‘You’re taking it personally!’: Buzz, Braith in heated debate as more details of fiery Madge call emerge
Michael Maguire’s heavy-handed coaching style has sparked a fiery debate on NRL360, with reports circulating that there is unrest among the Broncos playing group.
The Broncos slumped to their fourth loss from five games on Friday after coughing up a 14-0 lead against a severely undermanned Souths team.
It was a new low in Maguire’s debut season at the club, which has come under scrutiny from journalist Phil Rothfield, who penned a column for The Daily Telegraph on Monday questioning Maguire’s decision to take his players on a luxury Sydney Harbour cruise in the days leading up to the Souths loss.
In that column, he also detailed the robust phone conversation he had with the Broncos coach.
“I spoke to him about player unrest and reports that the players are feeling flat,” Rothfield said.
“I think there is. I have no doubts there is. I think there are people around there who think they are being overtrained.”
NRL360 co-host Braith Anasta somewhat disagreed, instead believing that Maguire perhaps underestimated how big the job to turn the Broncos around would be.
“I think there’s a hangover there in Brisbane,” Anasta said.
“I reckon the reason Madge went there was because there is a soft underbelly. There are egos and they need to be toughened up and some resilience needs to be built in the joint.
“Now he’s finding this job a lot harder than what he thought it would be and now he’s got a lot more work than he thought he’d have to do.
“I bumped into him after the Souths loss. He acknowledged they are taking shortcuts, they’re trying to score tries to play one, they aren’t building pressure or doing the tough stuff teams need to do to win.
”It’s about Madge trying to find the balance there. He’s got a lot of work to do and he knows that.
“He’s got to train them hard and teach some hard lessons but at the same time, he can’t lose the group otherwise you’re gone.
“It’s a big job up there.”
This led to a tense few moments between Anasta and Rothfield, with the journalist accusing the former NRL star of “doubting his story”.
“You seem to be doubting the fact that he might have upset a few players up there. And he did upset players at the Tigers,” Rothfield said.
“Do you think Ricky Stuart and Craig Bellamy have upset players in the off-season? I’ll name teams that are going well and training hard that are vomiting in the off-season,” Anasta replied.
When Rothfield asked how he knew the Raiders “were vomiting in the off-season”, Anasta shot back with: “Because I played under Ricky Stuart. Did you?”
“You’re taking it personally”.
Rothfield then doubled down on what he wrote in his column and shed some more light on his phone call bust-up with Maguire.
“I’m not taking it personally. You’re saying that when the players are off him, it was exactly the same at his last two jobs. He was sacked from those two jobs,” Rothfield said.
“I rang him yesterday and allowed him to tell his story but he didn’t want to do that and I can tell you the way he spoke gave me an impression and an understanding on why he has relationship issues with players.
“I had my doubts after watching (documentary) Tales from Tigertown, and the F-bomb tirades and the way players went off him at Souths as well that whether the Broncos needed a hard edge, I wonder whether Madge was the right man to deliver that.
“As a representative coach in charge of New Zealand and with New South Wales, he’s absolutely outstanding because they’re eight week programs and you have the elite players and you don’t have to skill them up and train them hard.
“There’s no doubt he’s an outstanding rep coach.”
Veteran journalist Brent Read noted there’s still plenty of time for the Broncos to mount a massive premiership threat, although did concede there appears to be “cultural issues” at the club.
“This playing group were mentally weak last year and I think they are again this year,” Read said.
“I’ve heard the same things as you about player unrest but two weeks ago, they thrashed the Bulldogs. Where was the tiredness then?
“To me, this isn’t a physical tiredness, it’s a mental tiredness.
“It’s ten games into the season. There were players who were off (sacked coach) Kevvie (Walters) as well apparently. This is a bigger problem than the coach.
“The Broncos haven’t won a comp in 19 years. The biggest club in the game. This is an endemic problem that’s been at that club for two decades.
“I just think the club has cultural issues at the moment. Madge is in there trying to fix it, just as Kevvie tried to fix it.”