The Broncos have been called out for overpaying young players on potential and not surrounding them with the right hard-nosed veteran forwards that win premierships.
Founding Broncos director and chairman Barry Maranta told AAP that Brisbane must take a leaf out of the Wayne Bennett playbook and recruit “hard heads” in the forward pack.
“I suspect the problem is that we have overpaid young guys. You can’t win with 20 and 21-year-old’s against 28 and 29-year-old’s,” Maranta told AAP.
The angle that we have taken is that we have paid for potential. I have owned two teams (the Broncos and London Broncos) and I know there is a temptation to do it but it appears as though we didn’t have the money for any hard heads.
“I am hoping to have a coffee with the (hierarchy) and find out where we are going to get our hard heads from.
“You don’t pay for potential. You pay for CVs and scrapbooks.”
The Broncos have a suite of young forwards such as Ben Te Kura (20), Brendan Piakura (22), Jordan Riki (24) and Xavier Willison (22), while Test forwards Payne Haas and Pat Carrigan lead the pack.
Maranta believes the Broncos need more intimidating forwards like club legends Tonie Carroll, Peter Ryan, Trevor Gillmeister, Glenn Lazarus, Shane Webcke, Gorden Tallis and Brad Thorn.
“They do a lot of work but they don’t intimidate,” Maranta said of the Broncos forwards.
“Yes, Capewell is a hard head. All teams needs them. We brought Lazarus up,” Maranta said.
“We can learn from Wayne Bennett and the way he hand-picked his squad.
“If ever you want to look at a classic case of putting a team together look at what Wayne has done at the Dolphins with his forward pack.
“They have got s*** in them like Felise Kaufusi. There are hard heads like the Bromwich brothers (Kenny and Jesse).
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