Tigers Review - Bitter Pill

You could see it coming. After dominating a game like that, the only fair result would have been a last minute try to sink and demoralise us right? The football gods didn’t disappoint, and handed the West Tigers a win in the last seconds of the match. It was a bitter pill for any Broncos fan to take. Just thinking about it is still making me cringe. But it could have been worse. I was super keen to go and watch the game, but couldn’t find anyone to go with me. The girlfriend was less than keen, and even Waldo turned the offer down. It turned out to be a masterstroke. If I had known before the game that I would be sitting in the rain for 2 hours watching our team bomb try after try, and throwing away a win, hell I wouldn’t have even watched the game on the TV.

But I did. It was a cracker of a game, don’t get me wrong. It’s just hard to accept the fact that we were ahead of every statistic except the scoreboard at the end of it. The Broncos combinations inside the oppositions 20 metres just weren’t clicking. After enjoying the lion’s share of possession, and eating up the metres through the middle of the park it was almost embarrassing watching us falter at the finish line every time. It was just one of those games where we couldn’t get across the line. All of our pressure amounted to nothing, and you knew it was just going to take one mistake for the game to be snatched away from us. McCullough did just that, and a little inexperience from Yow Yeh (getting out of position then slipping when he realised) gave the West Tiger’s an undeserved 16-14 win. Their words not mine.

Full credit to the boys though. Without Lockyer, Thaiday and Folau we still put up a hell of a fight. Parker had an enormous game, as did Tronc and Kenny, and Josh McGuire played fantastically as well. He’s definitely one for the future. People are jumping all over Wallace’s back saying he can’t deliver. It’s rubbish. He had a few mistakes, but he certainly didn’t lose us the game. He put tries on a silver platter for our team on a number of occasion, yet through poor control, poor running and poor decision making we managed to bomb them every time. It was inexperience cost us in the end, but Broncos fans have come to accept that during the Origin period. There were enough positives to take from the game, and hopefully our side will be at full strength for the remainder of the season.

One thing I do hope we take from the game above all though is an end to this experiment of playing Gillet and Te’o in the centres. They are great players, but they are second-rowers and Henjak has to come to accept that fact. Centres need one quality above all, speed. These two just don’t have it. Te’o got run down by a 50 year old Tuqiri with an 8 metre head start. Neither of them had the pace to get on the outside of their opposites, so instead they just tried to go through them. It’s alot easier to defend. When your centres have the pace to get outside their man, it creates question marks in the defensive line. The winger doesn’t know whether to stay on his man, or to come in and help and it leads to gaping holes forming. These kinds of questions just weren’t asked of their defence last night, and that’s the largest reason why we spent an eternity inside their 20 metres and didn’t put the points on the board to prove it. Surely we have some youngsters more suited to the roll of a centre?

We have a bye next week, which will hopefully give Hodges enough time to be back in time for our next match. That will add some much needed class to our three-quarters. It’ll also give our Origin boys a chance to get over any niggles, and allow us to mount an assault on the run into the finals. We’ll definitely be there come September, but we do have the quality to be more than just also-rans. With a little luck in terms of stability, which will lead to a little less of people being played out of position, we should be able to build a serious assault on the 2010 premiership. Wouldn’t that be a story after the start we had...