Broncos must bring the fire if they hope to match the Roosters
It has been a difficult start to the season for Brisbane as they struggle to adjust to Anthony Seibold’s style. But structure won’t matter against the Roosters if they don’t have the passion, writes MATTY JOHNS.
Opinion
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The Brisbane Broncos take on the benchmark team on Friday night, the Sydney Roosters.
After a difficult start to the year, last week’s performance against Manly had traces of improvement, but here they’ll get a great indication of what they need to do and how far they have to go to consider themselves a contender.
Watching the Broncos last Friday, live at Suncorp Stadium, gave a great insight into where they are with their football.
Firstly they’re trying very hard, you can see in the way they play that they are doing lots of ball work on the training paddock, trying to bed down the new style of football Anthony Seibold is after.
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It manifests itself in an interesting way because for the majority of the match the Broncos ran through attacking sequences with little attention to what the defence was presenting.
The playmakers were focused more on rallying teammates into positions on the field than counting defensive numbers and trying to spot opposition vulnerability.
You see learning structure is hard, structure is a guide but when you’re learning it, it feels like a straight jacket.
It was Anthony Milford who created the spark for Brisbane, occasionally he would break out of the structured sequence and simply challenge Manly with his speed and footwork.
There’s a few types of unsuccessful teams, but two of those are the team which plays with no structure and the team who only plays structured.
The very best sides jump in and out of structured play.
The Broncos are trying to work that out.
But to beat the likes of the Sydney Roosters you need more than a good game plan, you need to play with a high level of emotion.
Not enough coaches focus on this aspect of the game, the ability to get the team and the individual up for the contest.
Look at the Melbourne Storm last Saturday night. The previous week coach Bellamy poked his team, challenging their desire and telling them if they aren’t prepared to do what’s required he’ll find other players who will.
It was clear in their performance over the Eels that every Storm player thought the coach was directing the comment at them.
After the match Eels coach Brad Arthur was asked to describe his team’s performance, “Soft.”
My appraisal was this, Parramatta turned up prepared for a regular season game, Melbourne turned up believing they were playing for their careers.
Parramatta were totally overwhelmed by the emotion of the Melbourne players.
In the post-game coverage Mal Meninga delivered the perfect summation, “The Storm simply ran harder and hit harder.”
Very simple, that’s the magic of Mal, he understands the human side of the contest.
To destroy an opposition with the ferocity of your running and tackling is the direct result of how high you get emotionally.
How you get that high emotionally can be attributed to numerous factors, but generally it’s from being embarrassed and then challenged.
You can’t play that way every game because throughout a season you can’t keep getting yourself sky high, week in, week out, it’s impossible.
You need a strong game plan, you need understanding and you need discipline. But to win the big games you need emotion.
That’s crucial for the Broncos on Friday night.
Brisbane need to stop obsessing about what they are doing, lift their levels of intensity and challenge the Roosters’ physically.
If they don’t, like the Eels last week, they’ll be overwhelmed.
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