Crash Tackle: Harsh facts busted Broncos must face after finals fiasco

Broncos fans have had a gutful of the excuses and so they should have. No team in any Australian football code with an advantage like Brisbane has done less in the last 10 years.

Darius Boyd talkes to his Broncos teammates after an Eels try. Picture: Getty Images

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Each week, The Courier-Mail’s chief sportswriter Robert Craddock looks at the big talking points coming out of the NRL.

OFFSIDE

EMBARRASSING

The busted, brutalised Broncos must face the harsh facts that they have been Australian football’s biggest underachievers of the decade.

Broncos fans have had a gutful of the excuses and so they should have. Never mind a premiership. How about even a dignified end to the season?

The shameful loss to the Eels, when they played like an un-coached team with no game plan, spirit or leader, is their last match of a decade in which they won no trophy.

For all the benefits of having a world class training facility at Red Hill, a guaranteed edge in player recruiting because of Brisbane’s cost of living and an entire state to recruit from, they’ve been trumped by teams with deeper desire.

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The Broncos have to face some harsh facts. Picture: AAP

The famous Queensland band of brothers spirit, possessed by the likes of Allan Langer and the Walters boys, which drove the club to repeated premierships is no more as the clubs first grade team is now dotted with plodding journeymen floating through the system.

Do you reckon any of the Ipswich boys would have produced a performance like the loss to the Eels? No way. Too much pride.

No team in any Australian football code with such an advantage has done less in the last 10 years.

END IN TEARS

They say you never waste a good crisis and the Broncos must now revisit the sad issue of Darius Boyd’s future.

Boyd is simply clogging up the system playing in the halves and the next step for him is retirement. He’s done.

The Broncos’ appearance in the finals flattered them. They won just 11 of 25 games for the season and their points for and against was a poor negative 107, a hemisphere away from the pace-setting Melbourne Storm side who are a staggering 329 points in the black.

Darius Boyd’s future has again come under the microscope. Picture: Getty Images

THE RUDDERLESS SHIP

The Broncos are delighted at re-signing all their gun young forwards but what’s the point in owning champion thoroughbreds if you can’t find anyone to steer them around the paddock.

The horrendous list of slow starts in Sydney games tells much about how the Broncos lack decent leaders — not one, but a leadership team.

They look leaderless and finding a new skipper must be a top priority for coach Anthony Seibold as he enters the second year of his staggeringly long six-year (five plus an option in his favour) contract.

Broncos coach Anthony Seibold has some tough calls to make. Picture: Getty Images

NOT TURPIN TIME

Jake Turpin has been one of Brisbane’s most industrious players all season — but asking him to play halfback was too much.

As Immortal Andrew Johns said “you can’t manufacture halfbacks — you know you are a halfback from the time you are five years old.’’

The impact of Mitchell Moses for Parramatta, pulling the strings like a master marionette, showed what a decent halfback can do for a team. Kodi Nikorima might have been no Allan Langer but at least he was serviceable. The Broncos decision to cut him mid-season was regrettable.

GROUNDED JET

Wayne Bennett has done some masterful things with wayward players but he doesn’t always get it right.

James Roberts has done next to nothing with the Rabbitohs since Bennett made the huge call to shunt Dane Gagai to the wing and pluck Roberts from the Broncos mid-season.

Roberts looked lost and spiritless at the Broncos and that is how he has appeared at Redfern.

ONSIDE

SIMPLY THE BEST

Amid the rubble of the loss to the Eels stood Payne Haas, somehow enhancing his reputation as the prop who is changing the game.

What a player. Cover tackles which saved tries, power hits, freakish unloads. And all this in a team sinking faster than a stone in a wishing well.

Payne Haas tackles Eels halfback Mitchell Moses. Picture: Getty Images

PARRA MATTERS

As much as Brisbane fans despair the wider interests of rugby league have taken a massive lift though the stirring resurgence of Parramatta at their new home stadium.

Something stirs when Parra are on the rise. It’s like when Penrith or Cronulla were surging to titles and its quite special.

POM MAGIC

The outstanding English footballers who visit Australia bring a flavour which is all their own and one which ensures they will not be forgotten.

Much like Ellery Hanley and Garry Schofield from previous generations Canberra’s John Bateman is one of those old-fashioned multidimensional players who just seem to produce the right skill at the right moment. It’s wonderful to see the Raiders charging towards the grand final and the creative Bateman has been a joy to watch all season.

John Bateman has been a great pick-up for Canberra. Picture: Getty Images

COOL HAND LUKE

Ipswich-raised Roosters halfback Luke Keary has a quality which is becoming increasing rare among professional sportsmen — unselfishness.

When Cooper Cronk is around he happily plays the role of second banana yet when Cronk is absent he slips into the driver’s seat with impeccable smoothness.

In some bygone eras the Roosters were the epitome of the team who played for themselves. Now they are the opposite.

SEA EAGLES SOAR

Don’t worry about the new honour board featuring former first graders — if the Gold Coast Titans want inspiration for next season they should put up a poster of the Manly Sea Eagles.

It will prove to them that anything is possible if you want it badly enough. Manly have been battling the odds all year and to beat the Sharks on Saturday without $3 million worth of talent was a fitting reward for a team who had to pluck players from the Blacktown Workers like Sean Keppie, Lloyd Perrett and Haumole Olakau’atu who have risen to the challenge of playing first grade.