Brisbane boss Michael Maguire has pulled up the drawbridge and set men on the gates at Red Hill, switching reigning premiers the Broncos into siege mode after several headline dramas in a row, culminating in assistant coach Ben Te’o’s sensational exit during the week.
Incredibly, the star-studded Broncos have been lashed pillar to post in the media nearly constantly since the start of the season, despite winning the whole thing just last season in spectacular fashion.
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And things hit fever pitch after Round 3 — again, despite the Broncos knocking off the red-hot Storm down in Melbourne — and Maguire seems to have had enough. When asked by one journalist if “something was wrong” at Red Hill, he cracked back. “It’s been a busy week,” he cagily admitted Thursday. “Obviously, things, I guess, you don’t expect to happen.”
Beyond that, Maguire avoided getting sucked into the drama, with several league journalists poking him throughout the media session until he eventually gave something up. “You’ve got to deal through [the drama], and you’ve got to remember you’re dealing with people. That’s the important part here, and, obviously, we’ve got to move forward because we’ve got a big game.”
Siege mentality activated, Maguire again answered questions about Te’o’s shock exit and how his relationship with Gordon Tallis has collapsed with responses about the game. “I’ll talk a lot about how important this game is because I felt our second half against Melbourne was the team that I know.
“I think the team that everyone’s talking about and the reasons why we have these conversations is that they’re able to get out and play to where we know they can, and so it was really nice to see the boys in that space.
And, he added, “We’ve got to back it up now.”
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There was one moment that “Madge” let down his warrior’s guard, though, pointing out that they’d accepted Te’o’s resignation with no issues and “now we’ve taken that. And that’s all I’m going to talk about.”
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“I take advice from many people,” Maguire added, again responding in a roundabout way. “I actually really enjoy taking advice. I probably do less coaching now than I ever have, to be honest. As a young coach, you’re fairly full on… people have spoken about that over my journey as a coach, but through the journey where I’m at at the moment, I enjoy bringing staff on and people on.
“So at this present moment, we’ve got to move through into what we face tomorrow night.”
