NRL 2022: Gorden Tallis backs the Brisbane Broncos for premiership after big win over the Eels
Club legend Gorden Tallis has been a fierce critic of the Broncos, but the ‘Raging Bull’ says the club has a premiership vibe about it in 2022.
Brisbane legend Gorden Tallis has declared Kevin Walters’ Broncos class of 2022 can shock the NRL by winning the premiership and breaking the club’s 16-year title drought.
The resurgent Broncos have emerged as shock contenders for this year’s NRL premiership in the wake of their rampaging 36-14 drubbing of the Eels at CommBank Stadium on Thursday night.
The Parramatta pummelling sealed Brisbane’s first finals campaign since 2019 and they will finish the weekend in fourth spot if Melbourne lose to South Sydney at Accor Stadium on Saturday night.
The Broncos are one of the form teams of the NRL. They have won 10 of their past 12 games and can challenge the Cowboys, Cronulla and Storm for a top-two spot if they beat the lowly Tigers on Saturday week at Suncorp Stadium.
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Former Broncos skipper Tallis has been a savage critic of the club he helped make great, but the ‘Raging Bull’ says the ruthless disposal of the Eels is proof Walters can deliver Brisbane’s first premiership since 2006.
“I think they can win it,” Tallis said in the wake of Brisbane’s six-try belting of the Eels.
“All you need is momentum.
“Penrith are out there in front, everyone is gunning for them, but I do think they (the Broncos) can do it.”
Brisbane’s turnaround has been emphatic. Just last season, the Broncos finished third last and Walters was under pressure to retain his job after Brisbane leaked a whopping 695 points - the worst defensive record in the club’s 34-year history.
But the off-season purchase of Souths champion Adam Reynolds has finally given the Broncos the game manager to extract the best of Brisbane’s rising crop of stars headlined by Ezra Mam, Selwyn Cobbo, Payne Haas and Pat Carrigan.
If anyone can sense a premiership vibe at Red Hill, it’s Tallis. The now Titans ambassador won three titles at the Broncos in 1997-98 and 2000 and believes Brisbane’s punishing pre-season has laid the foundation for a premiership assault.
“They were whinging on how hard they trained, but it’s paying dividends,” Tallis told Fox League after Brisbane’s 12th win of the season.
“(Pat) Carrigan is growing, (Tom) Flegler is making an impact ... the Broncos have enough support in the forwards now where Payne (Haas) doesn’t have to make 20 hit-ups and he can be more explosive.
“I think they can be a threat (for the title), when they get all their players on deck and they are playing well.”
Tallis’ appraisal is a compelling sign of Brisbane’s revival under Walters.
Just three years ago, the 160-game Broncos icon lashed the club, accusing Brisbane’s pampered modern-day players of having unjustified egos, declaring they had “won nothing”.
“It’s not the club that I played for,” Tallis said in 2019.
“Because there was winners there, there was people that respected the people that walked before us, and I knew everybody that had played there.
“We’d train out of a dirty old gym … it was called the Cyril Connell Wing or whatever and we used to go and train our butts off.
“They’ve got a $27 million facility that they all sit there and have coffees, and they all walk around the town like they own the place.
“They own nothing. They’ve won nothing.”
That could change in the coming seasons, with veteran Brisbane winger Corey Oates saying the recruitment of premiership-winning duo Reynolds and Kurt Capewell has given the Broncos a title feel.
“It’s all belief,” Oates said.
“Bringing guys like Adam and Kurt into our team, it has shifted our confidence and given the young guys belief.
“Everyone the last few years had the ability to do this (make the finals) but it was getting the belief to go all the way.
“Buy a little general (Reynolds) and a workhorse (Capewell) and look what happens.”
WHY WALTERS AND THE BRONCOS ARE DREAMING OF FINALS
Last year, Adam Reynolds took South Sydney to the grand final.
Twelve months later, the champion halfback could steer the Broncos to the big dance.
The Broncos outlaid $2.4 million for their marquee recruit and it has proved to be worth every dime as Reynolds sliced and diced the Eels in a 36-14 belting that proved Brisbane are the real deal as a finals team.
After finishing 14th last season, the Broncos have sensationally charged into the top four with 26 competition points and they can clinch an 11th win from 13 games if they beat the Tigers on Saturday week.
There is no question Reynolds is at the heart of the resurgence, with Brisbane coach Kevin Walters believing his and Kurt Capewell’s premiership know-how is a crucial asset heading into the playoffs.
“There’s been some great buys since the club was started, but the transformation he’s had on the club has been amazing,” Walters said of Reynolds.
“I had a good feeling from the moment I met Adam. I knew straight away he was the right bloke for the Broncos.
“All the great teams in history, they have great halfbacks and Adam has been great for us.
“We don’t talk finals. We worry about each week and getting combinations right. The big end-of-season games are great to be involved in but we’ve still got some work to do.
“We have senior guys like Adam and Kurt. This time of year when the stakes go up, we have players who have been in those situations.
“But we would be fools to get too far ahead of where we are.”
Walters lauded Brisbane’s defence and the performance of prop Payne Haas, who was outstanding in his return from a shoulder injury.
“Payne is an elite player and he was chomping at the bit to get out there,” he said.
“He kept ploughing through them and I needed a hook to drag him off because he didn’t want to come off.
“This was a good performance. I wasn’t expecting it but even without our Origin guys, there has been good momentum and to get those guys back helped us even more.
“I liked the way we went after it and we were led by our skipper. A few things went our way but the good teams make you pay and we did that.
“They are working hard and there is great respect and unity among them. If you want to stop the opposition scoring, you find a way.”
BRONCOS GIVE EELS A HAAS KICKING
After two years of hell, the Broncos are a finals force again.
Brilliant Brisbane are back in business as a legitimate title contender after exorcising their CommBank demons with a thumping 36-14 pounding of Parramatta that has clinched their first finals campaign in three seasons.
The last time the Broncos reached the playoffs in 2019, they were subjected to one of the most humiliating losses in their history — a 58-0 finals rout on Parramatta’s home turf that sent Brisbane into a wooden-spoon tailspin.
So there was a sense of poetic justice in Brisbane’s top-eight revival coming at the very venue that plunged the mighty Broncos into crisis.
The memories of the insipid Anthony Seibold years have been washed away by a Kevin Walters-coached Broncos outfit who schooled the Eels in every facet to temporarily charge into the top four with their 10th win from 12 games.
Welcoming back Origin quartet Payne Haas, Pat Carrigan, Corey Oates and Kurt Capewell, the Broncos were too smart, sharp and hungry for a sloppy Eels outfit that couldn’t cope with the mastery of Brisbane halves Adam Reynolds and Ezra Mam.
The red-hot Broncos charged to a 24-10 half-time lead and weathered a brief Eels riposte in the second half, Reynolds crossing nine minutes from time to nail the coffin shut.
MASTER AND APPRENTICE
Teenage five-eighth Mam and 32-year-old halfback Reynolds represent the lethal fusion of old and new that has ignited the Broncos.
Brisbane’s attack is humming on the back of the Reynolds-Mam alliance, which produced two pieces of playmaking magic nine minutes apart to leave punch-drunk Parramatta in disarray.
It was Reynolds’ clever grubber that put Jordan Riki over for an 18-4 lead in the 24th minute and when Mam hit a flying Kurt Capewell with a precision pass, the Broncos were hitting top gear at 24-4.
Finally, the Broncos possess the halves to be a finals threat. Reynolds and Mam outplayed Eels rivals Mitchell Moses and Dylan Brown and have given Brisbane’s scrumbase the right blend of game management, experience, speed and game-busting brilliance.
PLEASURE OF PAYNE
Even when he is partly injured, Payne Haas is scary enough. When fully fit, the 118kg monster is virtually unstoppable.
After missing Brisbane’s past two games with dual shoulder injuries, Haas made a barnstorming return against Parramatta, tormenting the Eels with his workrate and rampaging charges in midfield.
He was at his zenith in the 20th minute. Taking a clever offload from Pat Carrigan, Haas exploded from a standing start, storming past NSW teammate Junior Paulo and Clint Gutherson in a brutally beautiful piece of solo magic that sounded alarm bells for a CommBank ambush.
Haas finished with 216 metres and was well supported by workhorse partner-in-crime Carrigan, who has gone to another level since his remarkable debut Origin campaign.
THE RE-EEL DEAL
This comprehensive hatchet job on the Eels has put Brisbane’s finals opponents on notice.
It’s been 16 long years since the Broncos won the premiership but with Reynolds in supreme form, driving an energetic Brisbane unit defending like demons, they will be a serious threat in the playoffs.
Walters pledged to bring unity to Red Hill. The ‘Kev-olution’ can sniff a seventh premiership.
Smart shopping: Top five buys of the year
-Robert Craddock
1. Adam Reynolds (Broncos)
It’s the conversations we never see that have Adam Reynolds surging to the top of the “best buy’’ lists.
It’s not just Reynolds’ calm demeanour and playmaking skills that have made a difference to the Broncos. It’s his contributions to game plans as well.
A renowned league “nuffy’’, he watches as many games as he can with an analytical eye which will surely one day make him an NRL coach.
Reynolds provides key information to the Broncos’ game plan each week. What he asks for he generally gets. He knows how to pick teams apart.
Earlier this season he noted a statistic that his old club Souths were having more handling problems than any other side in the competition.
So he then piloted a game plan which had Brisbane rushing up in defence to put extra pressure on those handling skills. It worked.
Allan Langer told New Corp, Reynolds is the Broncos’ best recruit and he also heads our list of the NRL’s top five buys of the season.
2. Chad Townsend (Cowboys)
Calmness, precision, poise … all the qualities Reynolds has injected into the Broncos, Townsend has instilled in the Cowboys.
He is the powerful voice they have missed since Johnathan Thurston retired and few saw it coming given his form had stagnated at the Sharks and he failed to stand out during a late shift to the Warriors last year. A recent game when he was mic’d up for Fox Sports showed how sharp and charismatic he is on the field and only Mitchell Moses has more try assists this year.
3. Dale Finucane (Sharks)
No wonder half of the competition were chasing the signature of the respected 30-year-old, who was brought into NSW’s extended squad for the final State of Origin match on the back of consistent club form for the Sharks.
Recruited from the Storm as much for the professional example he would set as his on-field deeds, the Sharks have become the embodiment of the man — solid, consistent, hardworking and highly competitive.
4. Nicho Hynes (Sharks)
Players recruited from the Storm have a mysterious habit of promising the world and delivering an atlas but Hynes and Finucane have bucked this trend.
Surprisingly to some, he has emerged as a confident leader — on the park, at training and in team meetings — in his new position at halfback, where he has been a major creative force.
Has a natural gift for putting players into space as evident by the fact he has more line break assists than anyone in the competition.
5. Kurt Capewell (Broncos)
His name does not dominate the stats columns but his quiet confidence, committed professionalism and balanced approach to life has helped Reynolds bring a calm assurance to the club.
Has set standards off the field in all sorts of areas such as time with fans and commitment to clubs functions, taught players to know their role and his ability to have a laugh away from the game has also lightened the mood.
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