NRL 360 debate Brisbane Broncos issues with shock coaching suggestion and former star’s passionate slam

Brisbane is reportedly considering a “highly insulting” move to coach Anthony Seibold as the Broncos sink to their lowest ever ebb.

Broncos coach Anthony Seibold’s tough week is just beginning.

The Brisbane Broncos debacle against the Gold Coast Titans was always going to spill into the week and former star Ben Ikin has delivered a withering attack on the club’s biggest issues.

The former Queensland Origin star who had a five-year stint at the Broncos at the back end of his career took aim at some of the practices that have seen the club fall to the lowest ebb in its history.

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Speaking on NRL 360 on Monday night, the panel featuring hosts Ikin, Paul Kent, The Daily Telegraph‘s Phil Rothfield and Fox Sports’ James Hooper debated the Broncos current predicament.

Rothfield said the Broncos’ young players had been “rushed into the NRL, under more focus than nine Sydney clubs in one town”.

It was a statement that host Paul Kent didn’t want any part of, saying “the Broncos don’t know where they’re going”, a common complaint of Anthony Seibold’s coaching ideology.

It came back to the recruitment issue that has been aired over the last few weeks and the system that the players are coming through.

With issues from the player exodus, to senior players being accused of not aiming up to young, inexperienced players being in the side, the attention soon turned to the management of the team, with former Bronco Ben Ikin butting in.

“The list management at the Brisbane Broncos has been disgusting,” Ikin said. “Disgusting, there’s no way around it. The 30-man squad the Broncos have assembled is ineffective. It’s out of balance.”

Ben Ikin slammed the Broncos predicament.

Asked who is to blame for the issue, Ikin said the general manager for football Peter Nolan, CEO Paul White and Seibold have all contributed to the debacle the Broncos find themselves in.

“I would say you less hang this on one person, the system is broken,” Ikin said. “That 30-man squad is so twisted and out of balance that they’ve arrived at this point that they’ve been beaten by the last-placed Titans and not in a close contest.”

Rothfield said he was concerned over the players and Seibold getting hammered and said he “doesn’t think he’s lost the sheds”.

But Ikin continued, saying he understands why the Broncos were defending themselves so desperately.

“I’d be doing whatever I could to defend a five-year contract for a coach if I was chairman,” he said. “I’d be looking for lines to be rolling out to the public domain because that was a poor decision, because I can tell you right now, the coach they thought they were signing is not the coach that’s in charge of that roster today.

“He’s got some gaps. That doesn’t say to me that as a board, as a CEO that you need to sack him, but you need to get very clear very quick about what his shortcomings are. At $800,000 for five years, you shouldn’t have many.”

Rothfield said he’s spoken to Seibold and the club and they think he needs more help, with Queensland Origin coach Kevin Walters floated, but Walters can’t go into the bubble with his role at Fox Sports.

But Rothfield said recently-sacked Warriors coach Stephen Kearney has been floated as a possible assistant and sounding board.

Ikin said: “So a bloke who’s head coach of the rugby league’s largest club needs someone to come in and help him build relationships with his players — I would find that, if I was Anthony Seibold, highly insulting.”

Broncos players react to the Titans loss.

Kent added that the man they were looking to bring in is a recently-sacked coach with a 35 per cent win percentage as a head coach.

“There’s a difference between doing something because something needs to be done and doing what has to be done,” he said. “It’s not a quick fix. Anthony Seibold needs to put his head down, forget all the noise, he needs to go to the training paddock and he needs to work his guys and he needs to acknowledge it’s going to be six to eight weeks before they even begin to turn it around as far as the direction of the club goes and they need to work hard and have clear ideas about what they’re going to do instead of sitting there in their riddles and trying to impress the players about how smart you are you need to talk to the players to get results out of them.

“The Broncos are punching in the dark, they don’t know which direction to go. It’s like when a golfer gets the yips. It’s like Ian Baker Finch couldn’t drive so he tinkered with his drive and in the end he tinkered with it so much he forgot what his original stroke looked like and that was the end of him as a golfer. Seibold, if he’s not very careful is going the same way.”

Kent finished saying that unless the club has a clear idea of where they’re going, that “the rot will be so ingrained in the club that they will become a perennial loser.”