Robert Craddock: Was Anthony Seibold really the problem at Brisbane Broncos?

“It’s you not us’’ was the cry when Anthony Seibold was effectively shown the door in Brisbane. Maybe, ROBERT CRADDOCK writes, it was the Broncos all along.

Maybe Anthony Seibold can coach after all ...

Maybe in that sorrowful winter of 2020 when the Broncos took the wooden spoon and the coach exited amid an overwhelming chorus of “it’s him, not us’’, things were not quite what they seemed.

Maybe it was a bit more about “us’’ than what it seemed.

Maybe it’s time to conclude that unless your name is Wayne Bennett you are going to struggle big time coaching the Broncos, with all of its unique pressures. The current Broncos coaching scorecard reads Bennett six titles from 24 seasons, everyone else zero from 12.

Seibold has become a fascinating case study as a coach.

Back in 2018 Seibold was judged Dally M Coach of the Year when he took Souths to the preliminary final in his first year of senior coaching.

This season he has won his first final with his new club Manly, a spirited effort against the Bulldogs.

Anthony Seibold celebrates Manly’s win over Canterbury. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

It would shock if the Sea Eagles pushed past Penrith and the Melbourne Storm to win the title but it’s a solid effort nonetheless.

Between the Souths and Manly stints, sitting like a steaming cow pat between two rose bushes, is his 2020 season at the Broncos.

Seibold left Brisbane by mutual consent less than two years into a five-year deal towards the end of the worst season in the club’s history when the Broncos won only three matches and were absolutely dreadful (after he had guided them into the finals the season before).

The disconnect between Seibold and some of his players in that Covid-ravaged era was palpable.

Former Broncos coach Anthony Seibold before he and the club parted ways. Picture: AAP Image/Darren England

An abiding memory of a Broncos training session was Seibold talking to a forward who was on the ground and got up and walked away without even listening to what the coach was trying to tell him.

There were Brisbane players who felt he would never coach another NRL club and would freely tell you that Seibold’s white board theories just floated over the heads of blue collar rugby league players.

The Courier-Mail columnist Mike Colman even did a column taking the rise out of Seibold for using catch phrases such as “peakless mountains”.

He never used those words again.

But, to his credit, Seibold doubled down, ate humble pie and worked as an assistant to Newcastle coach Adam O’Brien and England rugby coach Eddie Jones.

He has returned to the NRL a wiser man and a seemingly better coach – or is he the same coach he always was and is it just that coaching Broncos is different gravy, as they say?

People may say Manly, like Souths, are guided by some experienced generals which the Broncos side lacked and that’s why he is back where he was in 2018.

But Seibold’s efforts before and after Brisbane have only served to underline the fact that Brisbane is a job like no other and suited to very few. Late in his Brisbane tenure Seibold told a friend “the one thing that really hit me hard was just how big the job was – I thought because I had coached a big Sydney club that Broncos’ job would not be bigger. Trust me, it was.”

In a way, Seibold’s progress this season has reminded the Broncos board that it’s one thing to think about sacking Kevin Walters but it’s quite another to find a suitable replacement.

Originally published as Robert Craddock: Was Anthony Seibold really the problem at Brisbane Broncos?