Seibold spray will lift forwards against Roosters, says Bird

Jack Bird insists an explosive half-time spray from Broncos coach Anthony Seibold at his forwards last week will have them primed to take it to the Roosters forwards on Thursday night at the SCG.

The Broncos led 12-10 against the Dragons at half-time but the scoreline flattered them after they were out-muscled up front in the opening 20 minutes of the game.

Seibold left no doubt as to what he thought about that, but the Dragons went on to repeat the dose in the opening exchanges of the second half in their 25-24 win.

Bird explained the backs were on their own while Seibold unleashed on his under-performing pack.

"We were out in the warm-up area and they were in the locker room and I could hear him blowing up," Bird grinned.

"I heard a few 'F' words. He didn't get up us backs. Seibs knows we can be better than that so he knew what we had to do in the second half to go out and get the 'W' but we didn't do that.

"Obviously being a head coach you are going to be angry considering we came off a great win against the Cowboys and showed what we can do. To toss that up just wasn't acceptable."

NRL.com asked Bird whether he thought the Broncos pack would respond to Seibold's rocket.

"I think they will because after we didn't step up against Melbourne they got a little spray during the week and you saw what they did against the Cowboys forwards," Bird told NRL.com

"The thing we need to do is be consistent week-in and week-out because we are a young squad.

"We've got Matt Lodge back [from suspension] and he is a big body who is going to help us out in the middle."

With Lodge back in the starting side the Broncos are likely to play Tevita Pangai jnr at lock and shift Matt Gillett to his favoured right edge position.

Whatever configuration Seibold goes with, prop Joe Ofahengaue said the Broncos had been overpowered at the start of both halves against the Dragons and would not be able to repeat that against the Roosters.

"We came in Friday morning and did our review of the game and a lot of little things were lacking on Thursday night against the Dragons and hurt us at the back end of the game," Ofahengaue said.

"Also we started off the game pretty slow in both halves, and hopefully we can fix that up.

"Some of our talent kept us in the game when we weren't really playing good footy. When you watch the game back Jimmy Roberts scored that long [range] try and we got some lucky bounces and scored.

"We are trying to play an 80-minute gamed this year and hopefully we can turn it around this week and muscle up against a good Roosters pack. They have a lot of starts in there and they are going to turn up."

Pangai wore a red 'no-contact' bib at training on Sunday as he nurses a sternum complaint. The Broncos say it is not serious but Bird, who sat out most of the 2018 season after undergoing sternum surgery, said he had encouraged Pangai to take no chances with it and to wear padding to be on the safe side.

"I think he got a little bump there last week," Bird said.

"I've said to him that sternum problems are pretty bad so he has to look after it and get on top of it, and make sure you are wearing that pad if it is sore.

"He's been wearing it for the last few weeks so I think he'll be wearing it on game day."