Matty Johns: A lack of leadership hurting the Brisbane Broncos now and into the future
One moment at halftime last weekend summed up the Brisbane Broncos problems and who the battling club needs to stand up and fix them, writes MATTY JOHNS.
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If you ever want a better illustration of the importance of strong senior players, last round showed the tale of two halftime dressing rooms.
On Friday night, after a first 40 minutes of little fight and resilience, Brisbane Broncos players sat heads bowed, coach Anthony Seibold seemingly the only one talking, trying to work out if the patient had a pulse.
While on Saturday night, after Manly’s 40 minutes of effort and desperation, which their season needed, Jake Trbojevic stood in the middle screaming, pointing, challenging his players to be even better. Coach Des Hasler was not in sight. Didn’t need to be.
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Strong senior players make a football team.
Not senior players – STRONG SENIOR PLAYERS.
It’s not just the Broncos who are in need of experienced leadership, there’s a number of clubs crying out for it.
I truly felt sorry for everyone in that Broncos dressing room.
Sure, there’s reasons for the situation they find themselves in, which all of them, from the coaches to the players, must take responsibility for.
But in that shed, I saw a team full of young men, shell shocked, not just by the situation they found themselves in at Leichhardt Oval, but the whole awful predicament.
Young players in desperate need of a strong senior leader to stand up in the middle to challenge and inspire them.
In fact, that’s what Seibold needs as well.
Coaches without these type of special players find themselves talking too much and the young players find themselves getting sick of hearing the same message.
I’m so grateful for the situation I found myself in when I entered first grade football as a young player in the early ’90s.
That Newcastle team were jammed with strong senior leaders. Michael Hagan, Mark Seargent, Paul Harragon, Tony Butterfield, Robbie McCormack and Marc Glanville among others who would go up and down the grades.
Paul Harragon once told me that playing with Mal Meninga in those Kangaroos sides felt like you were playing with your father, in that you’d look at him just before you ran out and you knew everything was going to be OK.
That’s how the Knights senior men made me feel. They’d guide you at training and protect you in games.
Most of them had played well over 100 games, so they’d experienced the highs and lows countless times.
They’d teach you how to deal with criticism and something that was even trickier – praise.
If you were feeling low, they’d pull you up, and if you were getting ahead of yourself, which is hard to believe I have the propensity to do, they’d bump you down a few notches.
It’s not just a senior player’s job to mentor the young blokes, for the team to be successful he has to be able to challenge the coach when it’s needed.
This is the reason some coaches don’t like senior players, they feel threatened by them and don’t like to have their authority questioned.
Successful coaches, in any sport, give their senior men power and authority because it makes their job easier.
Go back through rugby league history, title winning teams all have strong experienced leaders.
The reason why all the Knights during coach Malcolm Reilly’s tenure loved him so much was from the moment he took the job he forced the senior players to take control of the team.
He knew a senior player without authority and ownership wasn’t a senior player and certainly wasn’t a leader.
Without strong senior players, a coach can be flying blind.
Just because the team are all sitting there nodding their heads, doesn’t necessarily mean they believe in what the coach is telling them, it may be they feel that they don’t have the authority to at least ask a few questions.
In the mid to late ‘90s, the Knights had quite a number of senior leaders but everyone knew when push came to shove, ‘the Chief’ was boss hog.
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I can’t tell you how many times he’d say to Andrew and I, “Pull back on the Xs and Os, and let’s get back to effort and simplicity.”
These leaders aren’t just measured by what they do on the pitch, it’s what they cultivate away from the 80 minutes.
Teaching work ethic, bravery, toughness, the ability to play with injury and how you get out of difficult times.
Given the number of clubs crying out for this type of player, I couldn’t understand why James Maloney left for France without a club making a serious offer to keep him here.
I’m equally surprised that no club tried to talk James Graham out of returning to England.