It was a day to farewell a club legend, as Josh Reynolds played his final game for his beloved Canterbury Bulldogs, with the crowd at Belmore packed in to say goodbye as he left the field for the last time after playing in NSW Cup.
There was nothing but love and admiration for the man they call ‘Grub’.
“He is just blue and white through and through, and an absolute champion,” said Fox League’s Michael Ennis.
“What a lovable larrikin, he can talks to kings and queens and he can talk to the punters on the hill, I can understand why they love him so much,” added Steve Roach.
The blue and white faithful would have hoped that such an emotional day at their home ground would be enough to spur on the first-grade side, but it wasn’t meant to be, going down to an understrength Brisbane Broncos 44-24 on Saturday.
“It was set up to be a really good day,” said Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo.
“It was disappointing to finish the day like that. There was a lot of promotion around the boys wanting to put on a really good performance for Grub. Really sad we couldn’t do it.”
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – JULY 15: Josh Reynolds of the Bulldogs after his final professional game and retirement at Belmore Sports Ground on July 15, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Izhar Khan/Getty Images)
It was the first time the Broncos had played at Belmore since 1998. While the first half was a tight arm wrestle, the visitors kept their record intact for not losing any games they led at halftime, running away with the game in the second half with the other Reynolds, Adam, pulling the strings.
The Broncos were without a truckload of talent, including Pat Carrigan who was rested after Origin, Reece Walsh still outsuspended, along with Payne Haas, Tom Flegler and Corey Oates sideline with injury.
There was also a controversial sin-binning that left the Broncos with 12 men for a crucial part of the game, but the General Reynolds stepped up to lead the remainder of his troops, finishing the game with one try, two assists and a close-to-perfect kicking game.
“He just steered the team around brilliantly, added a few trick shots himself,” said Broncos coach Kevin Walters of his skipper.
But Broncos fans held their breath when they saw Reynolds make his way to the sideline late in the game with a suspected injury to his wrist.
“It was more precautionary,” explained Walters. “We’ve got a short turnaround against Souths, so we got him off, we put some ice on it – he’s fine.”
With plenty of the engine room out of the match, some of the smaller men had to stand up for the visitors, with winger Selwyn Cobbo having to spend some time at lock.
“He’s a big strong carrier of the ball and he likes mixing it with the big boys. I thought he did pretty well today,” added Walters.
The Bulldogs’ lone Origin representative was also ruled out with Josh Addo-Carr succumbing to a hamstring injury he suffered on Wednesday night.
Fullback Jake Averillo was easily the Bulldogs’ best, scoring two tries and remaining safe under the high ball. He will be missed next season when he makes his way north to join The Dolphins.
Sitting in fifteenth spot on the NRL ladder, the Dogs matched it with the second-placed Broncos for most of the first half.
The home side struck early off the back of a penalty, Jacob Preston taking advantage of the field position and crossing in just the fourth minute.
The Broncos hit back ten minutes later when Reynolds raced through to score. The halfback then had a hand in his side’s next four-pointer, when a short pass found Kurt Capewell close to the line.
The scores were once again level after a game of hot potato from the Bulldogs kept the ball alive until Averillo found a hole to sneak through and score.
Cobbo was then sin-binned for a raised forearm Toby Sexton, ruling him out for the remainder of just his second game for the Bulldogs.
The scoreboard continued ticking over with the first 40 finishing at a point a minute as the Broncos headed to the sheds in front 22-18.
Despite starting the second half with twelve players, it was the visitors to score first when Xavier Willison strolled over the Dogs’ line untouched. The Broncos then ran away with the game putting on another three tries.
While a consolation try to Corey Waddell made the scoreline a bit more flattering, it still showed the depths of the Broncos this season, as well as just how good they will be when they return to full strength.
As for the Bulldogs, it’s back to the drawing board after coming off such a high from their win against the Rabbitohs last week to cop another big loss.
“Every time they got down the other end got points too easily,” said Ciraldo.
“You can’t give up that many points and expect to be in the game. That’s just amateurish.”
Cobbo sin bin splits opinion
When Broncos’ centre Cobbo was marched for ten after his collision with Sexton, the Fox League team were left divided on the decision.
“No, it’s a fend. He hasn’t hit with the forearm, it’s a fend,” said Roach. “You have a look at his hand open, he pushes through. I think it’s an accident.
“I think the thing that will save him is his hand is open. He does cop him with a forearm. I don’t think it’s deliberate. I think he’s missed with the fend and he’s caught (Sexton) with the forearm.
While Sexton left the field with a bloodied nose and eventually failed his HIA, it was seen that Cobbo had collected him with an accidental knee which caused the bleeding. But the 18th man was still activated for the Bulldogs.
Smile for the camera, Mahoney
Bulldogs hooker Mahoney wasn’t feeling in a charitable way, as the Broncos did their bit for Try July.
His opposing number Billy Walters scored a try and used the ball as a camera to take a selfie with teammates as well as raise another $5000 for his post-try celebration.
Not wanting a bar of it, Mahoney walked past the smiling Bronocs to try and hit the pretend camera away.
“No surprise it’s one dummy half swatting it out of the other dummy halves,” said Ginnane.
“Nothing riles you up more than when your opposition number scores a try like that,” added Ennis.
“Should have punched on and it could have been another $10,000!” laughed Roach.
Offloads a chink in the Broncos’ armour
While the Broncos continue to charge through to the finals footy as one of the most exciting attacking teams in the competition, one area in their defence that is a concern to coach Kevin Walters are the offloads conceded against his side.
Heading into Saturday’s game, the Broncos topped the list for the team who had conceded the most offloads so far this season with 184, and the Bulldogs added a further 14 to Brisbane’s tally.
“Our first half was a bit scrappy, they kept getting offloads off us,” said Coach Walters. “We fixed that up for the second half.”
Rellum
Roar Guru
Just watched the replay. Weird game. We were terrible in defense but score so easily at times they looked like the 90’s Broncos. If we defend like that for the rest of the season we are done. Dropping off tackles constantly, allowing so many offloads. We can now expect all teams to keep it alive constantly against us. The reffing was shocking at times. Staggs and Cobbo getting penalised and binned for nothing takes the cake
RLFan
Roar Rookie
The Broncos have been through their lean times, and this looks like the year they could really shine, with mobile young forwards and fast backs and an old bloke from Souths who has provided the glue to mould them together. I hope that the Bulldogs can build for next year, at the moment there is too much pressure on young inexperienced players. While it has been a disadvantage having to bring up so many Cup players, in the long run hopefully they will have benefited. Yesterday's farewell to Josh Reynolds was great, there is something about traditional suburban grounds and bringing the community together which can't be replicated at larger vanues.
varun sharma
Roar Rookie
Cobbo got binned for an accidental knee :silly: .
The Barry
Roar Guru
Plus Franklin Pele suspended and Burns coming off the field as well… so that’s 9 missing by full time… in this article there’s four separate mentions of the Broncos injuries or being understrength. There’s one mention of Ado-Carr missing Happy to admit the Bulldogs played badly, defended terribly but if we’re talking excuses, it seems like more excuses are being made for the team that won…
The Barry
Roar Guru
I think you’re missing the point Yep. Broncos are missing 6 of their starting 13. It’s been mentioned again and again and again. The Dogs are missing 4 of theirs and it barely gets mentioned. At tue start of the season the Dogs were missing 10 players and it wasn’t until about 8 rounds in that it even got mentioned The Broncos started with a better team and better depth The Dogs are also missing squad players Oloapu and Biondi-Odo and had Sexton knocked out of the game in the first half. So it’s not just four anyway
Bloke7
Roar Rookie
I'm not making excuses, we defended terribly and gave up too much posession. I just find it annoying when commentators and journalists talk so much about other teams injuries so much. But if we're comparing numbers, we were also missing Oluapu who's been starting the last few weeks. I wasn't going to mention Biondi Odo who's missed the whole season though because I'm not sure he's that good...hes not really been fit enough to show us. That's 6, yet this article, and other reports, only talk about AddoCarr. We then lost Sexton before half time and Burns later too. Before losing Secton we were looking pretty good too. Broncos were the better side for sure, but don't go crowing about doing it with an understrength side.
Maxtruck
Roar Rookie
Broncos missing 6 from their starting 13 Both starting props, Hass & Flegler Starting 2nd rower Riki Starting lock Carrigan Starting winger Oates. Starting fullback Walsh You need to try another page in the Bulldogs book of excuses.
The Barry
Roar Guru
Mate - I almost wish it was me for the sliding doors moment, but alas
Bloke7
Roar Rookie
Yeah, if we improve our defence we have the attack to compete with the top teams for sure. I'd take hard nosed old school forwards any day. TPJ is the new T-Rex. Preston and Morrin are the ones with heart, a couple more of them but bigger would do us nicely.
Bloke7
Roar Rookie
Cheers Barry! I was out there too and it was a fantastic day. My 20 month old son went mental running around the field non stop until we got kicked off and I even copped a footy to the head by a kid that looked about 13... the dad apologised. Was that you? The whole experience was top notch and despite the Broncos having more class in the second half and us setting them up with silly penalties and dropped balls the match gave a lot of hope for the future.
The Barry
Roar Guru
Just wrote a post about Josh Reynolds… been held up by the mods. Probably for overuse of his nickname ???? Hopefully we see it tomorrow Also want to add how good the bulldogs staff and players were. Despite a tough season and getting well beaten in the day, the players all came out signing autographs, taking photos and chatting to fans Absolutely made my 13 year old sons day. He got his giant Josh Reynolds mask signed by Pele, Sutton, Oloapu, Skelton, Casey, Kiraz, Preston, Topine, Mahoney (his favourite player), Burns, Burton, King, RFM, Wilson and Okunbor It’s never going to fetch much on eBay, but that doesn’t matter. You’ll never see a more loyal and passionate footy fan despite wins being few and far between for his whole life. Absolutely made his day and he wants to get it framed so he can hang it on his bedroom wall My young bloke wasn’t the only one The players were great despite how tough things have been going for them. We hear about the crook side of footy players behaviour all the time, but rarely this stuff
RLFan
Roar Rookie
We have been understrength for the whole year, but our defence should be getting better, don't remember a Dogs team with worse defence. Our name seems to be connected to a couple of top forwards, but I would just love to see us get a couple of old style defensive forwards, we've let half a dozen go in the past couple of years at great cost.
The Barry
Roar Guru
I was out at Belmore this arvo and despite getting well beaten in both grades it was a great occasion to farewell Josh Reynolds I know a lot of people talk about him being a grub - which he was - but describe his footy as being a battler or gritty or a competitor or whatever, but he was actually a very good, eyes up attacking footy player I’ve linked a video below of his highlights and there’s some great attacking footy in there where he plays some brilliant ad lib footy Brilliant at taking the ball to the line, and slipping outside his defender and creating space for himself or for the players outside him Reynolds was 5th in the Dally M count in 2012 and =7th in 2013 Only three 5/8s won Origin series playing all three games between 2006 and 2017… Lockyer, Thurston… and Reynolds Not remotely claiming he was in their league but he was a much better player than he was ever given credit for and delivered 100% every time he pulled a Dogs jersey on Thanks Grub. Great career. Appreciate everything you’ve done for the Bulldogs and long may you be part of the club https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xjyOZEpLQ&pp=ygUYam9zaCByZXlub2xkcyBoaWdobGlnaHRz
Bloke7
Roar Rookie
I hate when people always talk about being understrength against the Bulldogs. Remember when we had 11 players missing? Or that kikau has been out almost the whole season, and Luke Thompson has. We're also missing Josh AddoCarr and Sutton. 4 first choice players worth a big chunk of our salary cap and among our 4 oldest players. We're basically fielding kids every week and it shows in the lack of mental fortitude.