NEWS Slow news day: Steve Renouf picks his Brisbane Broncos team of the decade

[I bleed Maroon]

Wallace being the best 7 we had all decade tells you all you need to know about the shitshow that has been our halves pairing since Locky gave it away. he was in the side for 2 of the last 10 years and still made the 6 easily.

 

[Jedhead]

As good/great as some of the players are in this particular team, I feel they would be absolutely annihilated by our premiership winning teams at their peak in the 1990's, early 2000's. We just have not produced the quality over the past 10 or so years that we used to. I am not sure as to the exact reasons why. Anyone?

Locky is in that team- just saying.

 

[FaithinHook]

Much like the younger generation coming through in society, we as a club have adopted a core group of players with a ‘there is more to life than football’ attitude and mentality. This isn’t just a Broncos problem by the way.

We currently have the talent at our disposal to do the damage, we just lack the creativity and more importantly the do or die mentality. In other words we have gone soft.

Years gone by you’d have blokes like Alfie, Webcke, Civoniceva, Lockyer, Kevvy and practically most members of the squad in the 90’s and early 2000’s who would die on the field for the Broncos jersey and leave no stone unturned for a victory.

How many players could you say that about now with our squad? I’d argue that a core group of our squad wouldn’t even be hurting after a loss. From the outside looking in I’d say losing affects Lodge more than anyone else. Alfie Langer quit the NRL because of a run of losses he felt he contributed largely to and it hurt him badly. Now we have captain Boyd who puts his head in the sand and vows to keep playing on with no repercussions to continue to collect his pay check despite his downhill spiral and basically put the club at ransom. Paul Morgan would turn in his grave with the current state of our playing stocks.

Reason why Storm and Roosters are always up there is not just because of the talent in their squad, but they are scared to lose and it actually means something to them which is why they continue to get the best out of themselves. We have accepted certain standards for far too long. When was the last team we actually put a team to the sword for 80 mins?

**** me this is a great post and probably one of the best I have ever read on here. Absolutely brilliantly put my thoughts into words. Thankyou.
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Locky is in that team- just saying.

Oh def mate. Apart from Locky, nothing really elite about the rest of them apart from Hodgo and hopefully Fifita and Payne.

 

[FaithinHook]

In Purple Pills post, I think he raises a valid point about how seriously young blokes these days take their footy and how big a part of their lives it is. Getting back to the amount of time in general kids waste on social media, I question if we have seen the last of the truly elite halves. In general, halves are like the quarterbacks of the NRL. Popular at school, especially amongst the young ladies, from my perspective their popularity and 'likes' on Instagram, actually outweighs the importance they place on their footy.

To go off on a bit of a tangent for a moment, when I was a young fella, one of my greatest fears was my Mom or Dad walking into my bed/bathroom and catch me masturbating to a Womans Weekly magazine or whatever bikini picture I could get my hand on. I have male friends who say these days their biggest worry is walking in on their sons and catch them taking a photo of their penis to share on Snap Chat. Times change, I do realise, and my generation was by no means perfect. I just think in this advanced age we are losing kids to technology when in our day they would have been on the footy field.

Apologies for the long rant.

 

[lynx000]

Yep that's certainly possible with the first two. Still far too early to call Dearden. But that still puts almost 15 years between our last really special player in Karmichael Hunt and our next two in Fifita and Haas. That's just not really good enough given this is Brisbane we're talking about.

What about Yow Yeh? He was going to be a very special player had he not been injured.

 

[Locky’s Left Boot]

In Purple Pills post, I think he raises a valid point about how seriously young blokes these days take their footy and how big a part of their lives it is. Getting back to the amount of time in general kids waste on social media, I question if we have seen the last of the truly elite halves. In general, halves are like the quarterbacks of the NRL. Popular at school, especially amongst the young ladies, from my perspective their popularity and 'likes' on Instagram, actually outweighs the importance they place on their footy.

To go off on a bit of a tangent for a moment, when I was a young fella, one of my greatest fears was my Mom or Dad walking into my bed/bathroom and catch me masturbating to a Womans Weekly magazine or whatever bikini picture I could get my hand on. I have male friends who say these days their biggest worry is walking in on their sons and catch them taking a photo of their penis to share on Snap Chat. Times change, I do realise, and my generation was by no means perfect. I just think in this advanced age we are losing kids to technology when in our day they would have been on the footy field.

Apologies for the long rant.

Agree with everything in your first paragraph which was the point I was making in my post that this isn’t just restricted to the Broncos, this is a society and generational thing and like you I wonder how this affects recruitment and strategy long term. Haas and Fifita seem to be an anomaly but they’ve also had rough upbringings and external factors which has led to them having a bit of resolve and exploding on the scene at a young age.

That is why I think it is more important now then ever in this competition to have a strong core of senior players who really drive a winning culture and have every squad member on the same page. That is what we are sadly lacking. You go back to 2006 when we won the comp and although it probably wasn’t the most talented team of all time, having strong leaders like Lockyer, Hodges, Parker, Thaiday, Thorn and Carroll ensured there was no easy games against us and they just drove the culture.

I think that’s why Parker got criticised a fair bit for his captaincy when he got the job during the generational shift in the squad because apparently he was hard on the younger guys and got offside with a few of them because that’s how he was brought up in the broncos system of the past. He was holding them accountable and driving a tough love regime which actually builds toughness and a bit of character. Problem is the young guys don’t react to the same process in the modern era because of this fake utopia modern society has created that you are too good to be told what to do and that you should feel insulted and play the bullying card if anyone directs a shred of criticism your way. This illusion makes players less accountable cause they always feel like they have an excuse to get out of something too hard or something they don’t like.

There use to be guys slugging it our for $75,000 to make ends meet and elite players of our code in years gone by at the top of their game around the $500,000 mark who dedicated their life to craft.
Now you have guys like Ryan Matterson and Jesse Ramien (who have been around for like 2 minutes and are already earning half a million and not even rep players) where you just sign a decent contract in good faith and then throw all your toys out of the cot not even one year into it and not turn up to training when you find out someone is willing to give you more money. Those type of players are absolutely toxic and are players that clubs who want to build a strong culture should steer away from.

Just wait until the mental health card starts getting abused next for players to get what they want. Take me back to the early 2000’s before money started ruining the game

 

[FaithinHook]

Agree with everything in your first paragraph which was the point I was making in my post that this isn’t just restricted to the Broncos, this is a society and generational thing and like you I wonder how this affects recruitment and strategy long term. Haas and Fifita seem to be an anomaly but they’ve also had rough upbringings and external factors which has led to them having a bit of resolve and exploding on the scene at a young age.

That is why I think it is more important now then ever in this competition to have a strong core of senior players who really drive a winning culture and have every squad member on the same page. That is what we are sadly lacking. You go back to 2006 when we won the comp and although it probably wasn’t the most talented team of all time, having strong leaders like Lockyer, Hodges, Parker, Thaiday, Thorn and Carroll ensured there was no easy games against us and they just drove the culture.

I think that’s why Parker got criticised a fair bit for his captaincy when he got the job during the generational shift in the squad because apparently he was hard on the younger guys and got offside with a few of them because that’s how he was brought up in the broncos system of the past. He was holding them accountable and driving a tough love regime which actually builds toughness and a bit of character. Problem is the young guys don’t react to the same process in the modern era because of this fake utopia modern society has created that you are too good to be told what to do and that you should feel insulted and play the bullying card if anyone directs a shred of criticism your way. This illusion makes players less accountable cause they always feel like they have an excuse to get out of something too hard or something they don’t like.

There use to be guys slugging it our for $75,000 to make ends meet and elite players of our code in years gone by at the top of their game around the $500,000 mark who dedicated their life to craft.
Now you have guys like Ryan Matterson and Jesse Ramien (who have been around for like 2 minutes and are already earning half a million and not even rep players) where you just sign a decent contract in good faith and then throw all your toys out of the cot not even one year into it and not turn up to training when you find out someone is willing to give you more money. Those type of players are absolutely toxic and are players that clubs who want to build a strong culture should steer away from.

Just wait until the mental health card starts getting abused next for players to get what they want. Take me back to the early 2000’s before money started ruining the game

Again, another great post PP - really enjoyed that read.