Brisbane Broncos founder Barry Maranta says Roosters loss about more than just poor players

Watching Thursday’s 10-try humiliation, Barry Maranta, who laid the foundations of the Broncos in 1988 with an ethos of playing for the jumper for 80 minutes says: “This is not the Broncos I know.”

Broncos legend Barry Maranta could not recognised his club as they were humiliated by the Roosters.

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Brisbane’s founding father Barry Maranta claims the Broncos’ famed culture has been destroyed and fears the club’s young guns could be scarred by the Roosters debacle on Thursday night.

Maranta watched Brisbane’s shocking 59-0 capitulation against the Roosters at Suncorp Stadium and believes the playing group are unfair targets for a deeper cultural problem at Red Hill.

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Maranta, Paul Morgan, Steve Williams and Gary Balkin were the quartet who built the foundations of the Broncos in 1988 and a key principle under inaugural coach Wayne Bennett was playing for the jumper until the 80th minute.

The Roosters cut through the Broncos lines at will during Thursday night’s mauling.

Reflecting on 10-try hammering on Thursday night which represented the worst loss in Broncos history, Maranta turned up the heat on Brisbane chairman Karl Morris and chief executive Paul White.

“The poor players aren’t the problem, it’s bigger than that,” he said.

“I can’t imagine Lachlan Murdoch (co-chairman of News Corp, a majority owner of the Broncos) would be happy – he would be furious with this.

“This is not the Broncos I know. The culture has changed.

“What we see now is what I saw in other struggling teams when we first set up the Broncos.

“We made up our minds at the time that we would never be like the battling clubs and we put a lot of emphasis on loyalty, support and team camaraderie.

The reverse was the Broncos worst ever defeat in the club’s history.

“The problem at the club has existed long before (Thursday) night’s performance.

“Paul Morgan wasn’t the only one who would have turned in his grave, Gary Balkin would have as well.”

Maranta is concerned by a leadership void that has exposed emerging rookies such as Payne Haas, Tom Flegler, Pat Carrigan, Cory Paix, Tesi Niu, Herbie Farnworth and Ethan Bullemor.

“This young Broncos squad does not deserve what is happening,” he said.

“I felt terrible for the young fellas out there because they are talented and I do believe they care, but what can the club expect when they putting out an under-23s side?

“I feel sorry for the lads that they have to be targets of comments and that’s the nature of professional sport. But the Broncos’ problems are wider than the playing squad.

“I studied teams that went bad and once you go backwards, the energy required to turn a club around increases 10-fold.

“Anyone with any knowledge of a serious franchise knows the Broncos need to rebuild and can they do it without scarring the younger group?

“Seibold is under pressure all right. Whether he has the tools to resurrect the glory days of the Broncos is the biggest challenge.

“I don’t understand his infrastructure.

“He needs a senior mentor. When Wayne Bennett started out, he had guys like Don Furner and Jack Gibson, and Anthony needs some senior back-up to help him through this period.”

Originally published as Brisbane Broncos founder Barry Maranta says Roosters loss about more than just poor players