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The Brisbane Broncos used a dominant first half display to take a 14-point victory over the Penrith Panthers at Suncorp Stadium in the opening match of Round 9.
Brisbane ran on four tries to none in a first half shutout, leading 22-0 after the first 40 and despite switching off during the back end fo the second half, were never going to be caught by a Penrith side who have plenty of work to do.
Anthony Milford and Kodi Nikorima controlled the Broncos attack, while Darius Boyd did plenty. For the first 60 minutes, it was hard to point out a poor Brisbane player, but they stopped attacking, put the cue in the rack and were given a scare by a Matt Moylan inspired Panthers at the back end.
After ten minutes, it looked as if the Panthers had turned up to play. While their defence hadn’t yet been put to the test, they had what almost looked to be a certain try disallowed, and they were in the contest physically.
Unfortunately, that was where the errors and poor defence began, with 31 missed tackles for the first half.
Penrith barely got another look at putting points on the board before the break, and with the Broncos having their first opportunity from a scrum, they didn’t make any mistakes.
On halfway, it was a spread right with nothing happening until James Roberts put the foot down into a gap, went through the defence and found Jordan Kahu on the wing. He stepped back inside, then linked with Kodi Nikorima in support, who ran away to score.
The errors kept piling up for Penrith, and it was Roberts himself who scored the second try just seven minutes later. Penrith were building, but made an error which allowed Nikorima to find Roberts, who burnt the defence on an 80-metre run.
Brisbane would force a number of repeat sets in the next segment of the game, and after making an error of their own looked to be losing momentum.
Penrith made yet another error though, allowing Brisbane back onto the attack with Jordan Kahu scoring the next try with Milford putting up a bomb. No defenders wanted a piece of it, and Kahu ran through, flying to take the ball and then continuing to the try line.
From the kick-off, Brisbane went the length of the field from a Milford offload. He found Glenn who went through the line, found Darius Boyd and he then linked with Tautau Moga who scored easily.
At the half, it was 22-0.
The Broncos showed no signs of letting up early in the second half though and despite a similar start to the first half, it would be Korbin Sims who broke the line, scoring through some incredibly soft defence.
From there, the Broncos stopped attacking, just looking to get to the end of the game, but with so long to go it seemed to be a catalyst for them to switch off, as they began to make mistakes on both attack and defence.
The Panthers still looked awful in attack, but eventually, it was Trent Merrin who picked out Kodi Nikorima, reaching out to score what, at the time, felt like a consolation try.
Matt Moylan would score in the next set for the Panthers, and suddenly there was the fleeting hint of a comeback. The try was created from well withi their own end, with Moylan scoring a soft try on the left-hand side.
Penrith added another try just minutes later through front rower Regan Campbell-Gillard, who looked like he was running between a pair of tackling bags after an inside pass from Moylan.
With seven minutes to go, the gap was down to ten but the Broncos seemed to finally snap out of their trance, putting the effort into their defence and closing the game out with another try to Matt Gillett down the short side off a scrum, right on the siren.
Brisbane then, taking a 14-point victory, but struggling to close out the game.
Brisbane Broncos 32
Penrith Panthers 18