Jack Bird says Broncos’ attitude must improve after ‘embarrassing effort’

Brisbane has lurched to a 1-3 win-loss record with the club’s biggest loss to the Roosters to challenge all at Red Hill to turn things around under new coach Anthony Seibold.

Jack Bird has lamented an “embarrassing” Broncos effort. Picture: AAP

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Broncos centre Jack Bird says the “embarrassing’’ defeat at the hands of the Sydney Roosters showed Brisbane got carried away with themselves after the Queensland Derby win in round 2.

Brisbane lurched to a 1-3 win-loss record with the club’s biggest loss to the Roosters, 36-4 on Thursday night, to challenge all at Red Hill to put right what was the heaviest drubbing by any club since Melbourne put a 48-6 landslide on Wayne Bennett’s 2016 team.

Anthony Seibold said he maintained “confidence in the group’’ in a destabilised start to his Broncos coaching life, but missed tackles and a 68 per cent completion rate meant the Roosters did not suffer much from fatigue in the second half.

Seibold told his players they had missed a staggering 56 tackles, with another, live count by Fox Sports Stats putting it at 35.

“It was a quite embarrassing effort … the worst outcome, especially to lose by that much,’’ Bird said.

“It was quite a piss poor effort, to be honest.

“I think it’s attitude (that is the major reason). You see what we can do two weeks ago against the Cowboys (in a 29-10 win on March 22) and I think the boys got too far ahead of ourselves.

Jack Bird has lamented an “embarrassing” Broncos effort. Picture: AAP

“We’ve been missing tackles and not doing the defensive cycle he (Seibold) wants. We can fix that quite quickly because we have done it in the pre-season. Hopefully we can get there by next week.

“Most of them (younger Broncos) are in the middle and that’s a tough gig in the NRL without that experience.

“He (Seibold) was quite upset at halftime when we were 22-0 down. We all were.’’

Teenage prop Payne Haas, who has served his four-match club suspension, will provide energy against Wests Tigers at Suncorp Stadium on Thursday but skipper Darius Boyd said it had to start with more energy and consistency in defence.

“He won’t fix it without us all being better. We did it against the Cowboys without him or Matt Lodge,’’ Boyd said.

“It started with our defence (in the loss to the Roosters). I don’t know if it was lack of intent or lack of aggression. It’s not lack of effort or our skill level or our game plan.

“We need to stick to our structure in defence, there were too many one out tackles which left them room to run. Then our attack will come as well.’’

Darius Boyd says the Broncos have to start with more energy and consistency in defence. Picture: Getty Images

The Roosters dealt a harsh lesson for the younger and much touted Broncos forwards.

Their whole team have been overwhelmed in the first 20 minutes by Melbourne, St George Illawarra and especially the Roosters, who, as Seibold noted, played without fielding injured prop Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.

“If you are picked to do a job in the NRL, it doesn’t matter how many young blokes you have out there,’’ Seibold said.

“I could say we have five blokes 21 and younger and they are learning. But we have to get the job done against the best teams. They tried hard and kept turning up for each other in defence, but trying hard in the NRL isn’t good enough.’’

Boyd said the Broncos had been 2-3 last year and finished the season one win behind the minor premiers.

“We win next week and we have the same win-loss exactly. It’s no time to panic _ we were out-enthused the last two weeks and we just need to get back to play well,’’ he said.

“It’s disappointing to let them our fans and our family back home, as well.’’

Originally published as Jack Bird says Broncos’ attitude must improve after ‘embarrassing effort’