‘Easy beats’: Legends savage Broncos after 46-8 loss to the Storm

The Brisbane Broncos conceded a huge tally against Melbourne and club greats and commentators have again turned up the heat.

Tom Dearden had some positive touches for the Broncos.

Rugby league legends have slammed the Brisbane Broncos for a 46-8 loss to the Melbourne Storm with club great Corey Parker lashing their recent performances as “unacceptable”.

The Broncos had an improved first half, leading for a large chunk of the opening stanza before going down 14-8 at the break.

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While it looked like the Broncos had turned a corner, the second half was a bloodbath as the Storm carved up the home side with six unanswered tries.

Fox League commentator Braith Anasta said late in the game the Broncos were looking good but the second half once again revealed their issues.

“If you look at the Broncos, they’re 16th in the competition for defence, which they are, and they average over 30 points per game this season against, it’s just nowhere near the mark,” he said.

“The first half looked really promising, and they’ve just thrown the towel in. The lack of resilience in this second half, that’s what hurts.

“You couldn’t question the first half, it was great, it was their best half of the year. Their cohesion and balance in the spine looked really good. Just some soft tries late in this game has dampened that.”

The criticism for the Broncos again came in thick and fast.

Post-match, commentators on both Fox Sports and Channel 9 took aim as the Broncos suffered their eighth loss in nine games.

“Brisbane are one of the easy beats of the competition,” Greg Alexander said on Fox League.

“That’s been proven over the past eight weeks. They’re down there with the Titans and the Warriors and Bulldogs – Brisbane are in that mix this season, which is hard to take for Brisbane, but that is the reality of it.”

In his post-match press conference, Broncos coach Anthony Seibold said it was a promising start but the disappointing aspect was that the game got away from them in the second half.

Asked about why the team couldn’t put in for a full 80 minutes, Seibold said “the performance staff are telling me we’re fit enough, and I’ve been to enough clubs now and I know enough about training loads and so on to have a good understanding but I think the big thing is possession”.

Following a 48-0 drubbing at the hands of the Wests Tigers last Friday night, Seibold said the side put in a much better performance.

“This week‘s effort to last week’s effort was chalk and cheese,” he said. “Any criticism that came after last week was deserved. The scoreline got away from us in the second half but I think everyone could see there was a whole heap of effort tonight. The guys came with the right attitude.”

Seibold even said fullback Anthony Milford had some good touches, despite Fox Sports reporting he had seven runs for 40m, while the NRL.com had it at nine runs and 63m, as the coach publicly backed his side.

Alexander said he had to support his players or it might go from “bad to worse”.

Alexander called for more changes, particularly pointing to Milford, who put in a performance Brisbane great Corey Parker called “non-existent”.

It was another long night for the Broncos.

“Whether they‘re available or not, if you continue to roll out the same people and you get the same result, at some stage it’s going to wear you down,” Parker said. “At some stage it’s just got to wear you down where you have to come up with something different.”

Queensland State of Origin coach Kevin Walters said you “can‘t make change for the sake of change”, asking who else was there to take the position.

But Alexander said of Milford “if you‘re the highest paid player in the club, I want to see you put an effort in, he’s just not having a dig”, suggesting Herbie Farnworth could do better at fullback.

Parker admitted some players including Pat Carrigan and Payne Haas put the effort in but said the overall performance was “just not good enough”.

He also added that celebrating small wins is not what the Broncos of the past have done.

“Some of the performances that we‘ve seen in Broncos jerseys in the past six to eight weeks haven’t been acceptable,” Parker said.

“Everyone‘s sitting at home and going the performance of the Broncos in the first half was great, and it was, they were there about, but it’s 46-8 the final score, that’s unacceptable.”

Cameron Smith and Darius Boyd speak after full-time.

On Channel 9, Brad Fittler said the team must be doing something wrong at training.

“They are trying hard, but you‘ve got to try together, it’s a team sport,” he said. “Surely during the week they’ve got to find ways to practice working together and doing that under pressure. They don’t seem to be able to do anything under pressure.”

Fittler said Milford did “just not get involved in the game” while Paul Gallen said fullbacks have to play both sides of the field and are charged with organising the defensive line.

“They‘ve had another 40 points put on them tonight, so something’s not going right,” Gallen added.

Unfortunately for the Broncos, it looks like another tough week of criticism is coming their way.