Where does the club go to from here...?

[BroncsFan]

It's tough medicine but we have to accept Milford is not a 5/8th and never will be, and there's nowhere left to hide Darius.

I have no idea what to do with Milford, maybe he's good enough as a bench impact player, but we have to give up the the fantasy that he's a misunderstood genius who can't be burdened with having to think beyond the first thing that pops into his head. We look rudderless because the bloke with his hand on the rudder doesn't have to steer the ship.

We can get by with Paix/Turpin and Croft if they're servicing a best-in-comp shot caller, but that's clearly not Milford. I would give up on that dream now. Drop him to the bench. Start testing other eggs in that basket.

Milford looks the kind if player that needs a high quality stable team around him and will fill in and play at their level... rather than a guy that can inspire and drag a team up to a higher level.... unfortunately for him he can't be earning $1M per season and still achieve this due to salary cap.

Unless he's happy to take a 50% pay cut and join a storm, roosters, etc. He'll probably end up being a guy that heads over to super league, which is a standard that he would probably dominate... much like Albert Kelly, Barba, Hastings, etc.

I think Milford's downfall much like Ben Hunt is around 2017 when they were required to be actual halfback rather than five eigths.

Ben Hunt is now completely unable to engage the defensive line unless he makes a predetermined attempt at running... effectively his instinctive footy play has all but vanished.

Milford is along the same lines except he's happy to play second fiddle to whoever is the halfback and sit out on his edge trying to conjure up set plays.

Both of them are effectively trying to become ball players rather than ball runners... and their game is starting to fall off a cliff, if it hasn't already.

If Milford were in a stable team which ran a simple but effective structure he could thrive as a guy that roams around the field chiming in when needed... but at the moment we just need him to inject himself into the game. Basically play a Dylan Brown role where he fills into the backline when needed but will have a shot at the line every now and then to pose a question to the defensive line

He doesn't need to be out there conjuring up plays... even just him getting in there and taking dummy half runs would be beneficial to the team right now

 

[Mustafur]

Seibold needs to wake up and start dropping established players that aren't doing the job, Milford and Boyd are not at 1st grade standard atm, the backs lack someone who will go hard and take pressure off the forwards who are the ones getting exposed because they are doing everything and then getting exhausted.

The fact Boyd hasn't been dropped in the last 2 years for performance reasons says it all.

 

[Kooly87]

Players need to be accountable and the only way to do that is drop them and send a shot to the rest of the team.

Oates to the second row or **** off, leaning towards **** off.
Coates on the wing.
Drop Milford and bring in Dearden. Milford either learns from this and gets serrious about his career or ***** off, happy with either outcome.
Drop Boyd.
For the love of motherfucking god re-sign Fifita.

Look, I'm all for dropping players who don't perform, but being completely realistic, who are we going to replace them with? We're already fielding guys well outside our original Top 30. Even if we wanted to drop these guys we're so far depleted in our depth that we'd have to seek NRL approval to bring in replacements for them and that just isn't going to happen.

 

[winslow_wong]

Milford looks the kind if player that needs a high quality stable team around him and will fill in and play at their level... rather than a guy that can inspire and drag a team up to a higher level.... unfortunately for him he can't be earning $1M per season and still achieve this due to salary cap.

Unless he's happy to take a 50% pay cut and join a storm, roosters, etc. He'll probably end up being a guy that heads over to super league, which is a standard that he would probably dominate... much like Albert Kelly, Barba, Hastings, etc.

I think Milford's downfall much like Ben Hunt is around 2017 when they were required to be actual halfback rather than five eigths.

Ben Hunt is now completely unable to engage the defensive line unless he makes a predetermined attempt at running... effectively his instinctive footy play has all but vanished.

Milford is along the same lines except he's happy to play second fiddle to whoever is the halfback and sit out on his edge trying to conjure up set plays.

Both of them are effectively trying to become ball players rather than ball runners... and their game is starting to fall off a cliff, if it hasn't already.

If Milford were in a stable team which ran a simple but effective structure he could thrive as a guy that roams around the field chiming in when needed... but at the moment we just need him to inject himself into the game. Basically play a Dylan Brown role where he fills into the backline when needed but will have a shot at the line every now and then to pose a question to the defensive line

He doesn't need to be out there conjuring up plays... even just him getting in there and taking dummy half runs would be beneficial to the team right now

Hate to say it but Milford needs a Boyd at fullback because at least then we had a go to play with the sweep. It was simple for Milford to execute and Boyd could finish it off to Oates. But now all three of them are completely out of sorts and we can’t score a single point.

Milford can only be given simple instructions because he just doesn’t have the smarts for anything more. All he should do is, execute the sweep play, support offloads and kick. Only when these 3 aspects fire again will his running game start.

 

[BroncsFan]

Its really hard to know exactly what the issue is without being 'inside' the club, but it is still very clear that the root cause has not been addressed by the review.

I think at the moment the covid break has not been great for us and the rule changes may be detrimental to the make up of our forwards (the middles in particular).

We seem to be gassed very quickly or potentially the boys are just dropping their heads the second they concede a try (we're spending that much time behind the tryline that they're getting 2min breaks every 5mins)... so I'm wondering if they did actually come back from the break in decent fitness??

Speed through the middle doesn't seem to be agreeing with at least Flegler and Offa as well... would need to wait on Lodge when he gets fitness up and also Kennedy as he hasn't been getting many minutes to judge him on.

Haas is still getting through a mountain of work, but he's not an enforcer... which is fine because he's young and his focus should be about not missing tackles and not making errors. We can't also burden him with being the aggressor for the pack.

However, it seems in the current climate you need your middle forwards to be leading your defensive line speed and looking to intimidate the opposition, because you need to be forcing errors or restricting meters through your defence... you can no longer rely on the ref for relieving penalties so it becomes all about winning field position without needing penalties and that's all about who wins the middle of the field

We looked no chance of forcing an error against the roosters last night and instead they were being aggressive against our defensive line through their running.

Unfortunately we haven't had line speed in our defensive line for about 10 years and as soon as our team tried to lock them in their half they got penalised.

For opposition teams it seems to be the hooker or a smaller mobile middle that is leading the defensive line speed... Mahoney, Smith, Radley, Murray, etc.

For our team Carrigan seems the man that leads the line, but he looks like he needs a bit more endurance to be able to keep that effort up all game, and he also needs a bit of support from his fellow forwards. Turpin also does a good job of line speed... and dare I say it but Macca did as well, but usually only when his position was under pressure.

My fear at the moment is our middle forwards and our defence is not suited to this new style... and it's likely we spent the offseason adapting our game to the previous strategy of the last decade (wrestling to slow down the ruck and tactical penalties) only for the administration to decide on changing it.

I can't really see how we can overhaul our entire defence and get up to speed with what appears to be a significant change in gameplay without an offseason to prepare properly. Older teams may adapt better with the more experienced forwards knowing their roles and capabilities better, but a bunch of young guys who just spent an offseason getting up to speed with one strategy having to flip that on it's head for a new strategy will be tough in the middle of a season.

It becomes even worse when we weren't a good wrestling team in the first place and the use of tactical penalties has been outlawed overnight... wrestling and first contact are now the most important aspect of defence. You have to get them on their back and your guys into position (defensive 10m and markers) efficiently otherwise you concede quick ptb, lose the ruck, lose the middle and lose all possession and field position

 

[ostin86]

What’s Parra’s excuse for doing so well then? Fergo is the only one I can think of with that experience and with his brain, I don’t reckon it’d help at all.

Parra just seem to play with a lot of passion and intensity. We don't seem to have either lately.

 

[Skyblues87]

Interesting...could Teo play left centre?

Played centre for England in union

 

[Kooly87]

Milford looks the kind if player that needs a high quality stable team around him and will fill in and play at their level... rather than a guy that can inspire and drag a team up to a higher level.... unfortunately for him he can't be earning $1M per season and still achieve this due to salary cap.

FFS.

Only a while ago we had people on here saying the Broncos just had to 'let him play his natural game' for him to be worth the money. /hen we needed to 'move him to his preferred role at Fullback' to get him firing on all cylinders again. Then after that it became 'he just needs a proper Halfback so he doesn't have to do it all' and now all of a sudden it's 'Milford needs to be in a high quality and stable team to perform'...

Honestly, how long will it be before we accept that Milford is no longer capable of being the elite player we thought he could be?

 

[McHunt]

Hate to say it but Milford needs a Boyd at fullback because at least then we had a go to play with the sweep. It was simple for Milford to execute and Boyd could finish it off to Oates. But now all three of them are completely out of sorts and we can’t score a single point.

Milford can only be given simple instructions because he just doesn’t have the smarts for anything more. All he should do is, execute the sweep play, support offloads and kick. Only when these 3 aspects fire again will his running game start.

Would you say "not having the smarts" is a good fit at 5/8th?

 

[broncos4life]

Look, I'm all for dropping players who don't perform, but being completely realistic, who are we going to replace them with? We're already fielding guys well outside our original Top 30. Even if we wanted to drop these guys we're so far depleted in our depth that we'd have to seek NRL approval to bring in replacements for them and that just isn't going to happen.

Did you read my post? Dearden for Milford, Coates for Oates and with Staggs coming back Arthars takes Boyd’s spot, or Niu.

 

[mrslong]

What’s Parra’s excuse for doing so well then? Fergo is the only one I can think of with that experience and with his brain, I don’t reckon it’d help at all.

What recent success have Parra got? I'm not talking about winning a couple of games in the season, I'm talking about winning the whole thing. When Parra win the premiership, feel free to get back to me. :)

 

[Kooly87]

Did you read my post? Dearden for Milford, Coates for Oates and with Staggs coming back Arthars takes Boyd’s spot, or Niu.

Yes I understand that but the moment another guy breaks down or gets suspended, we're straight back to playing the guys we just dropped. We're already at the bottom of our depth chart in several positions, we simply don't have any more cards up our sleeves for the most part.

 

[BroncsFan]

FFS.

Only a while ago we had people on here saying the Broncos just had to 'let him play his natural game' for him to be worth the money. /hen we needed to 'move him to his preferred role at Fullback' to get him firing on all cylinders again. Then after that it became 'he just needs a proper Halfback so he doesn't have to do it all' and now all of a sudden it's 'Milford needs to be in a high quality and stable team to perform'...

Honestly, how long will it be before we accept that Milford is no longer capable of being the elite player we thought he could be?

Isn't that exactly what I said??

I effectively said he needs a whole team around him doing their job and if he wants that he won't be earning $1m per season.

I'm also basically saying he's super league quality and his place in the NRL is dependent on who is around him rather than him being a leader of the team

If that's not a suggestion from me that he's not elite talent then I don't know how else you can take it

 

[Kooly87]

Isn't that exactly what I said??

I effectively said he needs a whole team around him doing their job and if he wants that he won't be earning $1m per season.

I'm also basically saying he's super league quality and his place in the NRL is dependent on who is around him rather than him being a leader of the team

If that's not a suggestion from me that he's not elite talent then I don't know how else you can take it

Relax mate, I wasn't having a go at you. You're 100% right and I was just pointing out how far people in general have allowed their expectations to slide with Milford rather than facing the reality that he just isn't as good as we hoped he would be.

 

[Maroon4life]

Seibold seems to be under mammoth pressure from fans and media. He rambled on a lot in last nights presser, at one point he was just venting and wanting the journos to listen without even being prompted with questions, pleading his case.

I’ll judge him as a coach on whether he can show some balls and drop Milford and Boyd.

If the bloke doesn’t nut up and take some risks he’ll just die of slow bleeding instead. start by dropping those two toxic players and then begin working on what Is most obviously an attitude problem within the team.

Maybe they just don’t want to play for him, in which case he’s gone no matter what he does?

 

[Cult]

Seibold seems to be under mammoth pressure from fans and media. He rambled on a lot in last nights presser, at one point he was just venting and wanting the journos to listen without even being prompted with questions, pleading his case.

I’ll judge him as a coach on whether he can show some balls and drop Milford and Boyd.

If the bloke doesn’t nut up and take some risks he’ll just die of slow bleeding instead. start by dropping those two toxic players and then begin working on what Is most obviously an attitude problem within the team.

Maybe they just don’t want to play for him, in which case he’s gone no matter what he does?

You can’t just judge a coach on who they drop though. There’s so much more to coaching than that, in literally every sport in the world. It’s not fantasy footy. You can’t just come in, drop some senior players, pick up some talented kids and expect things to work out. So far that is all we’ve seen from him.

 

[winslow_wong]

Would you say "not having the smarts" is a good fit at 5/8th?

No it sucks ass but if they are going to persist with Milford this year and next then they need to dumb it right down for Anthony because quite frankly he’s a simpleton. Tell him the game plan really slowly before the game and write it on his hand.

 

[Maroon4life]

You can’t just judge a coach on who they drop though. There’s so much more to coaching than that, in literally every sport in the world. It’s not fantasy footy. You can’t just come in, drop some senior players, pick up some talented kids and expect things to work out. So far that is all we’ve seen from him.

Can and I will, those two deserve to be dropped, they are senior players in this team who’ve been underperforming for years. As far as I’m concerned whatever they were going to achieve in broncos colours they have done it.

first step towards moving forward and showing leadership would be to drop those 2 toxic players.