Where we went wrong

[Allo]

While recruiting has been 90% hot trash, I really think coaching throughout the entire system has been a problem. Who is training our players for their position? Obviously players fit certain molds and have natural skill, but who is doing specialised training with each positon group?

The loss of the single affiliation setup has been massively understated in my opinion. Now we have everyone outside the game day 18/19 spread across Brisbane and barely playing with each other, let alone the top 17. Bring back a single feeder and we'll start looking like our players know each other, and we can start having a certain structure to how we play across the board

We have an academy right? We scattershot "contracts" to kids all over the state and then ... they just keep playing where they are until they sign development contracts and get assigned to a feeder club?
I'm sure 1910 and co could expand on this sort of topic, but at least from the outside, it looks like these kids get recruited on natural physical talent - a step, being a giant, run fast, can jump high etc, and then left to ply that trade in QCup for a season or two and tossed into first grade on a hope and a prayer.

What's being done to turn these kids into as complete-a-footballers as possible, rather than just athletic kids that are trying to play football?

 

[Kaz]

It started the minute Bennett came back.

Also we were never getting Bellamy.

Some current players got too much say in how the club should be run.

Walters & Lockyer should not be in any paid position at the club.

Nothing against them, I just don't think they have the business brains for it.

 

[Galah]

White

 

[lynx000]

White

I'll see your White and raise you a Cullen.

 

[Nashy]

I'll see your White and raise you a Cullen.

I don't think Cullen caused it. Cullen made the changes, which pissed a certain coach off, who from that moment on, made it his mission to destroy the club from the inside out, to prove a point.

The idiots even bought him back in again and allowed it to happen once they pissed him off again.

Culture never returned, New Ltd board member is dumber than the players he pays, and now we have two team mates and ex-footy players heading up the new boys club. Paul Green will be the next guy when Kev takes the fall, and in a few years we will be exactly where we've been for a decade, except we will be stuck with Paul Green, and Redcliffe will be doing better than us.

 

[McHunt]

I don't think Cullen caused it. Cullen made the changes, which pissed a certain coach off, who from that moment on, made it his mission to destroy the club from the inside out, to prove a point.

The idiots even bought him back in again and allowed it to happen once they pissed him off again.

Culture never returned, New Ltd board member is dumber than the players he pays, and now we have two team mates and ex-footy players heading up the new boys club. Paul Green will be the next guy when Kev takes the fall, and in a few years we will be exactly where we've been for a decade, except we will be stuck with Paul Green, and Redcliffe will be doing better than us.

In fairness, I think you have to take some of the blame. The coach gets most of his advice from these pages, and you've been pretty shithouse at contributing lately.

Lift your game.

 

[Nashy]

In fairness, I think you have to take some of the blame. The coach gets most of his advice from these pages, and you've been pretty shithouse at contributing lately.

Lift your game.

It's due to the ongoing pay dispute. The amount of useless juniors recommended here that have been persisted with, sometimes for years, I think we deserve more.

 

[lynx000]

I don't think Cullen caused it. Cullen made the changes, which pissed a certain coach off, who from that moment on, made it his mission to destroy the club from the inside out, to prove a point.

The idiots even bought him back in again and allowed it to happen once they pissed him off again.

Culture never returned, New Ltd board member is dumber than the players he pays, and now we have two team mates and ex-footy players heading up the new boys club. Paul Green will be the next guy when Kev takes the fall, and in a few years we will be exactly where we've been for a decade, except we will be stuck with Paul Green, and Redcliffe will be doing better than us.

I think you are probably on the mark, hence me saying in the original post that history keeps repeating.

 

[Mr Fourex]

Black Widow

Wayne Bennett

Of course.....it seems so obvious

Spoiler: flashing gif

 

[Kaz]

Black Widow

Wayne Bennett

Of course.....it seems so obvious

Spoiler: flashing gif

Having flashing shit, isn't great for epilepsy.

staff edit: fixed

 

[1910]

I have been thinking about this for a while and I think we have been really really let down by our management from about 2006 onwards. It really all started with Bruno Cullen. I think we became too arrogant and just assumed the success that we had worked so hard for from 1988-2000 would just continue to roll on.

From that time, just about everything that we have done, we have pulled the wrong rein, made the wrong choice or failed to act proactively.

Coaching

Firstly, let's look at the coaching issue.

From my understanding, the beginnings of the fallout with Bennett came down to issues between Cullen and Bennett and a level of distrust that built up causing Bennett to look elsewhere (and where else but the Roosters).

2008 - Bennett pulls the pin. We just about had Bellamy, but anectdotally, Cullen stuffed that up as well and we lost him, never to genuinely have a chance to get him again.
2009 - So, we go from Wayne Bennett to Ivan Henjak. Nothing more needs to be said.
2011 - Things become so toxic that a review recommends that Henjak be sacked. Our new shiny CEO Paul White wields the axe and Henjak is gone. We don't sign an experienced name coach or apparently even contemplate trying to do this. Instead, whether it be mates from Rocky or whatever, but next man up is Griffin.

Griffin's best year is 2011 where he still has the benefit of Lockyer in his last year, up until Beale's knee does its work and ends Lockyer's time at the Broncos.

2013 we miss the 8, and by 2014 Bennett needed a new home.

2015 - we go back to Bennett. Hindsight seems to confirm that this was the wrong decision and perhaps we would have been wiser to actually undertake a proper recruiting process and try and sign the next long-term coach for the Broncos.

The history does not need to be repeated, but Bennett's second go round wound up with a divided club and a terrible culture.

We then undertake what is purported to be a proper recruiting process, but in reality appears to have been window dressing designed to appease the old boys, because the decision had been made to appoint Seibold. We all know how that worked out.

Once again, it appears to appease the old boys, Walters is appointed the coach. The writing is not on the wall, the fat lady has not begun to croon, but she does appear to be warming up.

For what is purported to be one of the largest and most successful sporting clubs in Australia, that litany of coaching mistakes is damning.

Recruiting/Playing roster

I have harped on this before, but we have sucked in succession planning since the early 2000's.

We never adequatley replaced Langer and Walters, such that we had to move the best fullback at the time from that position into the halves to try and cover for our failings to develop or recruit a replacement.

Webcke retires in 2006. Instead of ensuring that we kept Civoniceva to lead our forwards, we allow him to walk over a pay dispute and replace him with Joel Clinton?????????

The club leader they had anointed to replace Lockyer, K Hunt, walked out the door along with Folau with no ready made replacements available.

We appeared to bet the farm on the 2010 cohort developing into class players that would be the basis of the next generation of broncos stars. That did not work out so well.

Our recruiting for the last 10-12 years in trying to bring in some class to supplement our younger players has approved to be fairly abysmal results wise.
Joel Clinton
Martin Kennedy
Shane Tronc
P J Marsh
Ben Barba
Daniel Vidot
Todd Lowrie
James Roberts
Greg Eden
John Asiata
Milford
Jack Bird.

I just hope we have a better outcome from Reynolds and Capewell.

The biggest failing however, appears to be our failure to put together a consistently competent and classy spine. That has been our biggest (and ongong problem) since 2015 and seven years on, they still have not resolved it.

Wrap that up with some very bad luck with injuries such a Yow Yeh, which denied us the services of what appeared to be developing to be a super-star player.

Losing K Hunt, Folau and Yow Yeh out of that backline really impacted us.

Wrap that all up and here we are. Failing to learn from our past mistakes.

Henjak was sacked 20 minutes before the season started; Broncos didn't have much choice but to go with Griffin who was already there and an assistant coach.

 

[lynx000]

Henjak was sacked 20 minutes before the season started; Broncos didn't have much choice but to go with Griffin who was already there and an assistant coach.

Yes aware of that.

It is reported that Henjak tendered his resignation in October after reading the review and Cullen knocked it back. Another Cullen error. The club had the option of accepting it at that stage and then allowing Griffin to initially conduct pre-season whilst they went about appointing a new long-term coach. They chose not to do that. Cullen left it to White to clean up his mess.

Even after White came in, they had a choice they could have put him (Griffin) as a caretaker coach pending a recruiting process to appoint a long term coach. They chose not to do that.

Oh by the way, he was sacked on 21 February and the season started on 11 March, so not quite twenty minutes, perhaps a tad longer.

 

[Sproj]

Black Widow

Wayne Bennett

Of course.....it seems so obvious

Spoiler: flashing gif

I was really hoping this would be a picture of Scarlett Johanssen.