2016 Brisbane Broncos Resurrection Thread

No Worries wrote:Stopped reading after you missed the point.

Broncos have the 4th amount of juniors playing in the 2016 NRL competition (but not for them)
Tigers have the 2nd, only bettered by a team which has an entire country at their offering.

Again you admit you missed out on some of the best players in history because of a salary cap, but have stated you prefer to spend said cap on fed not bred ?????

That really is amazing if correct. Where did you get the numbers?
As for the quality arguement from Mearcats I'd say that making the NRL means you're quality.

Apparently Opacic has had 2 shoulder surgeries and is out for 5 months which explains the Bunji signing

Krump wrote:
That really is amazing if correct. Where did you get the numbers?
As for the quality arguement from Mearcats I'd say that making the NRL means you're quality.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/teams/which-club-has-gotten-the-best-players-from-their-under-20s-teams/news-story/8d98380ce982d737b2524eb02e503111

No Worries wrote:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/teams/which-club-has-gotten-the-best-players-from-their-under-20s-teams/news-story/8d98380ce982d737b2524eb02e503111

Interesting but it's 20's not juniors. Easy to tell by the fact the Rorters weren't last on the list

No Worries wrote:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/teams/which-club-has-gotten-the-best-players-from-their-under-20s-teams/news-story/8d98380ce982d737b2524eb02e503111

There are stats, and there are stats. For example by only counting numbers you are giving equal credit for say Shaun Johnson and Drury Low. You are also counting guys who have played 1 game of first grade, and possibly only got picked because they play for a shit club or were only called in due to origin to someone who might end up a 300 gamer.

Perhaps the reason the Tigers are so high in the list is that some of their players got first grade games not necessarily because they produced a good player, but because the club has a high injury toll, or chooses to play U20 players instead incumbent origin halfbacks. A better measure is probably the number of players in their first grade squad who debuted at the club.

filthridden wrote:

I've never understood this "entire country to choose from" about the Warriors.
Nothing does or has stopped scouts from Australian clubs checking out the young talent in NZ and signing them up.

I imagine a number of young kiwi lads would jump at the chance to go and play for one of the Aussie clubs.
Ask a junior Aussie league player if he wants to go and play for the Warriors to start his career? Not fucking likely.

It's a lot like "the Broncos have the whole of Queensland to choose from", and is really frustration with their own club not having a a good enough scout network to find players not in their own lap. I don't see supporters of teams like the Bulldogs saying it, because they recruit well from QLD, England and NZ. If your club isn't professional enough to have a contact, or arrange a meeting with someone who might be a 3 hour flight away, I'm not surprised those players don't want to play for you.

On the news on the radio this morning they said Marshall's manager said the contract will be signed in the next few days and he will be going to the Broncos on a 1 year deal.

Speculation is that it's a cut price deal. Given he turned down $300K with the Dragons for a higher offer, that either means:
1. It's not really a cut price deal
2. After the Dragons withdrew their offer there were no other offers so he had to take less (bit like someone who turns down a $400K offer on their house, only to go to auction and find the highest bid is $350K and the original offerer has moved on)
3. He thinks he can make up the salary difference with extra 3rd party deals in QLD
4. He lied about the $300K Dragons offer.
5. There is some post career incentive to play with the Broncos (eg coaching)

Personally, I'd be happy if we got him for $150K - $175K. I expect him to play QCup for most of the year, but I reckon it's good insurance to have a 3rd half who can play to cover injury. I'm not expecting him to be 2005 - 2010 Benji, but the experience would be great. At times in the last 2 years he's looked really good, and at times he's looked really bad.

I take the view that if he is picked in the halves it's because Milf or Hunt are unavailable, and in that case I'm not really comfortable that we're going to win anyway. We just don't seem to play as well as other teams do with makeshift players in key positions. With one of those halves + Boyd + Marshall, I feel comfortable that we're a reasonable chance of winning.

Paper down here he says he had a heart to heart with Bennett that he wasn't ready to retire, wants to play 2-3 more years. Same manager said It's a 1 year deal but they are hoping for a 2nd year option. And the paper quoted minimum contract $100K

No Worries wrote:Paper down here he says he had a heart to heart with Bennett that he wasn't ready to retire, wants to play 2-3 more years. Same manager said It's a 1 year deal but they are hoping for a 2nd year option. And the paper quoted minimum contract $100K

Bargain IMO. If he plays well enough in the first season there's no reason why he shouldn't get a second option, or attract some interest from other clubs.

For a guy who's really quiet, Bennett seems to have a soft spot for the loud outgoing type (Benji, Big Dell, Alfie etc).

Dip wrote:

No Worries wrote:Paper down here he says he had a heart to heart with Bennett that he wasn't ready to retire, wants to play 2-3 more years. Same manager said It's a 1 year deal but they are hoping for a 2nd year option. And the paper quoted minimum contract $100K

Bargain IMO. If he plays well enough in the first season there's no reason why he shouldn't get a second option, or attract some interest from other clubs.

For a guy who's really quiet, Bennett seems to have a soft spot for the loud outgoing type (Benji, Big Dell, Alfie etc).

Boyd...

[quote="Mearcats"]

Lol, everyone else didnt have him grow up in their back yard tho. The dogs sure as fuck didnt, and decided to take a punt on him.

You cant predict how good a player will become.
But these 3 blokes, Cronk, Smith and Thurston - all legends of the game - were either in the system or close enough to it and were let go or were not identified as talented enough to play FG for the bronco's.

You want to talk about the quality of your juniors playing for your club now, what about the quality of juniors that Bennett didnt identify as good enough for him. Those three alone should be enough to keep him or his talent scouts up at night.
I mean, the south QLD crushers had JT on their books but the Bronco's didnt??!! wow.

Two future immortals and one bloke who is prob in the top 5 halfbacks to ever play the game.

Thats what the salary cap is for? No its not. Let go of the established player and bring the young talented bloke in. Thats the other option. They took the safe option instead of the punt on the talented junior. Massive, massive fuck up.

No Worries wrote:Paper down here he says he had a heart to heart with Bennett that he wasn't ready to retire, wants to play 2-3 more years. Same manager said It's a 1 year deal but they are hoping for a 2nd year option. And the paper quoted minimum contract $100K

It was pretty obvious that he didnt want to retire when he repeatedly said through the year that he wanted to play for 2-3 more years and rejected that deal from the Dragons. (if reports are true)

It wouldnt shock me if its a 100k deal, but there would definitely be some TPA's around to bump him up to the 300k or so mark. Kids still fucking love him. Businesses still love him. He's a good guy and a very likeable personality now. I love his input on 360. I hope ennis takes over from Ikin tho, hes deadset great.

I can see this being a 1 year deal, he doesnt get much of a run, then he is gone next year. if its really 100k on the cap, not much harm done I guess, but that 100k and roster spot could see the loss of the next cam smith or cooper cronk.

Time will tell.

Its such a weird move lol. He wants to prove he still has gas in the tank, but he 1. wont get a gig playing 6 2. wont be playing 7 3. will be lucky if he is on the bench most weeks.
Bennett has a history of moves like this tho, remember he brought Craig Gower to Newcastle and he actually went OK.

Pieman wrote:

JT was on the Crusher's books? You sure? Crushers dissolved when JT was 14. A scholarship maybe, but there are lots of guys with football scholarships.

Still, even if it's true just because you don't sign them doesn't mean they've been bad. We had 8 of the 17 QLD under 18 team this season, so scouting is going okay (probably better then when Cyril Connell retired in the 2000's. Every club is also at every major junior carnival, so the Broncos not getting these guys isn't much different to any other club missing out on them. Sure, they might have a preference to the team in the city they live, but plenty of players are willing to move for better opportunity or better money. Even if JT was contracted to the Crushers back in 1997, I can see why he might not want to be in line in a team behind Allan Langer, Kev Walters and Darren Lockyer in the halves.

wiki tells me that when he was 12 he had a scholarship from the SQ Crushers.
That means, that even at that young age, the Crushers had identified he had some potential and talent and the bronco's didnt.

Pieman wrote:wiki tells me that when he was 12 he had a scholarship from the SQ Crushers.
That means, that even at that young age, the Crushers had identified he had some potential and talent and the bronco's didnt.

If your recall there were lots of doubts surrounding Thurston early on especially surrounding his size.

of course, and his off field issues which was rumoured to be one of the reasons he was let go from the Dogs. Remember the whole alleged gang rape case, It was suggested that JT played a huge role in that.

There were also doubts about alan langer and his size, you would think that the club that he played at throughout his career wouldnt care about a bloke's size and would still give a guy a crack.

Pieman wrote:

Yeah mate, I'd agree it was a huge fuck up on our behalf, especially considering, as you said, we had them in our backyard and had every opportunity to be looking at them. My reference to the salary cap was more in regards to when they debuted, which was I think 2002. Now without bothering to google (I can't anyways, it's blocked in China) what our roster was in 2002, I'd say that Lockyer was there with Prince, Webb, Tate, Tallis, Tuqiri, Webcke and I think Langer was still running around at that point.

With that in mind, how do you sign a half? I can bet you're bottom and mine that we'd love to have kept Elgey and Ash Taylor (who we did have as juniors) as well but it's almost impossible to do when they are ready for FG and you don't have a spot on the roster for them. You can't stop a guy from talking to other clubs when they come knocking and you can't begrudge a kid walking into a starting FG spot. 

Where we really went wrong with the three earlier mentioned is that, IIRC, we didn't even have them under contract at the Broncs. Oversight? Maybe but I don't think so. Just plain stupidity more like it. But I guess that's the advantage of hindsight.

Krump wrote:
That really is amazing if correct. Where did you get the numbers?
As for the quality arguement from Mearcats I'd say that making the NRL means you're quality.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that at all @Krump. I would almost go as far to say that for every "average" guy who gets an NRL debut there would be four better than him that never get a look in. 

Sure, it's easy for me to be an armchair critic and say things like "player x is shit and should never have gotten a debut" or player y should have gotten picked before that guy without knowing all the ins and outs of it but I'm pretty confident in saying that just cos you get an NRL debut, doesn't make you quality.

Pieman wrote:wiki tells me that when he was 12 he had a scholarship from the SQ Crushers.
That means, that even at that young age, the Crushers had identified he had some potential and talent and the bronco's didnt.

That's a big assumption to make. I thought the rules on NRL scholarships meant you could only get them from 1 club, and they had to be non-binding. So all that means is that Crusher's offered him the biggest scholarship.

Wiki also says that no clubs were willing to sign him as an 18 year old unless it was a no fee contract, and even then only 2 clubs were prepared to do that, so it seems no-one was interested in him.