Gould’s early hunch on ‘glamour roster’ capitulation

League legend Phil Gould believes the seeds for the Broncos’ season were planted in Las Vegas, where they lost 20-10 to the Roosters.
After losing the grand final last season, Brisbane have been a disaster this year and were heavily embarrassed by the Dolphins in round 26, losing 40-6.
On Nine’s 100% Footy, Gould described the result as a “coaching masterclass from Wayne Bennett” and the scoreline “horrendous” for the Broncos.
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“I don’t know how anyone recovers from that? That’s horrendous,” he said.
Phil Gould believes the Broncos’ problems were highlighted in Las Vegas.  Nine/Getty
Gould added the Broncos are “absolutely” the most disappointing team of the season, with signs of their decline coming in round one.
“They went within 15 minutes of picking up the shield last year … whether they really addressed that I don’t know,” he said.
“They’ve lost some experience but they’ve still got a glamour roster, beautiful players.
“I sensed it right from the opening of the season … the way they played in Las Vegas, I kind of thought I’ll give them a couple of weeks of hangover and a couple of weeks of just getting back into the rhythm but it never came good at any stage.
“They had a little bit of a mini rise during the season but when it’s come to the crunch they’ve been on the end of some horrendous scorelines from teams that probably shouldn’t have been beating them.”
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In the off season, the Broncos squad changed dramatically.
Tom Flegler, Herbie Farnworth and Kurt Capewell were the major outs, with Brisbane struggling to replace them adequately.
Paul Gallen believes those losses have hurt them the most.
“They’ve lost three big names, Flegler, Farnworth and Capewell,” he said.
“When you’re doing well, you don’t really notice or care that much about experience.
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“When you start losing games and things start going against you, that’s when you need experienced players in your team.
“Someone to say ‘listen boys we don’t forget how to play rugby league, we know what to do, we know how to recover, let’s work hard during the week and on the weekend and things will eventually turn around for us’ but the thing they’ve done is put all their eggs in the youngsters which may pay off in three, four years time but this year when the chips are down, when things are against them, they haven’t had enough experience.
“Throw on top of that the injuries with (Reece) Walsh and (Adam) Reynolds being out, they haven’t had enough experience, enough tough mentality in their side to get any wins. They’ve had a shocking season, the Broncos.”