Brisbane Broncos
It’s often said that in matters of the heart you can never go back but the Brisbane Broncos will be hoping to dispel such popular wisdom this year with the return of their long-time beau Wayne Bennett, the man who delivered the club six premierships, the last of which was in 2006.
Bennett’s return to his spiritual home after six years playing the field (to great success at the Dragons, to disappointment at Newcastle) has coincided with significant squad changes, not least the addition of the exciting Anthony Milford who’ll step in the No6 jersey alongside one of last season’s best performing half-backs, Ben Hunt. That’s a halves combination with considerable creativity and one that could be delivering for Brisbane long into the future.
Of course there are no certainties in rugby league as Bennett’s release of Ben Barba demonstrates. The 2012 Dally M winner with Canterbury never recreated his magic with the Broncos and Bennett, preferring the incoming Darius Boyd (the Robin to his Batman), let him go along with Josh Hoffman, Ben Hannant, Martin Kennedy and Jake Granville. As bad luck would have it, Boyd is currently up on blocks after an Achilles injury with Jordan Kahu looking his likely replacement.
Bennett has long favoured a game based around conservatism and old school defensive starch so he’ll be very much dependent on long-time servants like Matt Gillett, Justin Hodges, Sam Thaiday and Corey Parker squeezing more juice out of the lemon. At the same time he’ll be hoping to get newcomer Adam Blair playing as he did back at the Storm, while three other newbies, Mitch Garbutt and James Gavet bring size and and vigour and should allow Thaiday and Parker to spend less time moonlighting in the front row. There’s also hope that young guns Corey Oates and Joe Ofahengaue will increase the competition for starting berths and thus performances.
Unlike past Broncos sides under Bennett this one isn’t quite a Maroons side by another name but the potential is there to improve on last year’s eighth spot. A place in the top four, however, could be just out of reach. Paul Connolly
Penrith Panthers
The Panthers were the Cinderella Story of 2014, their hardy bunch of bashed-up Bad News Bears going all-but to the grand final, falling to the Bulldogs in the preliminary. It was Herculean, and Ivan Cleary was coach of the year because of it.
Two years ago they’d been written off, everyone’s guaranteed spoon men. They finished a game out of the eight. Last year they were tipped to finish eighth, thereabouts, if they were lucky. They almost made the decider, beat the reigning premiers and shocked the (league) world.
This year, now that their squadron is largely the same and Jamie Soward is at the peak of his considerable powers, Penrith will go into 2014 where they haven’t been for many years: among the favourites.
Now, every team needs hard grafters and giant humans to fill the legislated 10-metre gap. They need the same people to bash the other team and wrestle like judo men in cages. They need second-rowers and centres to run wide of the ruck at speed, and bash the other mob’s centres and second-rowers. And every team does have those men. But to ice your beef-cake, if you will, you need a smattering of supermen, of game-breaking X-factor types with a point of difference. And the Panthers have plenty.
Tyrone Peachey, can’t write enough about him: second-rower, runs like James Maloney, steps, passes, a super footballer. Soward in the six is feeling the love, and love is all he’s ever needed. Matt Moylan? The new Darren Lockyer, an all-running leaper with courage and a catch and a booming step. Not far from a Blue jumper. James Segeyaro is dangerous from dummy-half and they say no man is an island but Jamal Idris could be Greenland.
There’s Peter Wallace in the seven. Never the flashiest critter, but a better guide than a guide dog. Josh Mansour – a rumbling nugget, great yards out of dummy-half – and teenage leaper Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, a super mover.
And there’s Cleary telling them what to do in his measured tone, and Phil Gould like the Godfather of Soul out the back, and the entire satellite city of Penrith baying at the super moon on a Saturday night. They could finish in the top four, and might even win the job lot. Matt Cleary
Melbourne Storm
The Storm? It’s over. Over like Canberra when Stuart-Daley-Clyde gave it away, over like Australia post-Lillee-Chappell-Marsh. Over. The alchemy Craig Bellamy is famous for, the intensive man-scaping that has forged internationals from journeymen – by playing them alongside four of the game’s best players and spending six hours a week learning Brazilian jui-jitsu – will be negated given the NRL’s New Rules of the Wrestle, the loss of Ryan Hoffman to New Zealand, and the fact their superstars all turn 32 in 2015, and will again be bashed about in Test footy and State of Origin. And something has got to give. And it will.
Now, Bellamy is a smart man. He knows this greatest game of all, and will have some ahead-of-the-bell-curve tricks, no doubt. And in Cameron Smith and Cooper Cronk he’s got some super-savvy ball-merchants who will put his plans in action and finesse referees into liking them. They’re super-fit and super-experienced, and outside them is Billy Slater who will go down among the best ever full-backs of all-time.
But, one injury, one little calf-related injury to just one of their important men, and the Storm are sitting there with the Dragons, Knights and Parramatta in the middle of the panting pack. And this before all the time they’ll spend out for Origin and the annual Kiwi bash.
That said, they’ve picked up a tasty one in all-running, top-tackling future Blues man Dale Finucane. And Kevin Proctor didn’t go to Canberra, which is good. And Marike Koroibete seems a pretty fair swap for Sisa Waqa. And Tom Learohyd-Lars has come from Canberra after a couple of listless years riding the pine.
But outside these guys you’ve got the Bromwich brothers, Ryan Hinchcliffe and a bunch of blokes you’ve never heard of like Billy “Little” Brittain, Cameron “Eddie” Munster and Kurt “Man’s Inhumanity To” Mann. The Storm can make the eight. But a premiership? No. Because it’s over. Matt Cleary
New Zealand Warriors
The Warriors have historically been as frustrating as gout. On face value all seems well but every year they seem to be crippled by their own gluttony. An inability to harness what have been very talented players has seen the Warriors forego opportunities the club should have made good on.
It has been the failing of every coach not named Ivan Cleary. It has certainly been the main reason successors Brian McClennan and Matt Elliott each lasted less than 18 months and the Warriors are three years without a finals appearance after the world seemed their oyster following a 2011 grand final day that saw the club feature in all three deciders.
Andrew McFadden is now in the hot seat and faces the task of bringing an underperforming team back to some level of respectability. The lost years of the post-Cleary era need to end and they need to end this year if McFadden is to avoid becoming the latest Warriors coaching statistic.
A 10-9 start to his career – with a vastly improved defence – has the Warriors faithful positive. And a great deal of positivity should be what the Warriors enter the season with. They have – once again – been handed the kindest draw by the NRL. Shaun Johnson was named the best player in the world last season. The production line of young, raw talent seems endless with Solomone Kata pegged as the star to emerge this year. Sam Tomkins will undoubtedly be better for his debut season in the NRL.
The key to the season though is bringing all that talent together and ceding individual want to team need. It has been an ongoing issue. The addition of Ryan Hoffman – the heart of the Melbourne Storm’s incomparable culture – is expected to be the key to making it happen.
The Warriors have the talent to play finals football. But they have for each of the last three years as well and all of those ended in the same disappointment that this season most likely will. Nick Tedeschi
Manly Sea Eagles
Opponents have been waiting 10 years for Manly to succumb to age, a lack of desire and perhaps just an all-encompassing sense of ennui but it’s as if the Sea Eagles have had an endless supply of little blue pills to dip into. Even last year, when beset with internal unrest, Manly still came within a whisker of the minor premiership.
But perhaps the club’s straight-sets exit from last season’s finals series, as well as the salary-cap induced off-season losses of long-time forward leaders Anthony Watmough, Glenn Stewart and Jason King, points, at long last, to a fall from grace. For most teams this often means dropping to 13th or 14th and thinking maybe Kris Keating could be worth a punt. For Manly is could just mean a fight for eighth spot.
If the exit of Stewart and Watmough has put an end to the bickering at Brookvale, and if Geoff Toovey can keep his troops focussed, Manly look capable of an 11th-straight finals campaign. But if there’s an outbreak of osteoporosis through the camp they could be in big trouble, for they are still very reliant on faithful old timers Brett Stewart, Jamie Lyon, Steve Matai and Matt Ballin. And the incoming Willie Mason and Feleti Mateo are hardly in the first blush of youth themselves and are now very much in the journeymen category.
Manly, of course, have some good young stars like Peta Hiku, Jorge Taufua and up-and-comer Tom Trbojevic. They also have what is possibly the best halves pairing in the NRL in Daly Cherry-Evans and Kieran Foran and if they find their best form (and put behind them any uncertainty over their long-term futures at the club) Manly will again prove hard to beat. If Manly’s forwards can hold the fort they have a back line with plenty of potency.
It’s hard to seeing Manly climbing the heights of last or recent seasons gone by. But if they don’t fall apart at the seams they should play finals once more. Paul Connolly
