The Brisbane Broncos suffered through an NRL season from hell in 2020. Will things be any better under new coach Kevin Walters in 2021?
2020 Wrap
The 2020 NRL season couldn’t have gone any worse for the Brisbane Broncos, so we will keep this brief.
Anthony Seibold kicked off 2020 in much of the same way he did 2019. That’s where it started to go wrong for the Broncos last season. The head coach, handed a team stacked with natural talent, stuck to his original plan of forcing specific and restricted game plans on an ad-lib playing group. Those tasked with playing out Seibold’s specific game model didn’t buy-in. It showed in Brisbane’s defence more than anything else.
The Broncos conceded an NRL-high 31.2 points per game in 2020. It’s any wonder how they managed to win three games to keep the wooden spoon at arm’s length for so long.
“It is probably the most resilient we have been defensively.”
— Jason Oliver (@JasonNRL) August 7, 2020
🗣 Anthony Seibold
I saw the game a lot differently to Seibold last night…pic.twitter.com/qYE7SeZ6QV
One number highlights Brisbane’s struggles in attack better than any other: 0.
That’s the number of times the once prolific try-scorer Corey Oates scored with the #2 on his back. It’s a mind-boggling number to consider after Oates averaged 15.8 tries a year throughout the five seasons prior.
The Broncos were awful on both sides of the ball in 2020. But that’s enough of that. Onwards and upwards.
Predicted Profile
What will the Brisbane Broncos look like and how will they play? We take a stab at profiling their playing style ahead of Round 1.
Give them the ball and let them play. That seems to be the approach Kevin Walters is taking to start the season as he looks to employ his 90s-style flair.
Eyes-up footy, playing what’s in front of him, unstructured football. All the cliches will be coming out if Walters can inspire a big improvement on Brisbane’s 13.4 points per game. After all, like Seibold did before him, Walters has a capable playing group at his disposal.
Anthony Milford is one player that should be thriving under the new rules. Tiring defenders and stretched defensive lines are ripe for the picking if Milford is given the license. It may look unstructured when the 26-year-old breaks the line, but the Broncos need to manufacture sets that regularly create those opportunities.
That’s where the questions come in for a side playing under a new coach.Will those sets come through the organisation of Tom Dearden or Brodie Croft? Walters doesn’t even seem to know yet.
Will Matt Lodge, Thomas Flegler and Payne Haas be tasked with little more than trucking the ball up and piling up metres? Or does the ball-playing of Pat Carrigan and John Asiata come into play this year?
Pangai Jr looked like one of Brisbane’s more likely attacking weapons last season. Where on the field will he receive the ball? Can he stay on the field long enough to play himself into consistent form? The prospect of him playing in a destructive lock role is encouraging.
Jordan Riki looks to be an excellent talent. He’s not David Fifita, but can he lock down a spot on the edge and keep up with the demands of regular first-grade football all season?
It’s difficult to predict how a team playing under a new coach will structure their attack. Especially a coach taking over the worst attack in the NRL that will more than likely adopt some old-school principles. Whatever the answers to the questions, the Broncos have the personnel to be a real threat with the ball this season.
2021 NRL Notepad
Jason Oliver cracks open his notepad to find a key player, style or stat to keep an eye on this season.
Tom Dearden
He’s only 19-years old and with just 17 games of NRL experience to his name, but Tom Dearden needs to be at the forefront of Brisbane’s rebuild.
The Broncos are crying out for a quality #7 to pair with Milford in the halves. Brodie Croft had his chance throughout 2020 and did nothing to warrant his selection for Round 1 this season. Still, Walters has opted for experience by naming Croft as his halfback to kick off the year.
It’s a baffling decision. Not only because Dearden has played the better football over the last 12 months, but because he is in negotiations with the club over an extension. However, his absence to start the season is unlikely to define Dearden’s 2021. It shouldn’t be long before he’s afforded another opportunity to stake his claim on the #7 jersey for the long term.
Croft has been labelled as a Cooper Cronk clone, but the similarities don’t go far past their looks. The 23-year-old is limited in what he can add to the side. He’s a strong runner of the ball, but rarely passes his teammates into promising positions. To finish up the 2019 season with the Storm having played 22 games but only registering five try assists is a worry. His apparent organisational skills were absent last season too.
Dearden, meanwhile, has shown signs of quality in multiple facets of the game.
He formed a nice partnership with Fifita in limited opportunities. Dearden picked the right pass to isolate Fifita onto the opposition half in both of these tries. It’s an action you can see him repeating with Jordan Riki if he’s given the chance.
Dearden went on to record two try assists in Brisbane’s final game of 2020. The first highlights what is already a very effective kicking game.
He displays poise in assessing the situation and decent footwork to sneak through the line before releasing the pass to Oates in the corner for his second.
Walters is playing with fire by leaving Dearden out of the side to start the season. He’s not a player the Broncos can afford to lose, and if the youngster doesn’t see a future in first-grade in Brisbane, the Cowboys are rumoured to be interested.
Get him in the side, Kevvy.
21 Things for 2021: Broncos Bouncing Back
“Heads In” 2021
Oscar Pannifex unpacks a scrum of three key questions ahead of the 2021 NRL season.
Centre-Field Scrum – What’s centre-frame in the Rugby League lens this season?
A new coach brings new optimism to any struggling fan-base, and Kevin Walters’ appointment as Brisbane’s head coach for 2021 onwards has done just that. But just as ridiculous as it is to blame the Broncos’ demise solely on exiled coach Anthony Seibold, so too is it ridiculous to expect things will turn right back around to the way things were three years ago when Brisbane were considered an NRL powerhouse.
The Broncos were worse than poor in 2020, and it would take an outrageous swing of form to see them challenge for the finals this year. Their forward pack is still reeling from an exodus of experience in recent seasons, and as Jase covered above, their spine is one of the least settled in the competition.
How Walters fits Tom Dearden, Brodie Croft and Anthony Milford into two halves positions will be the story of the season.
At 19 years of age, Dearden is widely regarded as the future in Brisbane and an announcement last week that he wants to stay at the Broncos is promising for the club moving forward. He showed some promising touches in his debut season, but it wouldn’t be fair to judge any playmaker on the performances of the Broncos in 2020.
Croft was grossly scrutinised last season as he struggled to take the reins in Brisbane and his form suffered as a result. Croft is a decent first-grader, and while he mightn’t be the on-field general Brisbane publicly declared he was signed as, he can still play a role in this Broncos team.
How Dearden or Croft perform is entirely irrelevant, however, if Walters can’t help Anthony Milford find his consistent best in 2021.
The fact that Milford’s ceiling is so high works against his favour at times, but even he will admit his best form has been missing for a few years now. We saw glimpses of his elite footwork and play-making abilities last season, but moments like this against the Sharks in Round 12 were too few and far between.
Running the ball on the last tackle, Milford makes poor Aaron Woods look like he’s treading water with a beautiful in-and-away before straightening to compress the defence and passing out the back to Darius Boyd. Some quick hands from Boyd sees Richie Kenner stroll over in the corner.
Few five-eighths in the comp make this look as good as Milford. He’s a dangerous runner of the ball and can ball-play with the best of them. Importantly here, he had good support from Rhys Kennedy on his inside while Tevita Pangai Jnr and Herbie Farnworth ran convincing lead lines outside him.
There’s no reason Milford can’t be doing this week-in, week-out. Taking the ball to the line, dropping a decoy under and throwing out the back is chalk-and-cheese work for an NRL half – it just looked so slick because ‘Milf’ did it at such pace. If the support runners around him do their jobs, Milford can get himself right back up into the top-tier halves conversation in 2021.
Right Scrum-Line – Who is feeling the pressure this season?
There’s been so little chat about Jake Turpin over the offseason that it might seem strange to suggest the pressure’s on in 2021, but here we are. With Walters, Croft and Milford commanding much of the media spotlight during preseason, Turpins’ role in this Broncos team is being seriously underappreciated.
Discounting Round 14 when he was injured and therefore only played limited minutes, the Broncos averaged 18.4 points per game when Turpin played hooker last year.
Without him, they averaged just 11.7 points per game.
Turpin is a crafty attacking dummy-half and one the Broncos need on the park in 2021 if they are to improve on what was the worst attack in the NRL last season. His running threat holds up markers and allows his forwards to come onto the ball at speed, but it’s his ability to create space for his playmakers that Brisbane – and Milford in particular – missed most in 2020.
In Round 12 when Rhys Kennedy earnt a quick play-the-ball and left Blayke Brailey on the ground and out of play, Turpin sniffed an opportunity down the short side. He darts left to drag the lone marker infield before passing back across the ruck to Tom Dearden on the right edge and in space. Braydon Trindall jams on Dearden and the Broncos would have been in if Dearden had passed to Kotoni Staggs charging off his hip.
Turpin’s ability to create half-chances for the players around him was sorely missed in 2020. Without a recognised hooker on the roster again this season, it’s essential Turpin stays on the field longer in 2021. If he does, the Broncos should get a few more cracks at turning those half-chances into full ones.
Left Scrum-Line – My left-field thought for the season
He might have lost some fans with a myriad of off-field dramas last season, but 2021 shapes as a big year on the field for Broncos’ enforcer Tevita Pangai Jr.
A poor two years in Brisbane marked drops in form for a number of their players, and Pangai Jr was no exception. Although his yardage game was consistently strong, the firebrand forward’s discipline has come under scrutiny in recent seasons – and there is some weight to this.
Pangai Jr’s missed tackle count has increased from an average of 1.4 per game in his first three seasons to 3.2 per game in the last two years under Seibold. There is always more to numbers like this than just on face value, but pair these defensive lapses with a few-too-many suspensions and suddenly discipline appears to be more of an issue for Pangai Jr.
Not an issue that can’t be addressed, however.
It’s easy to forget that Pangai Jr was on the cusp of Origin selection just a few years ago. At 25 years of age, he is entering his prime as a forward, and if Walters can bring the best out of him, Pangai Jr shapes as the perfect rebound for a heartbroken Broncos fan-base still mourning the departure of teen sensation David Fifita. This effort against the Bulldogs back in Round 9 sums up how damaging Pangai Jr can be.
Brisbane shift two passes wide on fourth tackle to Pangai Jr, presumably for a settling hit-up. But Pangai Jr has other ideas. He squares up Josh Jackson before skipping off his right foot and keeping him at bay with a strong fend. Brandon Wakeham is deep in the line and doesn’t want a bar of it, and all of a sudden, Pangai Jr has skipped across two defenders to engage Reimis Smith at centre.
Smith makes good first-contact but with Wakeham and Christian Crichton passengers in the tackle, Pangai Jr finds an offload before he’s taken over the touchline and Jamayne Isaako scores the easiest try of his career.
It was messy. It was unconventional. It was also difficult to defend.
No one is asking for a repeat of this every week. If Pangai Jr can find a consistent role in this Broncos team, we are sure to see displays of freakish natural talent like this from time to time. The challenge for Pangai Jr in 2021 is to consistently produce ‘the little things’ week-to-week and stay in the team – and on the field – long enough to give himself a chance at those big moments.
Peak, Pass, Pit
Oscar and Jason give their predicted peak for the Broncos in 2021 along with a pass mark and worst-case scenario.
Peak
10th-11th: After a horrible 2020 campaign that eventuated in the club’s first ever wooden spoon, the Broncos face an uphill battle in 2021 to drag themselves up off the bottom of the NRL ladder. There is some upside though. Players like Milford, Isaako and Pangai Jnr were far from their best, while the likes of Payne Haas and Kotoni Staggs are regarded as some of the best in their respective positions. Finals may be out of reach, but if Walters can get his squad firing then climbing out of the bottom four is a realistic possibility for the Broncos in 2021. ~OP
Top 8: I’d feel better about the Broncos sneaking into the finals if Tom Dearden had been named to start in the halves for Round 1. Still, I don’t think he will be far away.
Putting ‘Broncos’ and ‘Top 8’ in the same sentence feels foolish. It probably is, really. But there is a feeling about their attack that I can’t shake. Milford, Pangai Jr, Riki, Isaako, Turpin, Staggs – that list screams points. Defence is likely to remain an issue. The Sharks gave poor defences confidence in making the finals last year, though. ~JO
Pass
12th: A slight improvement on their last place effort in 2020 must be the pass mark for the Broncos in 2021. Even still, it’s going to take more than a new coach to turn Brisbane’s fortunes around. If Milford or Turpin go down for extended periods then Brisbane will seriously struggle to find points this season. Likewise, if Payne Haas misses too many games their already depleted forward pack will be seriously lacking. ~OP
11th-13th: It’s unlikely that Kevin Walters is in Brisbane’s long-term plans. He’s at the club to rebuild the culture and get it trending in the right way. An improvement in defence and enough wins to lift them from 16th to around 12th is a good place to start. This group really shouldn’t be in the wooden spoon conversation by the time Round 8 rolls around. ~JO
Pit
Wooden Spoon: The threat of back-to-back wooden spoons is a real one for the Broncos in 2021. The Bulldogs (15th in 2020) and Cowboys (14th) have recruited well and are expected to be improvers this season, while this Broncos squad is virtually the same as last year on paper minus David Fifita and 337-gamer Darius Boyd. Walters will undoubtedly have his influence off the field, but his tactical coaching credentials are still unproven and the Broncos were crying out for direction on the field in 2020. ~OP
Wooden Spoon: The Broncos shouldn’t be talked about as spooners, but they could be. We know better than to assume anything in this game – the 2020 Broncos are the latest example of that. We also can’t assume a new coach that players like translates into wins. They’ve lost talent, but plenty remains. If they can’t get it all on the same page, the a second-consecutive spoon can’t be ruled out. ~JO
*All stats and video from NRL.com unless stated otherwise