Attitude key for Broncos
Warren Ryan
June 06, 2007 12:00am
IT'S uncanny that Broncos coach Wayne Bennett and his old adversary Brian Smith find themselves simultaneously under fire but for different reasons.
Wayne's headaches appear mild compared with Brian's, yet the Knights are in the eight and the Broncos are running second last.
With due deference to the retired foreman of the engine room, Shane Webcke, the Broncos look to be much the same mob that won the competition last year.
So what's going on?
Webcke's departure removed a ton of grunt but that isn't where the Broncos' problems are now, nor is it where their problems were last year.
Why they have collectively decided to do a stretch down in the cellar is hard to fathom.
Wayne's lads appear to have two hurdles to jump. One is the inability to score tries.
The purchase of young Penrith five-eighth Peter Wallace to play halfback next season is something of a coup, but he can't help the Broncos this year.
Penrith will live to regret not tying Wallace up before they picked him in the top grade.
In the pointscoring department, the facts speak for themselves.
Apart from what now appears to be a flash in the pan, the 71-6 demolition of Newcastle, the Broncos have scored more than 20 points only three times this year and one of them was a 29-28 loss to the Panthers.
In the three weeks leading up to the big score against the Knights and the week after it, the Broncos have failed to reach double figures.
In order, it was an 8-4 win over South Sydney, a 16-8 loss to the Sharks, an 18-6 loss to Manly with both sides denuded of Origin reps, then last weekend's upset 11-4 loss to a depleted Dragons line-up.
The other hurdle the Broncos have to deal with, according to their coach, isn't as visible as a lack of points on the scoreboard. It's attitude. Something Wayne Bennett talked about after the big win over the Knights.
Attitude can't be turned on and off at the reception or loss of the ball. It's an all-through-the-game requirement.
Curiously though, attitude has normally only ever been linked to the vigour and application of a team when it hasn't got the football.
However, there is an attacking malaise Manly suffered from it regularly in the early '80s when it had 16 internationals on its books that can descend on a team dripping with representative players.
Everyone appears to be waiting for one of the stars to do something brilliant and in the end nobody does anything.
A whiff of finals football quickly cures that torpor, but there is a long grind still to go and the Broncos are off the pace to defend their title.
If it's only an attitude problem, Bennett has a track record for fixing heads.
Smith's tasks look more complex. He has a long-term goal to make Newcastle the rugby league stronghold that it should be and in doing it, he can't please everybody, let alone a quite vicious section of the Sydney media that endeavours to undermine him everywhere he goes.
For a start, Smith would have continued to be hamstrung in activating his plans if he had no room to move under a salary cap eaten up by players who were overpaid by his predecessors.
In the competitive market that rugby league has become, every player, irrespective of where he was born or grew up, is swimming in a big pool with every other player. Player managers make sure of that.
If Smith can gain the monetary firepower to make sure the out-and-out champions that are born and bred in Newcastle aren't poached, and has enough left over to bolster the positions that aren't up to standard on the Newcastle production line, he is doing his job properly.
No Newcastle junior has a divine right by birth to play for the Knights. That kind of thinking only encourages comfort zones, player cliques and mediocrity. The higher Smith sets the crossbar for local juniors, the better Newcastle teams will be in the future.
To say the Knights' fortune rose and fell on the availability of a fit Andrew Johns was only half the story.
Joey made average gallopers look good enough to earn more than they should have and put good footballers in representative jumpers, which further strained the budget.
The wooden spoon of 2005 that landed on the Knights' doorstep without Joey around should have driven home a few home truths about the shake-up needed at the Knights.
There might be some rough weather ahead before the Knights hit smooth sailing, but Smith has already got the key four positions sorted for the future, something that Bennett is still trying to nail down.
With Danny Buderus at nine, new boy Luke Walsh at seven, Jarred Mullen at six and Kurt Gidley at one, the Knights are positioned for considerable success.
Bennett's men are almost at the point of no return but I wouldn't count them out yet.
Watch both men's critics fade away if the teams make the eight.
for the wok!
