So ashton wanted a Broncos fans perspective on Griffin's time at the club.
So okay, the Broncos relationship with Hook can be traced back to 2006. In the QRL Grand Final, the Broncos feeder Toowoomba Clydesdales took on Hook's Redcliffe Dolphins. The Clydesdales had SMASHED Redcliffe in the prelim final, but on grand final day, Hook upped the ante on the young Toowoomba side, challenging them with speed men around the ruck to take an emphatic 13+ win.
What was especially impressive about the Dolphins' win is that they did it without one of the best players in the QRL that season. He was too busy winning a premiership in the NRL (Perry).
This win caught Bennett's attention, so the Broncos started incorporating more Dolphins' players into their squads (Emmett, Roberts, Simpson, Manihera, Wapau, Watkins etc.) and Hook was offered the role of the Holden Cup coach.
Not a lot was expected from the Broncos in their inaugural season of the Under 20s. Wayne didn't want any of the star rookies (Taylor, Moon etc.) playing 20s and so the side was primarily made up of 18 year olds and a few colts players from the QCup. The Broncos form was like a yo-yo, but eventually after some experimentation, Hook found his groove with the side and they went onto force golden point in the grand final. What set the Broncos apart that season is that they competed till the 80th minute and largely played to the percentages. The pet play was Ben Hunt kicking for Jharal Yow Yeh or Mitch Rivett on the wing, a tactic that remained his bread and butter in the NRL with Lockyer to Reed & Yow Yeh. A lot of these kids played a lot better than what was expected for him and he solved a massive headache the Broncos were having by turning McCullough from a five-eighth/lock into a Smith esque hooker. I've always wondered what would have become of McCullough if he wasn't rushed into first grade and had all of his skills coached out of him, but it is what it is.
Second year, the Broncos decide Hunt, McCullough, McGuire, Beale, Yow Yeh etc. are all too good for Holden Cup and force a new batch of rookies on Hook. They started the season 0-8 and there were all sorts of selection headaches. Who could play fullback? Who could play centre? Who could play halfback? All tough questions, but Hook kept experimenting and eventually found results. Admittedly a big part of the revival was the return of Hunt who was eventually allowed to return to the QCup, but the fullback and centre combos saw Hook turn to unheralded players like Todd Murphy and Rhys Matsen and they did a great job. The Broncos looked to be going one better, but they got beaten by the eventual premiers in the prelim which happened to be hosted on the Storm's home ground. It was a disappointing performance all told, but the way Hook's men fought back from celler dwellers to prelim finalists suggested he had plenty of skills. Furthermore, he was really developing a lot of talent for the club with the likes of Gagai, Copley, Norman, Baptiste, Hala, T. Sims, Lingwoodock all turning heads.
In 2010, Hook is promoted to assistant coach at a time where Henjak has lost the plot. The young players turn up terribly unfit, the Broncos lose Hodges at the start of the year and the senior players have had just about a gutful. Apart from squeaking out a win against a terrible Cowboys side and smashing the Sharks who were awful, the Broncos could not win any games to save themselves and looked like wooden spoon contenders. Then it comes out that Anthony Griffin has been given more of a senior role, has taken over the defensive aspect of the side and suddenly the Broncos start knocking over quality teams like Melbourne, Gold Coast, Manly, St George Illawarra etc. Eventually Lockyer gets injured and the Broncos hopes of making the finals end but the second half revival is noted by the staff and after a review, Paul White replaces Henjak with Griffin.
The Broncos 2011 season was strange in the sense that it was their best regular season since 2000, but there were still a lot of question marks about the team. The side can be best summed up by their win against Canberra at Suncorp. The Broncos were brilliant for the first 60 minutes, up 24-0, they looked home and hosed. Then they let in a couple of soft tries and suddenly the game is off to golden point. Somehow the Broncos would find ways to invite teams back into it and just did not have the mettle to hold it altogether. In the end, it would come down to individual efforts to squeak out a win, and the Broncos had a top side but they rarely looked convincing.
2012 and the Broncos start a new era without Lockyer. The Broncos make a relatively comfortable start to the season on the back of a friendly schedule. Again, the Broncos are coming up with wins, but the performances are rarely anything to write home about.
This is also where a few things started becoming apparent.
- Hook only believes in his starting 13.
- Hook can develop players into decent NRL players, but beyond that he's out of his depth.
- Hook has a size fetish. The dispute with Gagai started because Gagai couldn't meet Hook's silly weight expectations.
- Hook isn't proactive in the junior scene. In 2013, when the Broncos could have had Cameron Munster in their squad, they cared more about signing QRL players like Joe Bond, Zach Strasser, Delroy Berryman, Paul Ivan & Nat Barnes who went onto???
I'm being harsh. One thing I will say about Hook is that to the man, the players cannot say enough nice things about him. It's funny, reading through Parker's book and reading other interviews, you'd hardly believe Hook is the same person you see behave so mild mannered in press conferences, but he's a riot. He's also very astute and Parker credited him for the decision to become a lock which is where he went from an above average club player to a world class player. I'm not sure if that's entirely true since Parker made the move in 2010 under Ivan, but that could have been Hook's idea as assistant.
Continuing the history lesson, to nobody's surprise 2013 was a shambles. Instead of developing two of the brightest halves prospects, Hook brought Scott Prince in on a bargain basement deal, rendering one of the side's biggest strengths (defence) into a weakness. To nobody's surprise, the recruitment and lack of junior development let the club down and it got so bad the Broncos had to host a Q&A which I've never seen happen as a fan before or since. Eventually the Broncos opened up the purse strings signing the best free agents they could (Milford, Barba, Kennedy) but that backfired spectacularly. Eventually the Broncos had something of a second half revival with Ben Hunt finally earning a shot in the halves but by then it was too little, too late.
2014 should have been the worst year in the club's history. Canberra played hard ball with Milford, so the Broncos entered the season with Kahu/Hunt as the planned scrum combination, but an unfortunate mishap at the Wynnum trial saw Hoffman thrust into the role. This was considered a joke by the Broncos fanbase because Hoffman had a reputation for never passing the ball. The fans wanted anybody else there - Barba, Strasser, Nikorima, Paia'aua, Taylor but the coach wasn't having any of it. Despite never really being in contention, the Broncos were able to jag enough wins thanks mostly to the impressive form of Ben Hunt, Dale Copley and Daniel Vidot - all hot and cold players, to qualify for a spot in the 8, but things could have easily gone the other way if Hunt wasn't there for instance. The players that needed to perform like Barba and Kennedy turned out to be total duds and a lot of players like Gillett, McGuire, Oates, Reed etc. were underperforming.
Then the club signed Bennett which was met with mixed feelings. On one hand, the fans had just about had enough of Hook. On the other, Bennett casts a huge shadow and he was coming off an awful stint at Newcastle where he just tried too hard. Furthermore, we knew his signing would mean the return of Darius Boyd, which meant we were going to have to pay Ben Barba the courtesy of playing for another club. Bennett also seemed interested in signing Russell Packer who literally pissed on Suncorp and committed that awful assault so we were none too pleased and there was almost this sentiment of people who just wanted to see how good a coach Hook was with a world class talent like Milford at the helm.
Fast forward to Hook replacing Cleary and we're all just gobsmacked. Sure, Penrith were one result off a wooden spoon, but the Panthers suffered a horrible year in 2015 and we all knew you guys would bounce back last year. Watching you guys, it was typical Hook. That Round 3 win against us in particular was so typical of how the Broncos would play at that time. Fade in and out of matches, but if the back three can gain good metres and get the team on the advantage then something can happen off the back of it, which is how it went down on that evening.
Watching as somebody who didn't outright hate Hook, it was clear he had learned little. If there was one area he improved in, it was moving talent on and trying to get the team to gel. That's what happened with your lot in the second half of last year when you finally gave Soward and Segs the flick and backed some different combinations. It was like Hook became the coach we all saw at Holden Cup, making positive changes and turning a bad situation into a positive one.
Unfortunately that's where the lessons stopped and all the tell-tale signs emerged. Clueless red-zone attack, dumb mistakes, dumb defence, dumb penalties, players being overlooked, poor bench rotation and so on...
