Anthony Seibold's departure won't cut out the cancer at Brisbane

Anthony Seibold has “chosen to step down from the Broncos coaching role”. That’s the official line out of Red Hill following Seibold’s presser on Wednesday morning, and it rings about as true as “Adolf Hitler has chosen to retire to his bunker” would’ve in 1945.

The quote isn’t particularly enlightening. It has the same pallidness as James Hooper’s much-hyped weekend interview on Fox with Tevita Pangai Junior, during which we witnessed the strange phenomenon of a footballer doing a faltering impression of a politician.

More interesting were the words of Broncos shareholder Paul Murphy, who mused on Monday that “if you have a cancer, you’ve got to treat it, but they haven’t cut it out”.

These are not the words of a politician. These are the words of a rich bloke who isn’t seeing a return on his investment. The words of a bloke who was banned from the dressing-sheds last year – at the request of the players. This is a man who, when called by Seibold regarding the cancer comment, responded by hanging up after the coach had identified himself.

In fact, the more I learn about the likes of Paul Murphy, the more I question who or what exactly is the cancer at the once-proud Brisbane club? If it exists, it’s certainly not Seibold.

(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

Brisbane is a one-horse town, if you’ll pardon the pun. It seems strange to think of a city of over two million as a town, but that’s the feeling where the Broncos are concerned.

McDonald’s does a ‘Bronco burger’. Every back page every day is devoted to the team. The levels of scrutiny are intense. It’s a vicious, unrelenting gaze that a team full of hardened veterans might struggle under the glare of.

Back when Brisbane were a premiership-winning powerhouse, their star-studded roster rarely failed to meet these lofty expectations. In fact, the side’s prolonged success is one of the reasons expectations are always so high.

The other reason is the club’s huge financial clout. According to the Broncos’ annual report, 2019 revenue was a tick over $50 million. This is a giant of an organisation.

That begs the question, why was recruitment handled so poorly before Seibold arrived? In 2018, the year before Seibold’s appointment, the club signed two players. One was Jack Bird on massive overs, who has barely played a game for them in the years since, and the other was Andre Savelio.

The same year, they released Ben Hunt, Benji Marshall, Tautau Moga, Jai Arrow, Adam Blair and Herman Ese’ese. The 2019 roster, which Seibold led to the finals in his first year in charge, looked fairly similar to the current squad. However, they managed to jettison a few more of their most experienced players, parting ways with Shaun Fensom and Andrew McCullough.

That’s not to say the current Broncos roster is weak – they boast some of the biggest up-and-coming names in the NRL. The problem is they have no leaders.

Darius Boyd, Alex Glenn, and Issac Luke are the three most experienced heads in the squad. None of them are big on-field talkers, and all of them are in the twilight of their career. This means when the young heads drop, there is no steadying voice of reason, only silence.

(Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

As the coach, Seibold is at least partially responsible for this lack of a steadying voice. By all reports, he had lost the support of his playing group, which he must also accept responsibility for. Recruitment pre-2019 however, is not among the list of things Seibold can be blamed for, and it’s potentially the biggest reason for the club’s current situation.

The effect of having a squad devoid of experience can be seen in the manner of nearly all of the 12 losses from their last 13 games. A cycle of torture for fans and players alike in which the team competes for the first 60 minutes, before an inevitable and catatonic free-fall in the last 20.

Could the reason for this be poor fitness? Unlikely. More likely it’s at this time that the youngsters start to feel the expectation of the crowd. They remember they play for a club that demands perennial success, and see haunting visions of the next morning’s headlines.

Anthony Seibold’s future may well have been untenable at the Broncos, but his removal is highly unlikely to make the Broncos any more experienced, or any less certain to wilt under the glare of bright lights.

If a cancer does exist at Red Hill, it’s not one which can be physically located and removed. It’s simply the lingering ghost of a fading dynasty.