Brisbane playmakers under fire as Seibold takes aim at critics

Anthony Seibold admits that his playmakers’ inability to ice the game in the 22-16 loss to Wests Tigers was “a painful lesson” and took another potshot at critics who have attacked the culture of his team.

The Broncos had a full set in the final minutes when the scores were locked at 16-all but were unable to get in position to land a field goal that may have won the game.

Halves Anthony Milford and Kodi Nikorima have come under scrutiny for their inability to manage that crucial moment.

In the post-match press conference it was put to Seibold that hooker Andrew McCullough had put his hand up twice looking for someone to pass it to, but the play broke down as players failed to run straight towards the posts.

Seibold said the halves were “a work in progress”, while agreeing the Broncos did not handle a key set well.

“That is not a combination thing. That is Milf there. He is our organiser and needs to get the ball so I am not sure what other voices were calling the shots there in that particular scrum set,” Seibold said.

“We weren’t happy about that scrum set when we probably had an opportunity to go down and ice the game.

“It is a fairly painful lesson obviously, but there was a whole heap of crap about culture during the week, so I was really proud of the guys. They worked really hard and played for each other.

“The execution… we’ll fix up. I thought the guys showed plenty of pride tonight.”

The Broncos came under fire from Gorden Tallis, Trevor Gillmeister and Justin Hodges during the week for a raft of reasons but Seibold said “two of the three guys have rung and apologised during the week”.

“We talk about social media with young people, and mental health, but with the amount of crap some of the people have to cop during the week it is an issue if they are reading the papers, but we don’t give it any oxygen,” Seibold said.

Seibold said the performance of 19-year-old prop Payne Haas in his first NRL game as a starter was a highlight. Haas ran for 168 metres and made 45 tackles in his 62-minute stint.

“The result was disappointing but we made a couple of positive steps in the right direction. I thought the effort was really high, the energy was really high and I was rapt in Payne playing as many minutes… but ultimately at the death we didn’t get the job done,” Seibold said.