Crash Tackle: New Broncos halfback Adam Reynolds certain to face a season of great scrutiny

Adam Reynolds is one of rugby league’s coolest cats - he will want to be as he faces the challenge of leading a Broncos side who look totally lost without him, says ROBERT CRADDOCK.

MACKAY, AUSTRALIA - FEBRUARY 26: Adam Reynolds of the Broncos looks on before the start of the NRL Trial match between the North Queensland Cowboys and the Brisbane Broncos at BB Print Stadium on February 26, 2022 in Mackay, Australia. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)

It’s sometimes said it’s impossible to truly measure the effect of one player on a football team, but Adam Reynolds’ first season at the Broncos is the most reliable test case you could get.

Let’s be frank. If Reynolds was not playing for the Broncos this season, you could safely ink them in for 13th spot on the ladder or somewhere in that precinct.

With him, they are being tipped as a chance to sneak up to seventh or eighth. That still seems ambitious, but if it happens it will be as clear a measuring stick as you could get of one man’s imprint on a team.

Stream every game of every round of the 2022 NRL Telstra Premiership Season Live & Ad-Break Free During Play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-days free now.

Adam Reynolds has plenty to ponder after watching the Broncos’ loss to the Cowboys.

The degree to which the Broncos are relying on Reynolds to lift them from mediocrity when he returns from a minor leg strain is a worry because it shows how badly the club has been bent out of shape in recent seasons.

Even when Brisbane were being led around by Allan Langer, Darren Lockyer and Wally Lewis, they were never totally reliant on the skills of one player to the extent they appear to be this season.

How Reynolds will handle the pressure is anyone’s guess. He is one of rugby league’s coolest cats but he has also been a one-club player who, before the Broncos, had been a Redfern boy all his life, so it’s not as if he is used to drifting in and out of foreign league cultures.

And as big as he was at Souths, he didn’t look up and see his face on the side of buses or roadside billboards as the man who is going to save a city.

There was an excellent exchange of views on Fox League between Corey Parker and Benji Marshall about the pressure on Reynolds after the Broncos trial loss to the Cowboys.

Saturday was another long night at the office for the Broncos.

Parker suggested the challenges ahead would have to be constantly on Reynolds’ mind and warned how quickly the pressure can rise in Brisbane.

But Marshall challenged this by saying he felt Reynolds had the personality to take it is his stride because that is his make-up.

What is not in dispute is how much the Broncos need Reynolds’ hands on the on field steering wheel.

“Where is the talk?’’ asked one commentator when a late bomb landed in the Broncos half, no-one called for or caught it, and the Cowboys scored a try.

The talk is coming and Reynolds will have plenty of talking to do in a season which he will be under relentless scrutiny.