lived and worked in Brisbane, we get him and things are very different. Same goes around Wayne leaving the first time and we lose our entire forward pack to the Dogs. Jharal busting his leg is another thing that comes to mind.
The game has also changed. We got by on teams full of talented individuals, now that doesn’t work long-term, despite how much Fifita, Haas and Staggs try.
Success attracts success, and seeing as it’s been 14 years, how is anyone surprised that we haven’t been able to maintain the standard of the 90-00’s? Add in all the other things I mentioned and more, and it’s easy to see how things have turned out the way they have.