With just over a week until the start of Super League X, and with a handful of friendlies already played; what’s in store for a London Broncos team featuring some new faces but old hands of the game?
After finishing a disappointing 10th last year, London had to look for some new direction, and not just because they lost a handful of rugby league legends and London stalwarts, in captain Jimmy Dymock, Russell Bawden, Dennis ‘The Man’ Moran and how can we forget Matt Toshack and of course the one and only Steele Retchless. The departure of these players left an obvious gaps in the team and with that doubts grew on how they would be replaced, but seemed to be the catalyst to change at the Broncos.
First off, London secured the services of Rohan Smith as assistant coach. Rohan’s impact was clear on his arrival mid way through last year. It saw the Broncos have a turn in form. His must take some credit for this new lease of the form the Broncos found. Even if they were helped along the way by some very clever loan signings. The name Liam Botham springs to mind.
Tony Rea also took the bold step of going against tradition and for the first time that I can remember, London didn’t travel to the Southern Hemisphere for pre season training. Instead they stayed and bared the English winter conditions. It seemed the management team saw sense. For many years rugby league pundits had been calling for London to end their trip as it didn’t seem to be working. This is apparent by the fact London have another tradition of being notoriously slow starters. There is of course a financial benefit to them not going. It’s no secret the Broncos are short of cash and possibly in sizable debt, so this money saved would have undoubtedly help balance the books.
With the Broncos not going away this left lots of free time for the Broncos to have a string of fixtures to test out their new squad. Pre season fixtures again was a rarity with the Broncos in recent this years, but this year it seemed ‘change’ was definitely on Tony Rea’s mind. He organised several top key friendly fixtures to give the boys run out and to prepare them fully for the start of the season. Again this is something that maybe the Broncos have been lacking. Not necessarily a lack of preparation but a lack of the right preparation.
It seems London have used the extra money wisely as they brought in key players in every department. It is however, the pack and more importantly the front row that has seen the biggest rise with steam rollers- Tookey, Armour and Lolohea becoming Broncos, bolstering an already solid front row. With London also retaining Budders until 2007 it can certain that London will be able to compete upfront even with the meanest front rows. There has been somewhat a shake-up in front row with just Joe Mbu remaining in the squad from last year.
Whilst the pack has gone from the strength to strength is it going to be the situation with the half backs that will excite London fans the most. Once Dennis left for the Warriors, the Broncos knew they would have to recruit some real stars and with the rumour mill grinding the name Brad Fitler soon came to the surface. Alas it wasn’t meant to be and instead an equally good bunch of replacements were found in Luke Dorn, Mark McLinden and Thomas Leuluai. The possible pairings between these three gives many fans a nose bleed as they dream of the dizzy heights of the Super League summit. No one will deny that Dennis at times was London, he’d do everything, tackle, kick, run, pass. He certainly left big boots to fill especially for a little man. Let’s hope the former NRL star Leuluai fills these boots and more.
Moving in to the centres, the Broncos retained Mark O’Halloran, who in many people’s eyes was London’s find of last year. He played superb and gave the team some much needed penetration to cross the white wash. Mark’s absence was certainly felt because when he was out in the middle of the season due to a hand injury, London lost 5 games. Last year also saw the departure of a fan favourite in Nigel Roy and again questions were asked about who could fill the boots of such a solid player. Yet again the Broncos came up trumps signing Tyrone Smith and Nick Bradley-Qalilawa.
There was no buying in the speedster department. This is one of the most competitive areas in the team. After a few embarrassing errors, both John Kirkpatrik and Jon Wells grew in confidence and became very useful additions to the side. Greenwood also came of age, putting in some key match winning performances and many will hope this continues this year and why on earth shouldn’t it?
Finally right at the back of the team is full back and this could be very interesting as the Broncos now have 2 players who seemingly can stop anything in their path. Tony Rea will find it hard dropping either Sykes or Lucky.
Competition gives Tony a selection dilemma; it can only be good for the Broncos who have suffered in recent years from long injury lists and a lack of strength in depth. Somehow this year I don’t think it’ll be a problem. Maybe it’s because I’m a Chelsea fan but with this depth my only worry is that Rea now has the potential to be the Ranieri of rugby and feel the need to play everyone in a rotation system. You just have to look how it turned out for the Blues, £100+ million spent, no trophies and a new manger.
I keep comparing this year coming to the past and I’m going to do that again by saying this has to be the first time for a long time that the Broncos look like a top team. Previously it was hype that made them look good but they failed to deliver when it mattered. The pre-season fixtures have shown that this year has the makings of being very different.
So, a new set of players are preparing to wear the London badge with pride during a no doubt tough, brutal campaign. A campaign that many hope will see London bounce back from last year’s disappointment. Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure, February 13th has the ingredients to be a day to remember
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