Craddock: What the Brisbane Broncos must learn from Seibold mess
They’re the words that will not be spoken at Broncos HQ for a long time. Crash Craddock looks at the impact of handing Anthony Seibold a ‘five year contract’ and why it was the exact moment the club sailed off on a tangent.
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If Elvis Presley comes back to life and wants a five-year deal to sing in residence at the Broncos Leagues Club he can forget it.
One of the fallouts of the Anthony Seibold era is that the words “five-year contact‘’ will be taboo for everyone from Elvis down to the club cleaner.
History will remember the five-year deal to coach Seibold as the Broncos most nonsensical contract call at any level.
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The next man – Kevin Walters or Paul Green – should be offered two years with an option to be rewarded with a third if they make say, the top four.
The instant the club gave Seibold a half-a-decade deal the Broncos plans sailed off on a tangent from their fans. Old warriors were cut as the Broncos tried to grow a team from the seedlings and it hasn‘t worked for them. In fact it has never worked for any rugby league team.
But there are many other things to learn from the last few years including …
HELPING HANDS
The Broncos is the most pressurised coaching job in the land and a senior coach must feel confident enough in his own ability to hire big name assistants.
They say you grow by putting smarter, more experienced people around you. Seibold could have done with a John Cartwright or a Trent Barrett at his side, men brave and experienced enough to speak up not simply to the players but to tell Seibold some harsh truths when things were going awry.
THE OLD WARRIORS
Roosters coach Trent Robinson did not bag the Broncos when asked earlier this year what he thought of their list but he then dropped the blueprint they need to follow.
Robinson said to win a premiership you need a sprinkling of outstanding young players, a hefty number in the 50-150 game mark and a couple of sagely old warriors and leaders.
The Broncos simply had too many kids.
THE NEW BOSS
When the Broncos name their next chief executive to replace Paul White he must be a man with football smarts (like Ben Ikin) because he has so many big calls to make early.
The Broncos may be a big public business but first and foremost they are a football club. If the team wins the finances will look after themselves.
If the club’s next head man is one of these money men with a part-time interest in sport that thudding sound you hear will be Broncos fans headbutting the wall.
THE NEW COACH
The board need to listen to players over the choice of new coach.
That doesn’t mean they have to agree with them or even go with their choice.
But last time the board were swept away by corporate rhetoric. They need to realise that the ability to dumb it down is more important than talking it up and that the best choice is the man the players hate letting down – half because they fear him and half because they like and trust him.
NEW LEADERS
The first thing Brisbane needs is to find experienced playing leaders because the current side will have none.
“The club needs senior players,‘’ said former Origin backrower Billy Moore.
“Do you think Tevita Pangai would be carrying on like he does if there was a Gorden Tallis or a Shane Webcke or a Trevor Gillmeister there? No chance.
“The club has been at such a low point you lose the authority to say to players ”we don’t do that.’’
Moore likes Penrith’s James Tamou as a possible target for next season.
COACHING THE COACH
Seibold can rise again as a coach after the Broncos debacle – but only if he learns from his failings.
COVID was not good for him. He is so organised that he gave players diaries before the start of the season which mapped out their winter then suddenly everything went awry.
The coaches who prospered most in COVID have been the flexible ones who accepted that Plan A, B and sometimes C had just flown out the window.
Seibold worked hard. There were times when he was in at the Red Hill office just after dawn but the COVID era bubble tended to favour those who could chill out as well.
Other things he learnt was to listen hard to his team, to never again field a team with so much youth, to realise that young sides need simple game plans.
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THE GOOD: South Sydney. Say what you like about Wayne Bennett but players still play for him. The Rabbitohs were a rabble at the start of the season but Bennett has gently moulded them into shape.
THE BAD: Claims by Broncos part owner Phil Murphy that Seibold was a cancer on the club were horrible. Some people have more money than sense. What a dreadful thing to say.
THE UGLY: Trainer Glenn Rushton’s decision to wait far too long before throwing in the towel for the brave but beaten Jeff Horn in Townsville. Horn was too courageous for his own good.
Originally published as Craddock: What the Brisbane Broncos must learn from Seibold mess