- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Wayne Bennett’s resurrection of the Brisbane Broncos appears to already be over before it’s even started.
In a major blow to the glamour club’s hopes of landing a seventh premiership, star recruit Darius Boyd snapped his Achilles during pre-season training early on Friday morning, and faces between six to nine months on the sidelines.
The best case scenario would see him miss at least the first half of the season, and possibly only the opening game of the State of Origin series. The worst case scenario would be missing the entire season.
Boyd had returned to the club after three-year stints at each of the St George Illawarra Dragons and Newcastle Knights, winning a second premiership medallion and the Clive Churchill Medal at the former club in 2010.
His return to the side with which he made his NRL debut, and was part of the club’s most recent premiership in 2006, was met with much fanfare by Broncos fans who are currently enduring their longest ever premiership drought.
The club also signed Anthony Milford and Adam Blair from the Canberra Raiders and Wests Tigers, respectively, among others, as it seeks to rebuild under Bennett after a couple of unsuccessful years under Ivan Henjak and Anthony Griffin.
Ben Barba, who only lasted one season at the Broncos before subsequently returning to Sydney and signing with the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, was rendered surplus to Bennett’s requirements, while Josh Hoffman, David Hala and Martin Kennedy have also packed their bags and left Red Hill.
The super coach made it clear once he returned to the Broncos in September that he wanted to build his new-look team around a skeleton similar to how the Melbourne Storm (think Slater-Cronk-Smith) operates.
That consisted of Darius Boyd playing at his preferred position of fullback, as he did at the Dragons and Knights, and partnering fellow new recruit Anthony Milford at five-eighth alongside Ben Hunt at halfback.
But Boyd’s long-term injury has all but put paid to those hopes, and now Wayne Bennett will have to find a new fullback to fill in for at least the first half of the season, while Boyd undergoes his rehabilitation.
Not only will it be a huge blow to the Broncos, but it will also cause a bigger blow to Queensland’s hopes of regaining the State of Origin shield, having had their eight-year stranglehold on the series broken by New South Wales this year.
It’s not the first time the Broncos have been struck by the worst of injuries – in the 2010 pre-season, Justin Hodges ruptured his right Achilles which subsequently sidelined him for the year, while in 2013 he ruptured his left Achilles in a match against the Dragons and again his year ended prematurely.
Both injuries proved fatal for the Broncos on those occasions – in 2010, the club missed the finals for the first time in almost two decades while last year they suffered their worst ever season in their illustrious history, finishing 12th.
It shows how important Hodges is to the team, although the Maroons weren’t affected by his absence as they clean-swept the Blues for the fifth of their eight consecutive Origin series victories that year.
Now, the Broncos will probably have to rely on him to fill in at fullback for most of next season, or even rest their hopes on either Lachlan Maranta or Jordan Kahu, both of whom have played over 50 games between them.
Hodges is more than capable of playing fullback – late in the 2006 season when the club endured its post-Origin form slump, he was shifted into this position leaving Karmichael Hunt, returning from injury, to play on the wing.
The formula worked, and the club broke out of its form slump and went on to win the premiership at the expense of the Melbourne Storm with Hodges scoring a vital first-half try in the grand final.
Maranta and Kahu both made their debuts in 2012 and last year, respectively, and both have scored 19 tries between them in their careers. Both players regularly play on the wing but will each get a chance to shine at fullback.
While those are the options, the big question now is who will slot into the fullback position while Darius Boyd undergoes his recovery and rehabilitation? The bigger question is whether he can make it back on the field at all in 2015.
As stated before, the best case scenario is that he may only miss six months, which means he could be back on the field as early as Round 14. However, it’s unlikely the Broncos will rush him back into the starting side then, unless injuries strike the club’s other options.
All that Broncos fans can hope for now is a positive prognosis, after his Achilles injury has crushed their dreams that the side can return to the premiership dais after almost a decade.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.