The Broncos defied expectations — in all the wrong ways — in 2020, running aground to ‘win’ the wooden-spoon: here’s what went so wrong behind the scenes as the once-proud Brisbane giants tumbled to a last-place finish last year.
New Tigers recruit Joe Ofahengaue has lifted the lid on his “disastrous” last season with the Broncos.
By all accounts, it wasn’t pretty. At all.
Last year saw Brisbane scrape to a sixteenth place finish in the NRL.
It was just the third time in the club’s 33-year history they had missed a spot in the finals, and the very first time the Broncos had finished dead last on the bottom rung of the season ladder. In the end, they won just three games, and only one after the COVID-19 stoppage.
2020 was the worst season in Brisbane history, and there’s “no sugar coating it.”
“Yeah it got bad… things got really bad,” Ofahengaue told FoxSports.
The problem, the new Tigers prop explained, was two-fold. One was the more public excuse that has been trotted out time and again; Anthony Seibold just wasn’t the right fit for the northern giants.
“We just weren’t winning, you know?” he said.
“And when you’re losing your players lose belief in your coach, it’s hard to get the team to click because everyone’s minds are in different places. You know, some boys maybe believed in the coach. Some boys didn’t, that’s what the Broncos were last year.
“At stages, and I’m not going to badmouth Seibs. I think he was a great guy, but I think his coaching strategies were nowhere near what we needed last year.”
That issue blossomed when Seibold tried to implement too much strategy for the players.
The under-fire coach apparently had an “NFL-style playbook,” with every 10 meters of the footy field dolled out a plan. In theory, the move should have taken a weight off the young Broncos out on the paddock during matchday.
In practice, it got them all twisted up as they tried to dance out Seibold’s dance.
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“Sometimes we were just too structured and sometimes some players would get the shits and say we don’t want to run that play, or they just didn’t get a match-style of footy,” Ofahengaue admitted.
All Seibold’s set plays and pre-game strategies proved too much for the young Broncos.
The real dagger to the heart, however, was a loss of belief.
The Broncos roster was filled to the brim with young stars in 2020. There were a few older heads, like Darius Boyd, but they were far beyond their prime, and on their way out the door.
Then, when the poor results started rolling in, belief dipped. Players began questioning themselves. Some turned on Seibold, and his NFL-style precision. Others couldn’t cope with the tidal wave of media attention that swamped the club last year.
“You know, we lost belief in our processes, belief in each other our beliefs, and our teammates, and belief in our coach,” said Ofahengaue.
“Us players as well, we were at fault as well, because we weren’t honest [with Seibold] sometimes. He’d say we need to do this? And as players, we just agreed. And, when you’re losing, you lose belief.
“All in one, bro, no one believed us. And that’s showed. That’s not the Broncos spirit.”
The Broncos finished in last place for the first time in 33 long years.
The “disastrous” 2020 season is now behind the Broncos, however, and 2021 is on the horizon.
Ofahengaue won’t be with them — he’s thrown his lot in with the Tigers heading into the new year — but the core of the wooden spoon team is still at Redhill.
This year, however, Kevin Walters is set to lead them.
There’s plenty of question marks around the young Broncos outfit, and whether they can change their fortunes as they look to avoid back-to-back spoons. One thing is for certain though; they can’t go much worse than they did in their 2020 campaign.
The Broncos start the 2021 season against the Eels at 8pm next Friday.
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