Right now, the Brisbane Broncos are facing an outside-back injury crisis. Their two most skilful and solid wingers, Jharal Yow Yeh and Dale Copley, are both out and likely to be out for the rest of 2013.
Their possible replacements consist of the following:
Lachlan Maranta, a young, talented winger who has played only six NRL games.
Delroy Berryman, a young, talented winger from Redcliffe who has played no NRL games.
Jordan Kahu, a young, talented utility who has played no NRL games due mainly to the fact that he’s been out injured for the last two seasons.
Denan Kemp, the not-quite-as-young-as-the-rest-of-them journeyman who’s returning for stint No.3 at the Broncos.
All of them are 25 or younger, all of them have decent amounts of skill and all of them are certainly desperate to get a spot on the wing.
The question is – who?
Well, if trials are anything to go by, it’s… no one in particular.
All four of them have played in the two trials so far, playing at wing and centre.
Kemp has had the best form, scoring a try in each game, but strangely, he was the only one left out of the final trial in Dunedin.
He certainly has the edge in experience, playing in 42 NRL matches to date, with a strike rate of 0.54 tries per game. Given he’s only had one month to impress at training, he’ll be relying on reputation more than anything.
Maranta is the only other player to have played in the NRL and from what we saw of him last season, he’s certainly earned the right to play at that level.
Kahu and Berryman are both undeniably skilled, but neither has played in the NRL, which is something that will really count against them.
I believe Kemp and Maranta will end up with Numbers 2 and 5, due only to the fact that both of them have played first grade before. However, if one of them shows dodgy form, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will immediately be dumped.
All Anthony Griffin wants from both of them is consistency – the good kind, not the bad kind where a player consistently drops the ball over the try line. If they can finish every chance they’re given by the rest of the team, Griffin will be happy.
The Brisbane wings used to be the stomping ground of players like Wendell Sailor, Lote Tuqiri, Mick Hancock and Mick De Vere. If my prediction proves correct, they now have two players with less than 50 games of experience under their belt.
Only time will tell how they manage the pressure.
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