Apologies in advance for the long post. Those allergic to criticism to Wayne and Boyd should skip right ahead to the next post...
Everyone (should) knows I'm happy to bash Wayne when it comes to tactics, but what happened Thursday in terms of possession, defense, and especially crucial errors, is unlike any team coached by WB. He will be responsible for a small part of it, but no coach survives that amount of dropped pill and errors.
I do think there is an attitude issue, which starts with the captain and flows on to the rest of the team. And the problem is that the captain is a protected species, and will keep his position regardless of his performance and attitude. That may not go down well with the rest of the player's group, who are competing for every inch available in the 17...
Admittedly, the latter is pure speculation on my part, and may have nothing to do with the team's lacklustre showing.
While I also totally agree with the OP in regards to player retention and recruitment after 2008, I definitely don't think we stopped screwing the pooch after Hook's departure.
At the risk of copping the ire of
@Mr Fourex , letting Peter Wallace go was a grave mistake we haven't recovered from, especially with Wayne compounding it with the probably even worse mistake of letting Taylor go and bringing Boyd back to a team which had no shortage of outstanding choices for the Fullback position.
I know the below benefits from hindsight, but it's not like I didn't say these things at the time...
- Once Corey Norman's lack of heart and consistency became clear, Hunt probably would have flourished as a 5/8 next to the ranga (although Ben mostly has himself to blame for not capturing a halves spot before 2014).
- Wallace in turn, would've served the Broncos well until we had a better halfback (Taylor or Jnik potentially), with the added bonus of being a perfectly capable Hooker.
- Although there is no doubt about Milford's talent, the promise of slotting him at 5/8 was a mistake given the availability of Hunt, Barba, both Nikorima brothers and Ashley Taylor at the club. This also enabled Bennett to bring his favourite back to the club, while getting rid of the guy that could stand in his way, and according to fairly solid sources at the time, also blocked the recruitment of DCE (given the Titans episode, it may have been a good thing), which would have left no room in the cap for Boyd.
- There was zero reason to recruit Boyd, at least for the fullback position, especially given his meagre years post 2010, when we had Kahu, Barba (even after his less that stellar 2014), KNik and Milford on the way.
Yes, there is no denying his good 2015 and very good 2016 seasons, but would we have been worse off without him?
I'm not sure to be honest, but what I do know, is that he's now also costing us somewhere in the neighbourhood of $800K per season, which could have been used to retain players like Arrow and/or Ese2 for example, not to mention bringing Taylor back...
There is no doubt the (not so) magical year of 2015 would invalidate a lot of the above, given how close we came to a premiership, and who is to know what shape the team would be in today?
I may end up cursing that year, despite the sometimes amazing footy it offered the Broncos fans up to a well deserved spot at the big dance, because it may simply also have cost us way more than that fateful 80th minute in the Grand-Final. It cost us Taylor and Hunt (never recovered from that game), cemented Boyd's stand within the club, enough to become a millionaire 4 year contract captain, and brought us to where we are today...
I don't expect misery, and I do believe we will make the finals again. But I don't see us as contenders any time soon, unless we uncover a good game manager (Troy Dargan, please be that man!) and let Kevvie take charge of the tactical aspects.
