Following the news that Wayne Bennett is set to return to the Brisbane Broncos after six years away, can the Broncos claim their seventh premiership?
Bennett’s return to Red Hill will be one of the most highly anticipated stories of the 2015 season, with Broncos fans currently enduring what is now the club’s longest premiership drought.
Almost eight years has passed since the club last mounted the premiership dais in 2006, when they defeated the Melbourne Storm.
The most passionate fans will remember that victory as being Shane Webcke’s final match, and the culmination of arguably the greatest season ever produced by captain Darren Lockyer, who captained Queensland to their first outright State of Origin series victory since 2001 in July, and would later lead the Aussies to Tri-Nations redemption against New Zealand in the post-season.
Coming back from injury, Karmichael Hunt was played on the wing while Justin Hodges deputised at fullback, and Shaun Berrigan won the Clive Churchill Medal for his excellent role in nullifying the impact of Greg Inglis.
The Broncos’ grand final victory, their sixth from as many attempts since entering the competition in 1988, came after the club had lost five matches in a row leading up to Round 24.
But ever since that glorious first October night eight years ago, the Broncos have never seriously looked like winning another premiership, despite the best efforts of subsequent coaches Ivan Henjak and Anthony Griffin.
Injuries and poor form conspired against them as they battled to finish eighth the following year, and they unsurprisingly crashed out in the first round of the finals series by way of a 40-0 thrashing by the team they conquered only eleven months earlier, the Melbourne Storm.
It was also Craig Bellamy’s men who stopped them in their tracks twelve months later in one of the most thrilling finals in recent NRL finals history, where Greg Inglis scored the match winning try with a minute left to break Broncos fans’ hearts.
Earlier that season it was announced that Wayne Bennett would leave the club after having coached them ever since day one way back in 1988. He had signed a three-year deal to coach the St George Illawarra Dragons from 2009 until 2011.
The Broncos appointed their second coach since their inception in 1988, with Ivan Henjak taking the reins of the NRL’s glamour club.
After a mid-season slump which included a record 56-0 loss to the Canberra Raiders a month out from the finals, he led the club to a respectable sixth place finish at season’s end, and got them to within a match of making the grand final.
Henjak’s position was initially though to be safe in the immediate fallout from the Broncos’ failure to make the finals in 2010, but shortly before the commencement of the 2011 season, he suffered the ignominy of becoming the first Broncos coach to be sacked.
In came Anthony Griffin, who had spent the last three years coaching the club’s under-20s side.
Just as his successor Ivan Henjak did, he led the club to the grand final qualifying stage, getting there after Darren Lockyer kicked a field goal in overtime to end the premiership defence of Bennett’s Dragons in a thrilling semi-final.
Unfortunately, it would turn out to be Lockyer’s final NRL game, as he suffered a facial injury which would prevent him from taking his place in the club’s preliminary final, which they lost against eventual premiers Manly.
As it stands, the Broncos currently sit in sixth on the ladder with nine wins and eight losses for the season, but despite their mixed season so far, and regardless of how they fare for the remainder of this year, it will not be enough for Anthony Griffin to remain at the club.
The former under-20s coach has been informed that his services will not be required beyond 2014, with the club’s disappointing 2013 season being the basis of the board’s decision to punt him in favour of Wayne Bennett.
Bennett will, as already stated in the news, return to the club on a three-year deal, after which he will hand the reins of the club to assistant coach Kevin Walters.
This comes following his messy exit from the Newcastle Knights where he has had to deal with Nathan Tinkler relinquishing ownership of the club and the well-documented Alex McKinnon injury.
It now remains to be seen whether Bennett can revive the Brisbane Broncos’ fortunes and lead the club back into serious premiership contention.
He will return to the club in a different state to when he left them, and there’s no doubt that he will inherit a playing squad that have the potential to one day become premiership players.
As of 2014, only five survivors from the club’s most recent premiership remain – co-captains Corey Parker and Justin Hodges, as well as Ben Hannant, David Stagg and ex-captain Sam Thaiday.
Exciting young fullback Anthony Milford will also join the club ahead of the 2015 season, and already he has been touted as a replacement for Billy Slater in the Queensland fullback jumper.
And despite rumours of Josh Hoffman wanting to join the Bulldogs as a direct replacement for Ben Barba earlier this year, the fullback has made the smooth transition to five-eighth and is combining well with Ben Hunt in the halves.
The depth of the club’s current playing list, and the imminent return of Wayne Benentt after six years, will make 2015 and beyond potentially exciting for long-suffering Broncos fans who had been used to seeing their club being so successful under the master coach.
Can the Broncos become a force again?
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