The Wayne Bennett Super thread!

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Foordy said:
with the way the comp is now, you would be lucky to scrape into 8th if you did that
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Great point and very true. The comp is different now. The days of the Broncos having 11 players involved in the Origin series are over and none from our spine these days so that's a plus in terms of club footy. That was one of the big reasons we ran out of steam at the back end of the year. I'm hoping that we won't fade out late in the season like we used to do at the back end of Bennett's first stint.
 
Re: Out of the 8, second year in a row

Anonymous person said:
Maybe you weren't watching for the 8 years before bennett left, but squeaking into the 8 and then getting knocked out easily was a Bennett-coached-Broncos speciality, so you can't really have a shot at Griffin and in the same breathe look forward to Bennetts return.
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I suppose that depends upon the definition of squeaking into the 8, but I am prepared to say I agree with this

Just making the 8 and getting knocked out quickly was a 'specialty' of Bennett's

Another specialty of his was winning premierships
 
Re: Out of the 8, second year in a row

CaptainHook said:
Very true but I wouldn't call Brisbane squeaking into the 8 a Bennett specialty. From memory we finished in eighth position in 1999, 2003 and 2007. That's three times in 21 years. It was hardly the norm.

I do agree though that it wasn't all rosy under Bennett's first tenure. We had poor years that were overshadowed by us sneaking into the top 8.
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Bennett himself seemed to think it was....

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...issing-out--on-nrl-finals-20130830-2swvv.html

“I can go back to so many different years where we just scraped into the finals. It was a whole part of our being, just knowing you’d be there.
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Scraping into the finals doesnt just mean finishing 8th either. losing 5+ games in a row, in terrible form, and finishing 6th or 7th is still scraping in.
 
Hearing Ricky Stupid whinging about no concessions for producing juniors makes me wince. He was totally silent every year we brought it up and no matter how one feels about the Storm, it's impossible to deny what Bellamy did with juniors only to see them poached. Concessions for long serving players was a thought dismissed years ago whenever it was mentioned until it really started to affect some of the Sydney clique.
 
Re: Out of the 8, second year in a row

One other thing...I would take just sneaking into the finals every year simply because you are no chance if you don't, it's as basic as logic gets. Don't give a shit about the how or if you are in form, if you're not in it , ya can't win it. A winning run starts with a first victory and if it comes after 6 losses leading into the semis it's worth exactly the same as having come in on the back of 6 straight wins.
 
Re: Out of the 8, second year in a row

Huge said:
One other thing...I would take just sneaking into the finals every year simply because you are no chance if you don't, it's as basic as logic gets. Don't give a **** about the how or if you are in form, if you're not in it , ya can't win it. A winning run starts with a first victory and if it comes after 6 losses leading into the semis it's worth exactly the same as having come in on the back of 6 straight wins.
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the problem is that many fans, even ones on here, see making the finals as a big tick mark for a successful season, even if it came on the back of 5 50-0 thrashings and then being eliminated with a 50-0 thrashing in the first week of the finals. Obviously the club officials also see that as acceptable more often than not, so nothing ever gets changed, and we never cut the dead weight that is holding us back.

This was the Broncos problem in the 2000's. we made the 8 so people just said "great season, made the finals, nothing needs to change", when we would have been much better off had we missed the finals because it would have forced some changes to be made.
 
I don't remember too many seasons like that.

At least not with Benny in charge.

2003, 2005 & 2007 would be the closest examples and a bunch of changes were made for the following season.
 
Re: Out of the 8, second year in a row

Anonymous person said:
the problem is that many fans, even ones on here, see making the finals as a big tick mark for a successful season, even if it came on the back of 5 50-0 thrashings and then being eliminated with a 50-0 thrashing in the first week of the finals. Obviously the club officials also see that as acceptable more often than not, so nothing ever gets changed, and we never cut the dead weight that is holding us back.

This was the Broncos problem in the 2000's. we made the 8 so people just said "great season, made the finals, nothing needs to change", when we would have been much better off had we missed the finals because it would have forced some changes to be made.
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The thing is, I get the point you are making however I have to pull you up short on a few things. Firstly, and most importantly you seem to think that you 'know' what people think. Wrong, you know what you think. In the beginning you state 'many fans' see making the finals as a successful season but unless you've polled them, asked them or in some way ascertained their views you cannot speak for them. I truly understand your point of view but I'd guess, and that's all it is that many fans would think just scraping in was the lowest possible score a team could get out of mediocre season.

I believe the fans are smart enough to know that running eighth by the skin of your teeth and then being banished one week into the finals is hardly enough to be satisfied with and I also think most would expect improvement next year. What WB said and you've misinterpreted to suit your hatred of him was that making the semis was part of what a Broncos side were all about during his time. His expectation was that the Broncos made the semis, at the very least. He did not say that making the semis was the sole goal. It was what he considered just making the grade and failure to at least make the semis was failure indeed. Success has degrees as does failure but at no time ,in my opinion and without asking all of them but I believe that not WB ,the fans,the club or the players are satisfied with just 'making the semis'.
 
Big Pete said:
I don't remember too many seasons like that.

At least not with Benny in charge.

2003, 2005 & 2007 would be the closest examples and a bunch of changes were made for the following season.
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Agreed. Whether on the field or off, changes were made when there was a feeling we should have done better. 2007 was the only time I'd consider scraping into the finals as a positive. Looking at our injury toll that year - Lockyer, Hunt, Berrigan off the top of my head. It was a miracle we made the eight. Nothing bad about scraping in under those circumstances - just a gutsy team with a never say die attitude.

On another note regarding Wayne Bennett, I was re-reading Lockyer's book over the weekend. Here is an interesting quote from Phil Gould:

"Let's start with the fact that Darren Lockyer has been very well coached. His basics have always been solid. Playing fullback, he always did everything his team needed, just when they needed it. The same when he went to five-eighth, and Wayne Bennett has to take a lot of credit for that. Lockyer has obviously been very well schooled, but by the same token, you don't do what he has done for as long as he has done it unless you are a bloody good student."

I think this is a fresh take on the whole "Is Bennett's record as good as it seems or did he just coast by because he had the lion's share of talent in Queensland" debate.

Personally, I think Bennett deserves more credit than he gets. Having a talented bunch of players is obviously more desirable than having the opposite but it creates additional problems. Thinking of our finals record under him maybe one of the reasons we scraped into the 8 is because we had a talented squad who thought all they had to do was turn it on for a few weeks to get the trophy. Premierships aren't won like that. Trying to get skillful players to understand they need to work hard all season is no mean feat. The fact that he was able to do it for so long is really a testament to his coaching ability.

A comment I'm reading on here a lot lately is "we have the talent and players to beat any team in the comp." I don't disagree. Other teams though don't just rely on talent, they have a work ethic. If Bennett can instill that back into our players there are exciting times ahead for the club.
 
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PREMIERSHIP captain Kevin Walters is edging closer to a return to the Broncos as an assistant coach, revealing today he has started formal talks with the club.

“I am in negotiations with the Broncos for next year,” Walters told Triple M’s Grill Team this morning.

“I live (in Brisbane) and I love the Broncos.

“But I’m not sure (yet).”
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