Off-season thread

[GoTheBroncs]

Loads of things to discuss potentially...

I'll kick it off with a post about Kevvie.

I'd like to forget about on-field performances for the moment. What exactly would give anyone any confidence that this guy has what it takes to be a successful coach of an NRL side, based on what comes out of his mouth?

The obvious one being the "we will make finals" comment, knowing full well that even if we won our remaining games, we would still rely on other results going our way, which we have absolutely no control over. There is being "positive", and there is making no sense at all.

Then in the recent presser, attacks one of the journalists for asking a sensible question, that fans deserve to know the answers to.

Another example earlier in the year, when talking about getting some of our key players back, "watch out NRL". Watch out for what exactly, more shitty performances?

I'm sure that several other examples could be dug out. What must the players think when they hear this shit? (Most of the players deserve criticism too, but that isn't the focus on this post). What kind of confidence can fans gain to reassure them that this is the guy to turn it around?

Is it possible that he is an amazing coach, but just needs a shit load of media training? It seems very unlikely.

Like most other Broncos fans, I would love nothing more than to see Kevvie to succeed. But honestly, from what we hear, he is a fruit loop. What is going through the guys head?

This is a bit extreme, but it's like thinking that Trump could possibly run a country based on the constant dribble coming out of this mouth.

And this isn't even considering the on-field performance.

 

[Big Pete]

That's all fair criticism and at the end of the day it's just more ammunition for his critics.

The signs were there last year when they lost Flegler and Farnworth. They could afford to lose one, but not the other and they clearly had to find a replacement of that calibre. David Fifita was available, but the Broncos reportedly didn't chase all that hard.

Still, there was a ton of excitement around Walsh and Mam so the feeling was that the Broncos would go strength to strength. However, stories started popping up about players leaving. Capewell was granted his release, then there was talks of Paix and Sailor. The Broncos would have been happy to lose Paix, but they wanted to keep Sailor around.

I think a lot of the recruitment decisions they've made recently have been in the long term interest of the club. However, they could have easily had it both ways if they were more active and invested more in their development pathways.

For instance, they lost Capewell and their solution was to move a fringe prop forward, Jaiyden Hunt, into the second row. They have all those QCup affiliates and yet it sounds like they didn't bother to hold onto Patston, O'Neil, Coburn etc. despite their shortage on the edge. In the end they really had no other choice but to sign Gosiewski and that backfired spectacularly on the club.

When Walters first came to the club, he had the right idea. He cleared as much space in the cap he could so he could sign a bunch of experienced/valuable players and it helped right the ship. However, Reynolds was always going to be a short term plan and the idea that he could get through three years and produce quality football was a pipe-dream. The three year deal was fine because they need to dangle a juicy enough carrot and two years seemed plausible, now they're in a position where they have to offer him a forth year deal because they don't have anyone to replace him.

They re-signed Paix, only to white ant him out of the club and now he's taking up precious cap space, where Brisbane already have plenty of depth. Meanwhile somehow Gus was able to release every unwanted player on his roster.

The biggest red flag was during the Origin period, against the Dragons where they couldn't name a full squad. To me that seemed like such a cop-out and just came through poor recruitment and management.

It's easy to get caught through the minutia, but it just seemed like the Broncos weren't as fit and their defence was weaker. The loss of Herbie made it difficult to work the ball out of trouble and they rarely found themselves in attacking position. Even so, the loss of Flegler hurt their structures inside the red-zone with only Willison, Mariner and Mozer making any discernable difference. Despite everyone playing the same structures now for three years, the players can't play the brand of football and there's little reason to think things will change moving forward.

 

[Showtime]

Thankfully this season is done and dusted. A few thoughts and things they need to improve going into the next season;

- Fitness. Team looks like they’re running in sand after 5 min.

- Mam is a concern to me, he needs to improve because didn’t appear to develop at all. Once teams shut down his run game he doesn’t appear to offer much else.

- They need to figure out what’s wrong by with Cobbo, he looks disinterested.

- Defence. Not sure how you’d measure it but we are so soft in contact outside of Hetherington who’s leaving anyway. We need someone like JWH, Fisher-Harris or Leota type because I don’t think any team fears our forward pack.

- Something needs to be done about Riki and Piakura, they’re the worst back row combo in the comp.

- Mariner appears talented but his defence is abysmal.

- We need Willison to kick on because Jensen is a bench player.

- If Baker, Rogers and Hunt are getting games we’re in massive trouble.

- Thankfully I don’t ever have to watch Oates or Sailor run around again.

 

[icewind]

Shit show. Still can't believe we let Farnworth go, because Cobbo. And now Hetherington? Tonight was the first time I didn't watch a Broncos game when I was free to, almost since i started following them, 30+ years ago. Unacceptable. We need someone who is able to keep some of these huge egos at the club in check, and has some technical coaching chops. There is a premiership winning coach available, as maligned as he is, he would do that.

 

[GoTheBroncs]

Completely agree with you on recruitment BP. Of course all of this is easier to assess in hindsight, but I don't buy into that being an excuse for the Broncos, there are people being a large amount of money to get these decisions right. They are the supposed experts and should be getting most things right, and if not they should be looking for another job.

For mine, the worst decision was Capewell. Not because he is such a good player, but because there was no way that Piakura was ready for a long term starting role, and we already had little depth in the 2nd row. There was really no reason for us to let Capewell go other than being the "nice guy", he was contracted to us. I thought that surely we must have had someone in mind that we were a good chance of getting, but then no-one came. Eventually we panicked and bought Hunt and Gosiewski, who we are now stuck with chewing up cap space. There is a reason that these guys were fringe at other clubs. I don't have a source for this but my only guess is the club thought they were a really good chance to get Hosking, but ultimately it didn't happen.

The next worst was Herbie. Now I admit that this decision would have been a bit tougher. There is a lot of up-side to Cobbo and Staggs has runs on the board. But neither of these players has the work rate of Herbie, and ultimately we would have had a much more balanced side bu ditching Cobbo or Staggs. In hindsight, would have been good to show Cobbo the door, I just fear he doesn't have the mental capacity to play NRL (which is fine, not many do).

Now at the time I actually thought letting Flegler go was not a bad decision, actually bordering on good, in the sense it could help us balance our roster elsewhere. We already had a good front row on paper, and I thought Willison was ready to step up, and he actually did have a very good season. We also had depth in Tapau, who also didn't disgrace himself this season. But for some reason our forward pack has been mostly dominated this season, and seems to lack an intimidation factor.

 

[Showtime]

I agree with you on Cobbo, there doesn’t appear to be much going on upstairs with him and he’s a walking brain explosion.