The Wayne Bennett Super thread!

[Jeba]

2006 was about the luckiest premiership in the history of the NRL/ARL/NSWRL. everything came together for the broncos - their 3 best players hitting probably the best form of their careers, the opposition teams crumbling at the end of the season, playing their worst games of the year, and the referee basically gifting them the grand final on a silver platter through blatantly incorrect calls (something that was unheard of back then for the Broncos, we were usually on the other end). anyone who says it wasnt lucky has rocks in their head and/or didnt actually pay much attention in 2006.

1. It's not a legitimate Premiership unless your 3 best players aren't in form? Well that will just about fair dinkum bloody well do me!

2. Let's have a look at the record of the teams we played from round 23 onwards. I am going from that point that our season turned around, even though we lost that week
Round 23 v Storm. Storm won 18-12. Storm won 5 of their last 6 games before losing to us in the Grand Final.
Round 24 v Bulldogs. Broncos won 30-0. Won 3 of their last 5 (including a 1 point loss) before losing to us in the Prelim.
Round 25 v Eels. Broncos won 23-0. Won 2 of their last 5 games, and while that may not be impressive it is worthy to note that it was the Broncos who snapped their 9 game winning streak.
Round 26 v Warriors. Broncos won 36-12. Warriors won 4 of their last 5 games but didn't make the finals. We snapped their 4 game winning streak.
QF v Dragons. Dragons won 20-4. Dragons hit a purple patch and won 5 in a row before going down to Melbourne in the prelim.
SF v Knights. Broncos won 50-4. Knights won 6 of their last 7 games before getting pummelled by us. Granted they lost Buderus to suspension but he was never going to make a 46-point difference.
Prelim v Bulldogs. Broncos won 37-20. As above. I wouldn't say turning in one of the best second halves of football you've ever seen to overcome a 14-point deficit, and then some, is just getting a bit lucky.
Grand Final v Storm. Broncos won 15-8. As above. We had a couple of calls go our way but the only one that led to points was the Berrigan shepherd which went unpenalised before Slater caught him high. The Slater strip of Berrigan wouldn't be a penalty today but under the rules back then it's a penalty. There's no denying we were the better team on the night. We defended the Storm out of it, seeing Slater grubber kicking early in tackle counts, keeping Inglis confined, not allowing Smith and Cronk to take control. Not to mention the Storm were fucking cheating at the time.

The records of the above teams are hardly those of teams that were grossly out of form. We came good at the right time, premierships aren't won in May.

But I suppose, because Lockyer and Hodges were in such good form, it doesn't count as a Premiership. It's just lucky. That's just about the best I have ever heard. Please.

 

[Unbreakable]

Let's not fight, guys.

 

[Anonymous person]

1. It's not a legitimate Premiership unless your 3 best players aren't in form? Well that will just about fair dinkum bloody well do me!

It wouldn't be a Jeb post if there wasn't a wildly inaccurate interpretation of a simple post, would it? lol. Noone said it wasn't a legitimate premiership. I said it was very, very lucky. Which it was.

Round 24 v Bulldogs. Broncos won 30-0. Won 3 of their last 5 (including a 1 point loss) before losing to us in the Prelim.

so they won 50% including the game against us. wow, great record.

Round 25 v Eels. Broncos won 23-0. Won 2 of their last 5 games, and while that may not be impressive it is worthy to note that it was the Broncos who snapped their 9 game winning streak.

so we beat a team who had won 2 of their last 5. again, great record.

Round 26 v Warriors. Broncos won 36-12. Warriors won 4 of their last 5 games but didn't make the finals. We snapped their 4 game winning streak.

beat a team who didnt make the finals. fantastic.

SF v Knights. Broncos won 50-4. Knights won 6 of their last 7 games before getting pummelled by us. Granted they lost Buderus to suspension but he was never going to make a 46-point difference.

so they lost their best and most important player. gotcha. kinda like when the storm lose smith, only the knights didnt have players of the caliber of cronk/inglis/slater to make up for it.

Grand Final v Storm. Broncos won 15-8. As above. We had a couple of calls go our way but the only one that led to points was the Berrigan shepherd which went unpenalised before Slater caught him high. The Slater strip of Berrigan wouldn't be a penalty today but under the rules back then it's a penalty. There's no denying we were the better team on the night. We defended the Storm out of it, seeing Slater grubber kicking early in tackle counts, keeping Inglis confined, not allowing Smith and Cronk to take control. Not to mention the Storm were ****ing cheating at the time.

also just before half time didnt melbourne get a try disallowed that shouldve been given, to hoffman i think it was? i remember another one where a bronco clearly hit the ball over the sideline right on our line, yet it was ruled off melbourne, relieving all the pressure.

We might've been the better team on the night, but without the referees clearly favouring us the result couldve and probably wouldve been different. would we have still won? maybe. maybe not though.

The records of the above teams are hardly those of teams that were grossly out of form. We came good at the right time, premierships aren't won in May.

it certainly doesnt make them look in form though, does it? lol. 3 of 6, 2 of 5, team that didnt make the finals, team that lost their most important player. yeh real great form.

But I suppose, because Lockyer and Hodges were in such good form, it doesn't count as a Premiership. It's just lucky. That's just about the best I have ever heard. Please.

again, where did i say that?

form of your opposition is luck. refs is luck.

 

[Foordy]

[MENTION=2115]Anonymous person[/MENTION], honestly who gives a shit if some refs calls went our way in the GF ... makes a nice change from the BS we usually have to endure from them.

 

[Anonymous person]

@Anonymous person, honestly who gives a **** if some refs calls went our way in the GF ... makes a nice change from the BS we usually have to endure from them.

It was nice for a change, but doesnt change the fact that we got some blatantly wrong calls go our way that most definitely impacted the end result. it was lucky that they went our way.

 

[Huge]

Just about finished watching Brisbane versus Canberra round 14 from 1990 and can't help but notice how Brisbane used the ball. One out runs were just about non existent, not saying there weren't some but most were necessary to settle play. The amount of passing, side line to near sideline was refreshing to see but I suppose being played in brilliant winter sunshine probably allowed greater ball movement. We had forwards passing to other forwards, backs taking the ball up from restarts, kick offs etc.

Maybe WB changed his ways over the years, maybe the game changed but what his detractors call BennettBall happens in most of the modern clubs. WB had a team that played a style far removed from BBall , it was great. This was the year Canberra won the premiership and they certainly were a great team, funny to watch Ricky Stuart playing like modern Canberra, he was shithouse in parts. Watching these 20+year old games really highlights how the game has evolved but most of all it reminds me of the Broncos greatest and formative years.

Looking forward to the return of the King in 2015....

 

[Big Pete]

Every premiership requires a bit of luck.

Especially when you're going up against a team systematically cheating and fielding a team they had no right to field.

 

[Anonymous person]

Every premiership requires a bit of luck.

Especially when you're going up against a team systematically cheating and fielding a team they had no right to field.

in 2006 they were like $100k over the cap iirc. many teams have been done for that being that amount or more over the cap - the broncos in 2001 and 2002 for example. that was right at the start of the cheating, and i dare say it wouldn't have affected their top 17 players staying at the club.

 

[Financeguy]

in 2006 they were like $100k over the cap iirc. many teams have been done for that being that amount or more over the cap - the broncos in 2001 and 2002 for example. that was right at the start of the cheating, and i dare say it wouldn't have affected their top 17 players staying at the club.

Didn't it end up being closer to 320k for the 2006 breach?

Considering the cap back then was only $3.6M and the minimum wage of a player was 55k, an extra 320k was a fairly significant advantage.

 

[Big Pete]

It certainly would have helped them to lure and retain the junior talent they had.

It doesn't matter how much you cheat, if you cheat, you cheat and $303 000 isn't exactly chump change either.

It was a great premiership win against all sorts of odds. Can't talk about it enough but why was the topic raised again?

 

[Porthoz]

I never meant the Grand Final specifically as the "bit lucky" part, nor am I trying to take away merit from anyone in that magic year, but I won't just pretend everything was rosy for the sake of an agenda either.

I meant that we weren't looking likely at the business end of the season, like we hadn't looked likely for pretty much the whole decade. We hadn't been a dominant force in the NRL for quite a while, unlike the decade before, and we had fizzed out every single time heading into and during the finals.

2006 wasn't looking any different, as we lost 5 out of 6 games in our usual post-Origin slump, playing average footy at best, until Hodgo, Locky and Berro simultaneously went into the form of their lives, with Justin absolutely murdering teams from fullback, Locky rejuvenated and Berro playing like a man possessed.
From that moment onwards, we hammered the Dogs in a white sheet (30-0) in round 24, which led to a run of 6 wins in the last 7 games, including that awesome GF.
Did we get the rub of the green? Sure, but who gives a ****? We were the better team and we beat the fucking cheats!

We also had the added factor of sending off the great Shane Webcke, which seems to give us extra wings (2008 Bennett send off, 2011 Locky send off).

You can argue that any winner needs a bit of luck, and that is true, but the argument is really about what the Broncos were like in that decade, and the fact is that 2006 really is the exception to the rule until WB's farewell year in 2008, where I really believed we'd go all the way. We all know what happened, so Ashton Sims can go **** himself with a large telephone pole...

Now we can look at the Broncos of 1990, or we can look at his Knights tenure to justify our thoughts about WB, but I rather look at the whole, and the trend really is obvious imo!

Bennett-ball is an upgraded version of Griffin-ball, where there is a proper use of the bench, better ruck control and forwards dominance. There will undoubtedly still be the odd jaw-dropping selection and like Griffin, WB will have his favourites too, which will often not be the fan favourites and will be put into question.

Does it make him a crappy coach, or even put him at Griffin's level? Of course not!

He is still one of the best footy minds in the business, and there is a reason I wanted him back in a mentoring/supervisory role.
As I stressed many times, my biggest gripe is the unsavoury way everything happened.

Most important now, is that he will have all he needs to put us back on the map as a NRL powerhouse. I just really hope there will be a proper succession plan in place when he retires...

 

[Big Pete]

Ahhh, that's right, that comment really got blown out of proportion didn't it?

People latched onto the wrong word. I agree that 2006 went against the grain and there's a lot of criticisms that can be made against Bennett in the 2000s.

Plenty of positives too and I think most of us can agree (for different reasons) that he's more likely to win a premiership than Griffin.

 

[CaptainHook]

form of your opposition is luck. refs is luck.

I like your thinking, Anonymous person. I'm curious if it extends to other teams outside the Broncos. Are there any premiers of the modern era you think were worthy winners and where form of the opposition or referees didn't have some impact? I'm struggling. Let's say from 2000 onwards. I don't now if we should count the Storm titles as the shadow of the salary cap is too large to ignore and any way you cut it they had an illegally assembled team.

in 2006 they were like $100k over the cap iirc. many teams have been done for that being that amount or more over the cap - the broncos in 2001 and 2002 for example. that was right at the start of the cheating, and i dare say it wouldn't have affected their top 17 players staying at the club.

They were stripped of the minor premiership that year. I think that indicates that officials thought it did have an effect on their top 17.

 

[Marty Deutschmann]

Man...Josh Hoffman is like a gopher fullback. Just pops up anywhere

 

[CaptainHook]

Ahhh, that's right, that comment really got blown out of proportion didn't it?

People latched onto the wrong word. I agree that 2006 went against the grain and there's a lot of criticisms that can be made against Bennett in the 2000s.

Plenty of positives too and I think most of us can agree (for different reasons) that he's more likely to win a premiership than Griffin.

Excellent post. I think it perfectly encapsulated the entire discussion. Neither Bennett nor Griffin are perfect coaches. The last decade of the first Bennett era wasn't perfect. Criticism of team selections and on-field performance were just as rife as Griffin's tenure was.

As you say there were plenty of postitives too. Some good ones for mine were two preliminary finals and that under WB we finished third three years in a row in his final years (2004, 05, 06). 2007 was a bit of a fizzer but no coach (Madge, Hasler, whoever) could have done any better with so many injuries to key players. Finished 5th in 2008 but had an impressive win over the Roosters and then our date with destiny against Melbourne a week later.

Did we underachieve despite our high finishes? In some years, I'd say yeah probably. But we were always there or thereabouts.

 

[Jeba]

It wouldn't be a Jeb post if there wasn't a wildly inaccurate interpretation of a simple post, would it? lol. Noone said it wasn't a legitimate premiership. I said it was very, very lucky. Which it was.

And it wouldn't be an AP post if there wasn't ignorance of some of the main points one was making in their argument. Examples as follows.

so they won 50% including the game against us. wow, great record.

Ignoring the 14-point deficit at half-time we were able to overcome. BTW - Bennett masterstroke to switch Hodges and Hunt in the second half ;-)

so we beat a team who had won 2 of their last 5. again, great record.

Ignoring the fact that the week before facing us they were celebrating their 9th victory in succession.

beat a team who didnt make the finals. fantastic.

So do all the other teams only play against teams that make the finals? And again, ignorance to the fact that we snapped a 4-game winning streak.

so they lost their best and most important player. gotcha. kinda like when the storm lose smith, only the knights didnt have players of the caliber of cronk/inglis/slater to make up for it.

They had this halfback, from memory he went alright. What was his name again? Johns was it? I don't think it was Matthew Johns.

also just before half time didnt melbourne get a try disallowed that shouldve been given, to hoffman i think it was?

Was after half-time actually, disallowed try to Matt King. It hit Hoffman's arm when he up for the catch. Knock on. No try.

i remember another one where a bronco clearly hit the ball over the sideline right on our line, yet it was ruled off melbourne, relieving all the pressure.

Yeh that was a bad call. I'll give you that one.

We might've been the better team on the night, but without the referees clearly favouring us the result couldve and probably wouldve been different. would we have still won? maybe. maybe not though.

Queensland in game 3 of Origin that year were able to overcome dud calls. One when Tonie Carroll was disallowed a try when Steve Price allegedly stripped the ball off the NSW player. Another when NSW were awarded a scrum feed when they said Thurston knocked on when diving on the ball even though he didn't touch it with his hands or arms. In that set NSW scored. And then we all remember the famous Brett Hodgson knock on that wasn't called a knock on.

Those calls had more of an impact in the game than the Grand Final ones did. Pretty much a 16 point impact. But Queensland were able to overcome the adversity. Melbourne never looked likely as the Broncos just shut them down all night (apart from Scott Hill).

 

[Crazy Sam]

From what I recall, after 2006 Lockyer rarely actually finished the season off, i.e. he was injured towards the end of quite a few of the seasons.

 

[coreyh88]

What site do people use to watch old matches?