The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Opinion

'I wasn't expecting it!': Walters plays down top four as Broncos swat Parra aside

Autoplay in... 6 (Cancel)
Up Next No more videos! Playlist is empty -
Replay
Cancel
Next
Editor
21st July, 2022
28

Brisbane have sent a message to their top four rivals, rolling the Parramatta Eels 36-14 on their own turf and marking themselves out as clear contenders for later in the year.

The result takes the Broncos into the top four – albeit ahead of Melbourne’s fixture against South Sydney on Saturday night – and stakes a real claim for a second crack in the finals.

It’s hard to remember that this Broncos team finished 14th last year – and 16th the year before that – and were such a bad defensive unit.

This team are a different beast. They manipulated the ball and bashed up Parramatta in the first half, before shutting up shop to keep them at bay in the second.

“We’ve still got some work to do but tonight was a good performance from us,” said Broncos coach Kevin Walters.

“I wasn’t expecting it, but we’ve been building through the last four or five weeks without our Origin guys, and there’s been momentum within the club, so when we got the elite guys back in, it was great to see.

“It’s an away game and we respect our opposition: Parramatta have been a great team for a long time now and then results for the last four or five years have been better than ours, so it’s a great challenge for our guys.

Kevin Walters

Kevin Walters (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

Advertisement

“We don’t talk finals: each week, we talk about the process with our guys and getting that little bit of improve in each other and our combinations. I saw a lot of that tonight.

“The big end of season games are great to be involved in, but we’ve had a good win tonight, we’ll enjoy that and we get onto the Tigers next week.”

A ten-minute spell before the break proved crucial: between the 18th and 28th minute, Parramatta did not have a single play the ball.

In that time, Brisbane scored two crucial tries that drained the tank, before the Eels had a man sin-binned that drained it further.

Then, with the lead secured, Kevin Walters’ men defended for their lives. With less than a minute to play and the result decided, Jordan Pereira and Kotoni Staggs pulled off a trysaver on Waqa Blake that more than summed up the line pride shown by the Broncos.

“I liked the way we went after it,” said Walters. “When you’ve got the momentum, you’ve got to score points and quickly, so that was good from us. A few things went out way but the good teams make you pay, and we did that tonight.

“We knew the possession would swing and it was up to us to defend that and make sure they didn’t get themselves back in the game.”

Payne Haas of the Broncos  (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Advertisement

Parramatta had previously struggled to get up against weaker teams but turned up against their immediate rivals; tonight, they were taken out of the equation by a Broncos side that was far better than them.

That will concern Brad Arthur more than anything. One is a question of mentality, and came with the implication that later in the year, things would be fine. This result poses serious questions about the viability of Parramatta as finals contenders.

“We started alright and then we had no possession,” said Arthur. “Still, we had enough possession in the second half, enough field position and enough opportunities to execute properly. But we can’t have six tries put on us.

“We had good energy in the second half, we had plenty of momentum and were coming hard. We had a try disallowed that would have put us within ten with 20 minutes to go.

“There’s no excuses. Once we get out there, for that 80 minutes it doesn’t matter what’s happened in the week.

We’ve got to worry about next week. We can’t be worrying about where we’re finishing. We’ve just got to be worried about next week and playing football that’s good enough for our standard.”

Brisbane started unconvincingly. Twice, they made yardage errors to gift the Eels easy position and were eventually punished: Shaun Lane, as he has done all year, stood in a tackle and offloaded, with Maika Sivo scoring an easy opener.

Advertisement

The Broncos weren’t going to sit down. They got a little lucky for their first try, with Brenko Lee’s kick rebounding back into him, though they made the maximum from what they got.

Lee kicked around Clint Gutherson, Oates hacked on for himself and beat Bailey Simonsson in the race for the ball.

The second was even better – Pat Carrigan feeding Payne Haas, who battered in from 20m out – and the third even better than that, with Adam Reynolds spotting Gutherson out of position and sliding a kick for Jordan Riki.

The momentum was all one way, with the Eels unable to get a sniff off the ball. They defended manfully after the Riki try, but were totally gassed.

Tesi Niu caught them wandering in the midfield and while he was stopped, Will Penisini held on too long and was binned. Moments later, Ezra Mam sent Kurt Capewell through a huge hole where the Eels’ centre would have been.

Parra needed something to go their way. Pereira helped them out, misjudging a kick and gifting the Eels field position.

A body light in attack, Parra unveiled an old-school run-around play to get the extra man, with Reed Mahoney creating the space and Blake getting the putdown.

The Eels needed a perfect start to the second half. They did the opposite. Blake dropped the kick off and, with gaps everywhere, Reynolds floated a kick over Simonsson to Oates to get a second.

Advertisement

The reaction did come eventually. Parra built pressure, forced repeats and eventually caught the Broncos on the short side, with Mahoney again calling the shots and this time, Dylan Brown providing the final pass for Sivo.

Whenever Parra found success, it was coming down the left edge. It might well have struck again, with Blake finding the line, only for an obstruction to be found in the build up.

After two repeat sets in the Broncos 20m zone, they went to the well again, only for Blake’s pass to miss Sivo and find the touchline.

It seemed inevitable that after withstanding so much Parra pressure, Brisbane would score. They did, in somewhat fortunate circumstances: Gutherson fielded a kick and ran across the line, Staggs went for the tackle and the ball came loose.

Reynolds kicked the ball on, got to it first and cemented a statement win for his team.

Sports opinion delivered daily 

   

close