By Joel Gould
Brisbane great Shane Webcke has noted the humility and ruthless streak in the current team as they aim to equal the club’s best start in the NRL era.
If the undefeated Broncos beat cellar dwellers Wests Tigers at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night, it will be their fifth win in a row to start the season. The last time they did that was in the NRL’s inaugural year in 1998.
Four-time premiership winning prop Shane Webcke was a member of the 1998 side that went through the season’s first five matches unbeaten.
Credit:Colin Whelan © Action Photographics
That season, they banked early competition points, had a lull mid-season when they had up to 10 players in Queensland’s State of Origin team before finishing the season with a bang and winning the title.
Four-time premiership winning prop Webcke played in that 1998 side. He attended the Broncos’ 18-12 win over the Dolphins last week and then went to the post-match function where he noted a change in attitude to last year, when the side lost five of the last six games to miss the finals.
“The difference I see in these players, which I recognised in them, is there is a certain humility about them,” Webcke told AAP.
“They’d just beaten the Dolphins, which was a close game, of course, so there was nothing to be over-the-top about, but I feel like (coach) Kevvie Walters is doing a good job of keeping the excitement of their good start contained.
“He knows the season is long and a lot will go right and wrong before you get a chance to do anything.
“I got a sense the players understand that and maybe that has been the missing ingredient. They certainly had an air about them that wasn’t over-confident. It was, ‘Righto, we’ve done a good job thus far. There is plenty more to do’. It was very heartening to see.”
Webcke says the older players he started with at the Broncos had a hard edge to them that “wasn’t over-confidence or cockiness”, and he says he is seeing a similar attitude in the current team.Credit:Colin Whelan/Action Photographics
Brisbane defended like demons in first-up wins over Penrith and North Queensland, put St George Illawarra to the sword in the final 10 minutes and got in the grind with the Dolphins to prevail.
“It is good to see them being so ruthless again,” Webcke said.
“The older players I started with at the Broncos had a hard edge to them. It wasn’t over-confidence or cockiness that it was often mistaken for. They just had a belief and a desire. I have seen the beginnings and growth of that in the first four rounds and I hope they keep it going.”
The Broncos in the 1990s and 2000s glory years made a habit of getting early wins.
“It sets up your season and is the bedrock upon which premierships are won,” Webcke said.
“Traditionally at the Broncos we had good starts because we’d always get decimated at Origin time. That’s been less the case in recent times, but you’d think it would be a thing with this Broncos team.
“You’ve got to get those points in the bank so when you hit the lulls you’ve got them as a bit of a buffer.”
Webcke said Brisbane were being well led up front by Pat Carrigan and Payne Haas.
“Pat Carrigan is just ‘Mr Consistency’… and Payne is getting there as well. When he’s superb there is none better and he’s starting to put it together more often, which is the key,” he said.
– AAP
