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Message: [QUOTE="Big Pete, post: 3033366, member: 1899"] I thought it took the Broncos a long time to get going on Friday night. For the opening thirty minutes, Manly were the better team and Brisbane struggled to put any pressure on them either giving them piggy-back penalties outside of their half or putting in an awful kick chase to let a reserve grade winger make 60 odd metres in one run. Fortunately for the Broncos, the Sea Eagles were missing a lot of attacking weapons and their attack was pedestrian at best. Manly were without T. Trbojevic, Taufua, Walker, Croker, Cherry-Evans, Fonua-Blake and they lost Suli, Koroisau and Sipley during the game so they did well to play as well as they did. The game opened up when both teams went to the bench. The loss of Suli made the Sea Eagles weaker on the edges since they had to move Gosiewski there to cover and allowed the Broncos to gain some ascendency in the ruck. With Pangai on the field, the Broncos started to shift the ball more and Ofahengaue and Carrigan did a better job of bending the line than Boyle or Tanginoa did for the Sea Eagles. This difference eventually saw the Broncos target the Sea Eagles around the fringes where they were able to give Milford just enough space to score a trademark try of his. From that point on, the Broncos were never headed. The momentum of the game shifted, Manly's defence started getting weaker, giving Brisbane more opportunities at the line and Brisbane were good enough to take advantage of them. I thought the kicking game from Milford was pretty smart. Manly to their credit were still getting off their line really well and creating pressure on the outside men for Brisbane, so the kick behind the lines was the right action and something that you don't often see from Brisbane, or at least not executed well from Brisbane. I still think if Brisbane were playing good footy, they would have racked up more tries. They had Manly on toast after 55 minutes and were entitled to score more than 26 points, but I think it's a sympton of having a new look team. While a lot of focus has been put on the Sea Eagles and their injury woes, we can't lose sight on the Broncos playing with so many inexperienced players. 3. Kotoni Staggs (6th NRL Game At Centre) 5. Gehamat Shibasaki (1st NRL Game At Wing) 7. Tom Dearden (2nd NRL Game; 18 Years of Age) 9. Jake Turpin (1st NRL Game At Hooker) 10. Payne Haas (5th NRL Game In the Middle) 13. Thomas Flegler (2nd NRL Game In The Middle) 14. Patrick Carrigan (4th NRL Game) 15. David Fifita (20th NRL Game; 19 Years Old) Brisbane also lost Bird, Pangai Jr and Ofahengaue during various stages of play, so for all this chatter about Manly, we need to keep in mind the Broncos are still far from a settled side in their own right. Another sympton of having a new look team is the over-reliance on set-plays. The Broncos are relying too heavily on their left edge for points and it's allowing opposition defences to over-load that side of the field. Dearden had a couple of good touches, but he needs to call more ball and link more with Milford and Boyd. The Broncos ought to try and spread the field more and use their speed, foot-work and skill-set of their forward pack to try and catch the opposition out around the middle. As a team, I think we can all agree that the Broncos still have a lot they need to fix up. However, there were some fantastic individual performances, particularly from Payne Haas. He's been doing some special things this year, and I think he took his game to another level on Friday. I don't think the Kangaroos have any fixtures this year which is a joke in of itself, but if they did, he'd be a part of the squad. In fact, by rights he should be in the NSW Squad for Game I either in the squad or as the first drop for the front row. [/QUOTE]

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