May 2025

It's pants wetting time

Welcome to Pony Picayune, a monthly newsletter about the Brisbane Broncos.

We’ve accumulated enough evidence, from the end of Bennett’s second tenure to now, that the Brisbane Broncos aren’t good. We’ve churned through Seibold, Walters and now Maguire. We’ve toppled Paul White and raised the flag of Dave Donaghy, with an associated purge. The assistants are different. The players and the results are the same. There are enough different kinds of embarrassing losses that the performance against Manly was more familiar than repulsive.

The core problems seem to be that the players aren’t particularly good, most of the time, and aren’t very resilient. Traditionally, sporting organisations replace players that lack qualities they need to win. The Broncos have not done that, preferring to stick by their guys. They’ve tried replacing the coach, with each replacement bringing a different philosophy. Strangely, the vibes of Kevin Walters was the only one to show any return on investment.

But here's a thing you don't want to be talking yourself into doing just as two new teams join the league in the next three years, after the league expanded two years ago: a rebuild. Putting yourself on the market to compete with the Bears, the PNG team and whatever other dreck ends up at the bottom of the table (Knights, Titans, potentially others) is not a recipe for medium-term success.

That's not to say that there isn't room for churning of the last half dozen rostered guys for other replacement level talents or a rebalancing of the salary to proven capability ratio but to think you can dump most of the starting 17 onto the market and sign up better replacements is fanciful.

The replacements, even in the middle tier, aren't there for anything less than a king’s ransom. The good ones have already used the coming market desperation to get themselves dollars and security of tenure. Keano Kini and Dylan Brown, good but not great players who are currently resetting what platinum tier players are going to expect, are proof enough of that. If everyone plays in front of good crowds now and has good facilities, what exactly is the Broncos’ differentiation? Or is this just the moment before we accept the Broncos are more like the Knights and Titans than anyone would care to admit?

What's particularly problematic is that there aren't a lot of capable young men surging through the ranks to paper over the cracks. Most of the prospects that should be hitting their prime and commanding the cap now were lost during the Seibold years - think Max Plath, Sam Walker, Tom Dearden and the Va’a brothers - or haven't panned out - see Tanah Boyd and possibly the Va’as again. The surplus of just about first grade talent that could be relied on for four weeks’ work from Queensland Cup all have top 30 contracts now, mostly at Souths and the Phins. The farm is bare and it's not looking like raining any time soon. It shouldn’t really be this hard.

Sometimes simple outcomes, e.g. footy team lose games, has complicated foundations:

1. Roster needs churn and re-balancing

2. Coach not up to it

3. CEO who hired the coach has never hired a coach before

4. Pathways have been on autopilot and selecting for the wrong traits

On the last, there are people out of the spotlight, between the CEO, coach and playing group, whose job it is to fix these problems. There’s a lot of work to be done, which in this context means processing a lot of information and making some good decisions. That hasn’t been the strong suit of this organisation, possibly ever, but the NRL is more competitive than ever. The tide is heading out and the swimmers we used to wear floated away a long time ago.

It is a results-driven business.

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