Campo’s Corner: Why nobody will ever be good enough to coach the Brisbane Broncos
Anthony Seibold is the latest in a long line of Broncos coaches who have failed to meet the club’s expectations. But doing so might be impossible.
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‘Tough times’: Defiant McGregor won’t walk away
Wayne Bennett might be the best coach in the history of rugby league, and he was not good enough for the Broncos. Twice.
Bennett’s first 21 seasons at Brisbane might be the best stint any coach has had in the history of Australian rugby league. They won six premierships, they made the finals every year from 1992 onwards until Bennett left, they uncovered some of the greatest players in the modern era and Brisbane, through their success and resources and their old money power and new money confidence, became rugby league’s blue chippers.
Such opportunity is useless if it’s squandered - just ask the Warriors - and Bennett was a major part in getting that rubber to the road in the club’s early years. The extraordinary success of the early years - the back to back titles in 1992 and 1993, the galaxy of Test and Origin stars, the three titles in four years from 1997 to 2000, the fact that Brisbane were popular enough to anchor an entire breakaway competition - created the idea of a Broncos exceptionalism.
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They were so unlike everybody else that regular standards did not apply. Anything less than the best was, simply put, not good enough. How many times have you heard a former Broncos player talk about the club losing it’s aura? That aura was real, once, and it was a powerful thing.
The Broncos are the Dallas Cowboys. They are the New York Yankees. They are Manchester United. They are the power and the money, money and the power, minute after minute and hour after hour. There is nobody like them in the competition, and there probably never can be - Sydney is too fractured and Melbourne will always be a niche market. The Broncos have the local dominance of regional teams like the Knights and the Raiders and the Cowboys but the resources and population base of Australia’s third largest city. There are almost 2.5 million people in the greater Brisbane area, and a good deal of them want all Broncos, all the time. In 1993, the year they first moved to ANZ Stadium, the Broncos had an average home crowd of 43,200. A match against the Gold Coast that year drew over 57,000 people, and given the Seagulls won one game all season you can bet it wasn’t the away fans that swelled up the numbers. That’s as glorious as glory days get.
No other club has ever had that level of support, that depth of resources, that great a number of fans with a ravenous hunger for success that only comes when success is all they have ever known. A rich man doesn’t know how to be poor, and if the Gold Coast crashes to a wooden spoon nobody cares all that much, because that’s where we think the Gold Coast is supposed to be. If the Broncos finish ninth it is time to spit on your hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats, because honour has been besmirched, Brisbane have been robbed of what should be their birthright and somebody, somewhere, must pay the price.
If Anthony Seibold keeps serving up record defeats, he will pay that price before long, becoming the latest in a growing line of Brisbane coaches who found they could not put a saddle on a Bronco. Ivan Henjack was the poor soul tasked with carting it up after the first split with Bennett, then Anthony Griffin took the reins for a few years before Bennett’s return. But even Bennett, who helped build the club into the ivory tower it became, was not enough anymore.
The Broncos had the greatest coach of the modern age and they got rid of him, twice. Bennett won six premierships and went to seven grand finals with Brisbane, but it still wasn’t enough. When Bennett came back in 2015 and took the club to the finals four years in a row, it was not enough. Not even Bennett could match the legacy he had helped create. The Broncos wanted the old Bennett of legend, the one who they knew in their memories of the glorious past and not even Bennett (who, it bears repeating, is the greatest coach of modern times) could live up to that legacy. Nobody ever could. In all likelihood, nobody ever can. Nobody is good enough to be Wayne Bennett, not even Wayne Bennett the second time around.
The Broncos’ title drought now stretches all the way back to 2006 - a blink for some clubs, a lifetime for Brisbane. Because they are the biggest game in town, they also attract the heaviest expectations and this compounds and deepens every time they fail to bring the title home. A Broncos halfback is not simply a Broncos halfback, he is either the next Allan Langer or a bum. A Broncos fullback is not simply a Broncos fullback, he is either the club’s greatest prospect since Karmichael Hunt or Darren Lockyer, or he is useless, lower than dirt, and deserves to be exiled from the River City forever. A Broncos forward is not simply a Broncos forward, he must be the next Webcke or the next Petero or whoever you care to name, or if he’s really good he has to be the next Sonny Bill Williams or Greg Inglis, even if Sonny Bill and Inglis never played in Brisbane, because that is what the Broncos know they deserve. Nothing is low key, nothing is gradual, the Broncos are either the powerhouse they think they have always deserved to be or they should be whipped in the streets. They should only ever have the best, and whatever else there may be on offer is not worth their time. Stars are not made in Brisbane, they are chosen and crowned.
The Broncos have not had the best, or anything close to it, for some time. Their roster has been mismanaged and relies too heavily on their young stars, as transcendent as their talents may be. Brodie Croft has been brought in to do a job to which he is not suited, and giving him the captaincy, instead of empowering the former Storm halfback, makes him an even greater scapegoat than he otherwise would have been. Making Pat Carrigan, who had not started an NRL game before this season, his co-captain, even if it was only in relief of the injured Alex Glenn is even more baffling. How can Carrigan possibly be expected to lead a team when he’s still finding his feet in the NRL?
The 58-0 loss to Parramatta in the finals last year was the most embarrassing performance in a semi-final I have ever seen. The 59-0 loss to the Roosters last week was not as mortifying, but it reeked of despair. It was final confirmation that the Broncos were no longer the strength that once moved heaven and earth. They were smacked down again and again in brutal, relentless fashion by a Roosters team that didn’t even look like they were trying all that hard. It was like watching an older brother kick the shit out of the younger, just because he is bigger and stronger and knows there will be no consequences or revenge for the beating.
What is Carrigan, he of 22 years and 23 first grade games, supposed to say to his teammates to inspire them, to drive them to make amends for such a loss? How can he lead by example when he hasn’t been around long enough to learn what that really means? What is Croft, a player who is still finding his own way as a footballer, supposed to do? What more can Payne Haas possibly give when he already gives everything?
Brisbane will not be at this low ebb forever. Either Seibold turns it around or he pays with his job, and if the latter comes to pass there will be no shortage of coaches who will be willing to drink from the poisoned chalice. Maybe the Broncos will take one last run at Craig Bellamy, or make amends with Bennett for the umpteenth time. Whoever they do chose will feel lucky. They will have all the weapons a coach could ask for, and they won’t imagine they could possibly fail.
But they will. It’s certain they will. Even if they win one title, or two, they won’t win six. They won’t coach the Broncos for 21 years and create a mythos on which the club forged its very identity. It can’t happen twice. The future is not always a journey to be better. Sometimes it’s a vain quest to recapture the past.
Seibold fell back on the excuses of youth in his post-match press conference after the Roosters game, and the Broncos did have two players on debut in the loss but such excuses, even if they were valid, will not fly. This is the Broncos, and they expect the best.
The success they demand might not even be possible any more, but that doesn’t matter.
You will find the next Langer, the next Lockyer or the next Sonny Bill, and you will make the Broncos great again, just how they used to be, or you will die trying.
THE RED V’S HOUSE OF CARDS
In the many months between Round 2 and Round 3, the rugby league literati at The Daily Telegraph were tasked with finding the best 20 players from the modern era (defined from 1980 to 2020) at each club. Some of these lists didn’t see the light of day (and more’s the pity, because I had some Clinton Schifcofske takes that would have put plenty of hair on your chest) but by far the most interesting was the Dragons.
Combining St George, Illawarra and St George Illawarra should have made for a strong list, right? After all, they are the Red V, of 11 in a row and all that. The Dragons are a big and famous club, one of the most well-supported in the league. They must have a galaxy of stars to choose from!
Except they didn’t. Think about - who is the best Dragons player of the last 40 years? Is it Craig Young? Mark Coyne? Brad Mackay? The best of the Steelers are players like Paul McGregor, Rod Wishart and Alan McIndoe. The best of St George Illawarra are the likes of Mark Gasnier, Matt Cooper, Jamie Soward and Brett Morris. These are all very good players, Test and Origin regulars, but with the greatest of respect would you say any of them are all time legends? Even at their very best, were any of them the best player in the game, or close? Would you be happy with any of them being the best player your club had in half a century?
Since St George won the 1979 premiership the Saints, Steelers and Dragons have combined for one premiership, in 2010. One title in a combined 57 seasons - that’s close to Cronulla levels of waiting.
Much like with their players, there have been plenty of good teams in there - Saints made the grand final in 1985, 1992, 1993 and 1996, the Steelers were unlucky not to make it in 1992, the merged club was there in their very first season in 1999 - but few great ones. Apart from 2010, it has been a lean 40 years for fans of all three iterations of the red and whites.
This is not to kick them when they are down - their fans are doing a good enough job of that on their own - but just something we thought was interesting.
LOSING STREAKS
And now, in honour of the Titans getting their first win since the Bronze Age, here are some awful rugby league losing streaks and the things I know about them.
University
The Titans lost 14 games between Round 14 of 2019 and Round 3 of 2020, which is nothing compared to what University dished up between 1934 and 1936. The poor students, who never amounted to much in their brief time in first grade, lost 42 games in a row between Round 2 of 1934 and Round 14 of 1936. After ending the streak with a win over St George in the final round of the 1936 season, the Students then lost all eight games they played in 1937 before withdrawing from the competition. You hate to see it.
North Sydney Bears
The poor old Bears went 39 years between winning a finals game. That’s such a long time. They also had a 77-year premiership drought on their hands when they were forced to merge with Manly at the end of 1999. The Bears got nothing but raw deals, poor things.
Brad Thorn
Brad Thorn won just about everything he ever tried in his long career across the two rugby codes, but he never did manage to get an Origin series. In nine appearance for Queensland, Thorn won one, drew one and lost seven. It doesn’t feel right to discuss it, quite frankly. Brad Thorn losing? Impossible.
Short shots
*George Williams got all the plaudits when Canberra beat Melbourne in Round 3, but his showing against the Knights was just as impressive for a different reason. The Raiders were hustled off their game by a hungry Knights side, but Williams’ effort and creativity never wavered, even as Jack Wighton had one of his bad days and Josh Hodgson similarly struggled. Williams is rapidly becoming one of Canberra’s most important players, and the team already looks better the more he gets involved.
*Reports of Melbourne’s demise might have been greatly exaggerated, but their win over Souths was not as impressive as Craig Bellamy may have hoped. Blaming the new rules for the Storm looking mortal is lazy - their issue is one of attack rather than defence, and they have been one of the most creative attacking teams in the league for some time. I’m still confident they’ll get their groove back, but it’s rare they look so pedestrian two weeks in a row. This week’s match against the Knights, who were so impressive in their big win over the Raiders, is no easy mark.
*All I want from Round 5 is for Jordan Rapana and Joey Leilua to engage in a vicious, bare knuckle brawl only to embrace like brothers once the siren goes.
Golden hombre
In these troubled times we must take comfort in the things close to our hearts. For some, it is family and friends, and the feeling of community. For me, it is front rowers taking shots at goal, or putting in ill-advised chip kicks or perhaps throwing totally adventurous, almost foolhardy cut out passes.
The Golden Hombre is the only thing left to believe in anymore, and Campo’s Corner will hand it out each and every week to the big man moment of the round. Big Man Season lives forever in our hearts.
Josh Papalii won this last week, and he has won it again this week for his try against the Knights where he simply decided he was going to score a try and there was nothing in the universe that could prevent him from doing so. The Knights may have won the game, but Papalii won our hearts.