It’s the first game of a new season and a fresh start for the Brisbane Broncos.
They’ve got their coach, the legendary Kevin Walters at the helm to take the once heavyweights of the NRL back to the promise land. Past legends of the club including Gordon Tallis have been brought in to give a passionate speech to the team in preparation for the upcoming campaign.
Overall, there is a sense of optimism.
The Broncos make their way through the tunnels and march out onto Suncorp Stadium to a roar from a crowd who have been starved of rugby league for a while, and with COVID-19 restrictions more eased, it brings back the atmosphere that has been lacking in the cauldron.
This is it. Time to prove the critics wrong. Time to put the horrid year before in the past, the worst season in their club history to be exact.
They begin with a lot of energy and that energy is soon converted into points as they find themselves keeping the Parramatta Eels pointless at half-time and themselves with a good lead.
Then things start to take a downfall. Injuries don’t help, and the Broncos bench is almost looking like a ghost town with only one man remaining. Parramatta hit the switch and morph back into their top four reality and premiership winning potential.
Four tries and no answer from the Broncos results in a first-round loss after such a promising start.
Despite the loss there was still a sense of improvement with the energy they showed, and it felt like they were giving it all even if the execution was lacking at critical points, however, fast forward to Friday night against the Gold Coast Titans in the South East Queensland Derby and it appeared that the Brisbane Broncos of 2020 returned.
Only The Brisbane Broncos can go from "making progress" to "no progress" within the space of 7 days
— Jo🅰️sh (@joshorjoash) March 19, 2021
The fresh start is no longer a fresh start.
The headlines aren’t reading ‘Broncos two defeats to start the season,’ but instead read ‘Broncos now suffer thirteen straight losses'. The talk of a new era, a new beginning quickly dissipates, and we are left with the continuation of Brisbane’s fall from grace.
When the Canberra Raiders made the preliminary finals in 2016, many thought that the Raiders would come back and win the next year. But what came was two average seasons where they missed the finals despite having a good roster and it wasn’t until 2019 where they eventually made it to the Grand Final, and are now one of the competition heavyweights.
It took Ricky Stuart patience but also to think out of the box by bringing in a sports psychologist to help solve the issues that had the Raiders failing to close out games.
The problems that Raiders faced then are different to the problems faced now by Brisbane, but the Broncos performances isn’t due to lack of ability. They might not have a great team, but there is a good team there that should be capable of more.
Brisbane Broncos are not a changed team actually they are embarrassing to the nrl
— Mr NRL (@nrl_mr) March 19, 2021
We often focus on the physical aspects of rugby league and not so much about the psychological aspects. Melbourne are winners because of their great system, roster, coach and so on but they’re also winners because it’s instilled in their minds.
The same with the Roosters, and more recently a great example is the Panthers. The tightknit of the players at Penrith show the power of a positive environment. These are teams that believe they can win and that comes to fruition in their performances.
The Broncos are playing like a team that don’t expect to win and are waiting for a loss. They’re also playing like a team that has forgotten how to handle the pressure. When Parra turned up the heat, Brisbane couldn’t go with them and the game was essentially over when they attempted their comeback against the Titans. But throughout both games we saw moments of brilliance and promising potential.
The Broncos have a tough run coming up. A game against the Bulldogs that they might win, but they then play Melbourne, South Sydney, Penrith, Parramatta and Gold Coast again.
Things could get lot a worse if they can’t find something to spark them. They need to find a way to shed the tainted skin of being losers and realise they can be winners but as of now it seems to be psychological barriers that has prevented them from improving.
Anthony Milford was scintillating in 2015, Brodie Croft is talented, but they’re halves that seem to have no confidence. The hot and cold that Milford brings to the field in a way sums up how the entire team have been playing.
They need to figure out how to be consistent and if that confidence and consistency is blocked due to the mental aspect rather than the physical then perhaps a well-respected sports psychologist or coaching whisperer is needed.
With the Gold Coast Titans no longer happy being little brother and are rebuilding themselves to someday be a premiership winning force, the Broncos are now in a dilemma where they are no longer the South East Queensland Kings with a monopoly on the area.
With talks that a second Brisbane team is looking more and more likely, and a team that will be looking to make an impact on arrival, the Broncos immediate future might not only be in jeopardy, but their long-term future success is at risk.
Congratulations Jaydem Martin, you have posted a very thought provoking article. No doubt the Broncos are very concerned about their situation, but they have to realise they had it so good for a long time, and it can’t last forever because of the Salary Cap and the growth of other Queensland clubs.
Melbourne and the Roosters are 2 clubs who don’t have a big junior base of talent available, so they buy young players from other areas and develop them from within their club system. They also have the 2 most innovative coaches in the NRL and their talent recognition and development programs are outstanding.
The Broncos are now in a position where they have to compete harder than ever before to get the cream of young players into the club. No longer can they assure a young player of the success of the good old days, and the club will have to find other ways of becoming one of the competition’s heavyweights again, which will be a huge job.
I think the comments from JoAsh & Mr NRL are empty and way off the mark. No NRL club plans to be a failure, and the Broncos are a proud club which along with their sponsors and supporters, need to be patient.
They WILL be a force again in the future, but they will never again dominate the competition like they did during the Wayne Bennett era.
As a long time supporter of the Dragons, learning to be patient has become the norm, and I will never give up on them. I have accepted that they will never win 11 straight premierships again, in fact no club will. To expect success every year is normal, but when it doesn’t happen is reality.