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Message: [QUOTE="GCBRONCO, post: 2665836, member: 1808"] [url]http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/nrl/wayne-bennett-threat-pushed-broncos-winger-lachlan-maranta-to-prove-be-belongs-at-brisbane/story-fniabm4i-1227288344229[/url] BRISBANE winger Lachlan Maranta has credited the perform or perish threat from coach Wayne Bennett as the push he needed to prove he belongs at the Broncos. Maranta has known Bennett ever since he was a young boy playing on the floor of his coaching office where his mum worked as a secretary, but there have been no family favours as he fights for his future at Red Hill. A forthright Bennett told the 22-year-old he needed to prove himself NRL standard and worthy of staying at the Broncos in the preseason and that honest conversation lit the fuse for a strong start to 2015. To perhaps further test the breaking point on the young winger, Bennett made his threat public at a business lunch before the season opener when he told the audience Maranta’s position in the team was on a knife’s edge. “He is either going to cement it or be looking for a new club. And I’ve told him that,” Bennett said at the time. But if the first four rounds are any indication, Maranta has shown he is ready to become a mainstay of the backline. While the likes of Daniel Vidot are hunting for a new club, Maranta has knuckled down to score four tries in the last three weeks. He managed just five tries from 17 games last season and ahead of his 47th NRL game tomorrow night against the Titans Maranta is looking more and more like the player Bennett wanted him to become. “I think I'm the type of person when I get a challenge like that I work a lot better,” Maranta told The Courier-Mail. “The way he worded it to me was good for my mindset knowing how I've got to prove some people wrong here and it helped me get some confidence. “He tells me what I need to work on and I’d much prefer to know what I need to work on than what I'm doing well because that way I can take the criticism and go and work on those things.” If there is one area where Maranta excels, it’s in the air. Unlike some wingers or fullbacks who tremble in their boots at the sight of a towering bomb, Maranta launches wholeheartedly into the air like an AFL player in full flight. It has been advice from his cousin, former Western Bulldogs AFL defender Tom Williams, that gave Maranta the confidence few possess to go at the ball at its highest peak. “I've taken advice from him (Williams) … I think the high balls are about confidence and if you're willing to go up to get the ball most times you get it,” he said. “If you’re going up with the mindset that you're going to bring the ball down you've already sort of got that edge on your opponent. “I am my own harshest critic, so if I don't bring it down I am filthy.“If you're hard on yourself you know when you're going up there you have to come down with it otherwise it is a waste of the play.” [/QUOTE]

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