Everything about The Brisbane Broncos totally explained
The
Brisbane Broncos are an Australian professional
rugby league club based in the city of
Brisbane, Queensland. The Broncos play in Australasia's elite competition, the
National Rugby League (NRL) premiership. They have won six premierships during their twenty years in competition, making them the league's most successful club over the past two decades.
The club was founded in 1988 as part of the
New South Wales Rugby League premiership's national expansion, becoming, along with the
Gold Coast-Tweed Giants, one of Queensland's first two participants in the
Winfield Cup. The Broncos later played a significant role in the
Super League War of the mid-1990s before continuing to compete successfully in the reunified National Rugby League competition of today.
The Broncos are based in the Brisbane suburb of
Red Hill where their training ground and Leagues club are located, but they play their home games at
Milton's
Suncorp Stadium. They are also the only publicly listed sporting club on the
Australian Securities Exchange, trading as Brisbane Broncos Limited . The parent company of the Brisbane Broncos is Nationwide News Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of
News Limited, which as of
30 June 2007, owns 68.87% of Broncos shares.
History
Queensland’s success in the 1980s'
State of Origin, in addition to the inclusion of a Combined Brisbane team in the
mid-week competition, convinced the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) to invite a Queensland-based team into the competition. After tough competition between the various syndicates for the Brisbane license, the
Queensland Rugby League chose the bid of former
Brisbane Rugby League (BRL) players,
Barry Maranta and
Paul "Porky" Morgan.
The Broncos secured the services of
Australian Kangaroos captain
Wally Lewis and former
BRL coach
Wayne Bennett. The team made their
first grade debut in 1988 against reigning NSWRL premiers
Manly-Warringah, defeating them 44-10, but after this promising start they failed to make the finals.
In 1989 they won the midweek knockout competition, the
Panasonic Cup. The club first tasted
premiership success in 1992, and
again in 1993, defeating the
St. George Dragons in both years. Brisbane won the only
Super League premiership in
1997, before winning the first National Rugby League trophy in the re-unified
1998 competition. This was evidenced in 2003 when the ladder-leading Broncos lost 10 of their last 11 games. Despite faring better in
2004 and
2005, the team still struggled in the latter stages of the season, losing all of their finals matches. After a dismal 2007 season in which they only scraped into the finals, coach Wayne Bennett announced he'd leave at the end of 2008 after twenty-one years as coach.
Ivan Henjak, a former rugby league player who had been assistant coach with the Broncos since the beginning of 2006, was named their second ever coach for the 2009 season.
Season Summaries
Brisbane Broncos lost a play-off for fifth in 1989, which is counted as a final game.
Emblem and colours
It had originally been planned for the Brisbane Broncos to adopt a logo incorporating both a
kangaroo and a stylised "Q" which had been featured in the logo for the Queensland Rugby League for many years. However, with the
Australian national rugby league team also known as the Kangaroos, this was deemed inappropriate and conflicting. The
Cooktown Orchid which had long been used by Brisbane clubs in the
Bulimba Cup was also ruled out, along with other
Australian animals such as the
brumby,
possum,
galah and the
kookaburra, which was used on Brisbane's Kookaburra Queen
paddleships. Having wanted to continue with the use of
alliteration for local sporting teams such as the
Brisbane Bullets and
Brisbane Bears, the club's directors eventually decided on the nickname
Broncos.
The original club logo was first featured in the Broncos' inaugural season in the premiership in 1988 and was used until 1999. It used a mostly
gold colour scheme, in line with the predominant colour on the team jerseys. In 2000, the club adopted a new logo with a more
maroon design, which was much closer to the traditional colour associated with Queensland rugby league and Queensland sport in general. As a result, the traditional maroon and white colours of Brisbane Bullimba Cup sides along with gold, symbolising the Queensland sunshine, were adopted as the club's colours.
In the inaugural 1988 season, the club's jersey design featured the top third being gold, the middle being alternating hoops of maroon and white and the bottom third being maroon. Although this design featured gold strongly, it didn't please everyone as the jersey had to differentiate from the maroon and white of
Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles and the maroon of the
Queensland State of Origin team. Following a number of design changes in the 1990s including a predominantly white jersey from 1997 to 1998, blue was added to the jersey in 2001 as a minor colour to show the aforementioned historical link with the colours of Brisbane. However, this was later dropped from the design in favour of a mainly maroon jersey with gold trim. In 2001, following the release of the club's predominantly white with navy-blue and maroon away jersey, the National Rugby League ordered the club to produce a third jersey since the new away jersey clashed with the home jerseys of the
Penrith Panthers, Melbourne Storm and
New Zealand Warriors. An aqua strip using the same design as the jerseys used from 1999 to 2001 was worn, which was much derided by the local media. Following two years of public pressure the club dropped the jersey in favour of the design worn against Newcastle in 2003. The club's home match attendance, which had averaged 19,637 at Lang Park, increased to 43,200 at the new ground in the first season following the club's premiership title in the previous season. However, despite the team's second premiership in 1993, crowds gradually declined, with the club failing, until 2002, to register more than the 1996 average of 23,712.
With the Queensland Government's $280,000,000 redevelopment of Lang Park, the team moved back to the refurbished and renamed Suncorp Stadium upon its completion in mid-2003. The more centrally-located stadium has begun to attract increasingly higher crowds, with the 2006 average attendance of 31,208 being significantly higher than the
Newcastle Knights with 21,848 and about double the regular season competition average of 15,601.
The club record attendance for a regular season match is 58,593, set against the St. George Dragons in the final round of the 1993 season. The record attendance for a match at Suncorp Stadium is 50,416, set in the opening round of the 2007 season against the
North Queensland Cowboys.
Statistics and records
The Brisbane Broncos are the most successful club in the history of the competition in terms of percentage of total games won, having won 65.80% of their games since their inception. This is more than 5% better than the second-placed club. In their nineteen completed seasons, the club has made a total of six Grand Finals, winning each time, and have made the finals for the past fifteen seasons. They are one of only two clubs to have won the
World Club Challenge twice, and were the first club to do so on British soil. They also won the now defunct
Panasonic Cup in
1989.
Corey Parker holds the record for most goals in a game kicking ten in a round one clash of 2008 breaking the previous mark of nine kicked by Lockyer in 1998 and matched by
Michael De Vere in 2001. Parker converted ten from ten goals in the Broncos 48-12 win over the
Penrith Panthers in which Parker scored 24 points placing him in equal second place on the most points in a match tally. Four players have scored four tries in a match for the Brisbane Broncos including Steve Renouf,
Wendell Sailor,
Karmichael Hunt and
Justin Hodges. Renouf achieved this feat fives times from 1991 to 1998.
The club's biggest winning margin is 65 points, achieved in 2007 in a 71-6 victory over the
Newcastle Knights. Their heaviest defeat was a 50–4 loss to the Melbourne Storm in 2005, a record which was equalled when they lost to the
Parramatta Eels 68-22 in 2007.
2008 Squads
The Brisbane Broncos have 25 main signed players for the 2008 season.
The Brisbane Broncos also field a team in the Under 20's
National Youth Competition.
Notable players
» For a full list of Broncos representatives, see Brisbane Broncos Representatives
The representative playing list of the Brisbane Broncos has traditionally been extensive due to the club's premiership success and being the dominant Queensland team in the competition for the majority of its participation. Consequently, there have been a large number of Queensland Maroons in the team. In 2007, a 20 man legends team was announced to celebrate the club's 20 year anniversary.
Honours
Corporate
John Ribot, a former first grade rugby league player in Queensland and New South Wales, was the club’s original
chief executive officer (CEO). Ribot left when he signed to become the CEO of the rebel Australian rugby league competition
Super League. (p.24,112) Shane Edwards, the Broncos Marketing Manager at the time, was promoted to CEO and later resigned. Bruno Cullen, who had been with the Broncos' off-field staff since 1989, became the club's third CEO in 2003.
Footnotes
Further Information
Get more info on 'Brisbane Broncos'.
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