Gorden Tallis: Seibold’s Broncos are a leaderless rabble
The anger at frustration at Brisbane’s situation should not be directed at the players but at the Broncos hierarchy who have let this great club drift into ruin, writes GORDEN TALLIS.
Opinion
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The Brisbane Broncos are lacking strong leadership and it is time someone put their hand up to explain the state of the club.
I felt the same pain as many Broncos fans watching Brisbane suffer a record 59-0 loss to the Roosters at Suncorp Stadium on Thursday night.
The Broncos’ two biggest losses in their 32-year history have come in the past five games dating back to last year’s 58-0 finals humiliation against Parramatta.
I don’t want to bash the players up because they’ve been put in a situation they are not ready for.
They are the NRL’s youngest team and that is because the Broncos’ recruitment and roster management has been poor.
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The Broncos are the NRL’s biggest and richest club. They have more resources than any other. They have the pick of the state when it comes to players.
I don’t see the leadership needed at the club in general and at a time of need.
It’s got to start somewhere, whether that's CEO Paul White, chairman Karl Morris, coach Anthony Seibold, recruitment boss Peter Nolan or board member Darren Lockyer.
Someone needs to shine a torch on this moment of darkness and explain how the Broncos intend to fight back.
Don’t let Seibold’s Harvard University education fool you – he throws up more theories than Einstein.
When he was appointed coach to replace Wayne Bennett I said that it was the wrong decision and I stand by that.
Rugby league is about passion, playing for each other and having the right mix of people to be successful.
What sort of message does it send to the club when the CEO is being linked to jobs at the NRL?
The recruitment policy the Broncos have gone for has been a poor decision.
The Broncos have got a 20-year-old kid in Payne Haas leading the forward pack.
Haas is an amazing young player but he cannot do the heavy lifting every week at his age. The club will burn him out.
The Broncos shopped Alex Glenn around to other clubs in the off-season before making him captain. How does that happen?
Lockyer is one of the Broncos' most successful players ever.
I’d like to ask him if this is the same club he arrived at in 1993 as a young player. If not, why isn’t it and how does he plan to change it?
I can handle losing. I was part of the worst ever Broncos side in 1999 when we only won one of our first 10 games.
It’s the way you lose that matters most and not one person has been accountable for that loss, apart from Seibold claiming to accept responsibility in his media conference.
The players should be talking to their fans instead of refusing to do post-game interviews.
These are the members who have pledged their hard-earned dollars to the club this year despite not being able to attend games.
They have got nothing back and the club and players don’t even have the gumption to front up and apologise for that performance.
If they are scared of a journalist with a microphone and pen then they are playing the wrong game.
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The Broncos told the media that pays billions of dollars to broadcast the game they had bigger issues to worry about.
Next time the players whinge about wanting a bigger slice of the pie they need to remember how they acted in times like this.
Before people confuse my criticism with jealousy, remember this – I had my time in the sun at the Broncos and enjoyed plenty of success and some hard times.
I am a fan of the game and have been a paid member of the Broncos since I retired.
I had all the emotions of every Broncos fan on Thursday night. I was hurt, sad and embarrassed.
I want to know how it has got to this and what the club is doing to fix the problem – without the Harvard spin.
Originally published as Gorden Tallis: Seibold’s Broncos are a leaderless rabble