Brisbane Broncos forgot biggest issue when signing Anthony Seibold
When the Broncos interviewed coaching candidates there were countless issues discussed like recruiting and game plans before they got to the big one, writes ROBERT CRADDOCK.
Broncos
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Crying players may be a disturbing sight but the Broncos are more concerned for the state of mind of their shattered coach heading into the fortnight that could decide the fate of his coaching career.
Last week was more about pumping up the confidence of the players after the shock loss to the Gold Coast Titans but this week the club’s prime mission will be to support their heartbroken, out-of-answers coach Anthony Seibold before he even attempts to lift the players.
If the deeply wounded Seibold goes down, the ship will inevitably go down with him.
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Broncos players cried after full-time because they felt isolated and clueless at how to stop the rot.
The club has no true leaders and the coaches are struggling as much as their charges, so the players feel they have nowhere to turn.
Seibold is about to attempt a mission which has been beyond dozens of stressed out coaches of all sports mired in inexplicable form lapses.
He has to stay positive when so many of his thoughts are negative; be clear-headed when his head feels as misty as an English fog.
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He has to stay confident in what he is teaching when deep down he is questioning everything he stands for because nothing is working.
When every urge within him says “we have to work harder’’ he may have to accept the opposite is true.
The carnage is happening at both ends of the field.
The defence is being muscled around by older, harder packs.
So disjointed is the Broncos attack they can barely put on a routine try – no overlaps, no decoys, no volcanic forward rushes as they average just nine points a game since Round 3 and a whopping 33 against.
That leads us to the most difficult question of all. Because the team is playing with all the cohesion of a group who met at a set of traffic lights, do you risk even more chaos by making mass changes or retain the same squad and risk them meekly surrendering your entire career?
The answer may well define Seibold’s future for two bad losses against the Bulldogs and Wests Tigers could spell curtains for his Broncos career.
When Seibold walked into his press conference after the Broncos’ sixth loss in a row on Saturday night he had what you might call the faraway gaze of the tortured coach.
It means you are there in body but the mind is whirring like a printing press, gobbling up problems, solutions, random distractions … just everything.
To see his devastation was to be reminded that since the Broncos played their first game 32 years ago only one of the four men to coach the club has truly handled the pressure and that was because he thrived on it.
Wayne Bennett, for all his foibles, remains a man apart. Far from ducking the dramas, he thrived on it.
When he hid in the back of a car leaving Broncos training in the last year he later told a reporter “it was great theatre’’.
The searing pressures of social media were lost on Bennett because, in his eyes, social media is a chatty journalist.
When the Broncos board interviewed their coaching candidates there would have been countless issues like recruiting and game plans discussed before they got to the big one.
Can you really handle the mega-pressures of this job?
Because if you can’t it will rip you and your career apart.
FIVE THINGS WE LEARNT ...
1. TIME’S UP FOR SEIBS
Broncos coach Anthony Seibold should resign. Seibold said he would know if he’s not the right man to lead the Broncos and six straight defeats is evidence he can’t stop the rot. To lose to the depleted Warriors, who are stranded in Australia, after leading 10-0 is the final nail in the coffin. If Seibold won’t walk, the Broncos board should have the courage to fire him.