Seibold says James Roberts looks even quicker up close

Broncos coach Anthony Seibold says speedster James Roberts looks even quicker when you're standing in closer proximity with him at training.

"He is indeed very fast and powerful," Seibold told NRL.com. "I'd never met him before coming here but I'm really enjoying working with him."

The new Brisbane mentor said the key for the 2019 Telstra Premiership season was to get the ball in Roberts' hands more often.

"I've had an opportunity sit down with James and have a great chat. Everyone knows the ability and how powerful he is," Seibold said.

"The big challenge for us is to try and give Jimmy a bit more footy.

"He's a real weapon in attack so we need to make sure we give him the chances to do just that."

The 25-year-old scored nine tries in 22 games for the Broncos in 2018.

Roberts made no secret of the fact that when he left the Gold Coast Titans he wanted to link with the Broncos as he believed then coach Wayne Bennett could make him an Origin player.

He made his Blues debut last year with NSW winning the Holden State of Origin series.

"Off the back of him making Origin last year, it's up to him to be that consistent again at club level," Seibold said, having no doubt Roberts has a brilliant career ahead of him.

"I'm seeing that certainly at his training. He's trying to get better and working really hard to do that."

Linking with senior players, the representative players like Roberts, along with the explosive pack of up-and-coming forwards has made Seibold's first month at the Broncos an enjoyable one.

"There's plenty of potential here at the club. Our challenge is to bring some consistency to our training sessions; to what we do day-in, day-out," Seibold said.

"Some of the younger players were exposed to first grade last year. The big challenge is still to get that greater consistency in how we prepare.

"We've got that group of senior players who are really experienced like Darius [Boyd], Andrew [McCullough], Alex Glenn and Matt Gillett, who have that wealth of knowledge."

The club can now add Shaun Fensom to that group as the former Cowboy and Raider joined the Brisbane squad earlier this week. He brings 174 NRL matches with him

"Then there's some guys who have played in that middle tier like Lodgie [Matt Lodge], Tevita [Pangai Junior] and Joe Ofahengaue... who are 24 to 25 years of age and then you've got the younger group," Seibold said.

"So it's a good mix of guys and I want to work with them so we can all be as best as we can every single day."