Round 10 vs. Manly Sea Eagles Discussion

[Big Pete]

Manly Sea Eagles vs. Brisbane Broncos
Suncorp Stadium, Friday 14 May 2021
Kick Off: 7:55pm

1. Tom Trbojevic 2. Jason Saab 3. Brad Parker 4. Morgan Harper 5. Reuben Garrick 6. Kieran Foran 7. Daly Cherry-Evans 8. Taniela Paseka 9. Lachlan Croker 10. Martin Taupau 11. Haumole Olakau'atu 12. Josh Schuster 13. Jake Trbojevic

Interchange: 14. Cade Cust 15. Moses Suli 16. Sean Keppie 17. Toafofoa Sipley

Reserves: 18. Zac Saddler 19. Tevita Funa 20. Christian Tuipulotu 21. Ben Trbojevic

1. Jamayne Isaako 2. Xavier Coates 3. Herbie Farnworth 4. Jesse Arthars 5. Corey Oates 6. Anthony Milford 7. Tyson Gamble 8. Matthew Lodge 9. Jake Turpin 10. Payne Haas 11. Jordan Riki 12. Tevita Pangai Junior 13. Thomas Flegler

Interchange: 14. Danny Levi 15. John Asiata 16. Ethan Bullemor 17. Rhys Kennedy

Reserves: 18. Keenan Palasia 19. David Mead 20. Tesi Niu 21. Brendan Piakura​

 

[Big Pete]

Unfortunate news for Patrick Carrigan who has been ruled out for the year following an ACL rupture. That will see John Asiata return to the bench with Flegler at lock where he's played some of his best footy for the Broncos.

Brisbane once again go in as underdogs but this is a winnable game for them. If Lodge, Haas and Pangai Jr can get on the front foot and get the Broncos to a nice start they maybe able to catch the Sea Eagles off their game since they can be complacent. This will most likely be the Broncos best shot at a win as they have the Roosters and Storm coming up.

I see this as Milford's last opportunity to keep his spot in the team. He had some decent touches against the Cowboys but his inability to push up created the space for Clifford to slice through which ultimately cost Brisbane the match. If he can't take his game to another level then you'd have to imagine either Brodie Croft or Albert Kelly will get a look in.

I'm very curious to see what impact the new train and trial eligibility rules have on the Broncos. There's a couple of players there in Albert Kelly and Brendan Frei who could prove better options in the short term. Isaiah Tass and Kobe Hetherington should also be available and Hetherington would be a really handy player to have at lock.

 

[THE CHAMP]

Don’t forget hunt pete. I reckon he walks straight in if Milford continues to falter

 

[Big Pete]

Don’t forget hunt pete. I reckon he walks straight in if Milford continues to falter

Kelly is ahead of him in the pecking order.

Karmichael may get a game at some point but it would be an absolute publicity stunt based on his form for the Magpies.

 

[THE CHAMP]

Kelly is ahead of him in the pecking order.

Karmichael may get a game at some point but it would be an absolute publicity stunt based on his form for the Magpies.

Is he really going that bad Pete I have to admit I haven’t seen any of his games


I did rate Kelly highly when he was last in the nrl
I know a lot of years have past since either of them played nrl

 

[Big Pete]

Is he really going that bad Pete I have to admit I haven’t seen any of his games


I did rate Kelly highly when he was last in the nrl
I know a lot of years have past since either of them played nrl

Souths have got him playing left centre where he struggles for involvement and is largely a defensive liability. They've only played six games of QCup so far so maybe he'll be better for the run but you'd have to say Karmichael would struggle to make some of the better QCup teams.

I don't especially rate Kelly but I can just see Kevie giving him a game or two for something different if Milford doesn't get his act together.

 

[Bronco18]

Well yuck.

 

[Bronco18]

Honestly difficult to tell how much of that was us being terrible and how much of that was just a flow on effect of the ref crackdowns.

The dual sin binnings will probably overshadow the lily soft penalties that kept giving Manly field position in the first half (including the TPJ rugby union style 1 minute play advantage penalty....)

Like the six again ruling it showed how we can’t handle adversity but holy crap that was something else. The question is does the edict last the entirety of Magic Round or is it scrapped in the coming week(s)?

 

[Nerd]

Manly out played us and out enthused us but the rule changes are a joke. That was a real let down after last week and Coates played like his heart isn't in it anymore. Besides Haas our forwards got belted and the one sided reffing killed us. That Gamble tackle was a great tackle defending the try line and was barely a penalty let alone a sin bin. This knee jerk reaction to the Roosters/Eels game last week has back fired badly on V'Landy's and the NRL.

I'll have money the amount of players on report and sin binning will drop markedly for the rest of the round and we will be missing 3 or 4 players for next week because of this crap.

 

[renouf]

Bringing Croft in isn't the answer, he's just as useless.

 

[Big Pete]

2-8

So I wanted to watch the rest of the weekend to get a better feel of the new interpretations. There's no doubt the game has changed now and teams will be punished heavily if they fail to make legal tackles. I do think Brisbane received a couple of controversial decisions against them but ultimately they didn't adapt to the new rules.

In fairness they put themselves under all sorts of pressure from the opening stages. Both Lodge and Riki invited Manly deep inside their own half and even when the Broncos had the football they made some bad decisions. The play that comes to mind was Pangai Jr taking it upon himself to spread the football causing Coates to throw a speculator back inside to give Manly ball inside the Broncos half.

I thought Brisbane did well early to weather the storm and Tyson Gamble came up with a great try saver on Parker who appeared to have scored for all money. However they undid all that good work when Corey Oates gave Jason Saab way too much space on his outside. Saab is one of the fastest players in the competition, you'd happily give Harper that space than Saab. For me it's just another instance of Oates not being an intelligent footballer and even Walters not drilling it into his players.

I still thought Brisbane were in that game until the call against Pangai Jr. Had play continued it was Brisbane ball and they would have had it just outside their 20m. Instead they wouldn't touch the football again for another 8 minutes at which point Manly had already scored another try to give them a commanding 12 point lead.

While it was a difficult call, once again Brisbane's defence was exposed. For whatever reason Pangai turned in on Taupau who was covered by Turpin and left a huge hole for Keppie to stroll over. Again a lot of the first contact was weak and even when a player like Herbie would stop a player, he rarely received adequate support. A lot of players who come in aren't hitting hard enough in support.

I thought it was interesting that captain Jake Turpin was hooked 30 minutes into the game and was never seen again. I thought he had a poor game and his service didn't help his team mates and he did come up with some bad defensive efforts. Riki just doesn't look comfortable on an edge and looks like somebody who ought to play more QCup and come off the bench if anything. The Flegler at 13 experiment just made Brisbane weaker in the middle and dare I say they actually missed having Carrigan who is far more solid in defence despite being more of a prop forward. Milford didn't help his chance of gaining a contract renewal either. His passing and kicking game were largely off the mark and he rarely troubled with his running game.

Regardless 50-6, another horror night for Brisbane during this horror stretch for them.