'We put so much pressure on ourselves': Michael Maguire rues sloppy Broncos display, failed Mam plan

Broncos coach Michael Maguire has lamented that his error-riddled side put itself under "so much pressure" in its 26-0 defeat to the Panthers on Friday night.

The two-time premiership coach also admitted the late curveball he threw at Ivan Cleary's Panthers — his call to move Ben Hunt from the bench to five-eighth and Ezra Mam from five-eighth to the bench an hour before the game — had failed to spark his team at Suncorp Stadium.

"We put so much pressure on ourselves. But that comes from the opposition, so they came here and applied pressure. And we had too many errors to be able to put yourself into a game like that," Maguire said in his post-game press conference.

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"When you play high-quality teams, you've got to build pressure — we just definitely didn't do that. So that's something we just spoke about there [in the sheds].

"We've just got to get back to the game that we know [we] can play. It'll be up to us. We all need to chip away at making sure we find that game this week."

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The Broncos were sloppy from the get-go and never looked like unlocking the devastating attack that last year propelled them to their first NRL premiership in 19 years.

Patrick Carrigan grassed a pass from Cory Paix early.

Later in the first half, Reece Walsh had a crack at a 40-20 and sent it up the backside of Xavier Willison, who'd got in the superstar fullback's way.

Shortly after, Walsh put Jordan Riki in a gap on Penrith's line, only for the back-rower to drop the footy.

Riki then had another fumble on the other side of half-time, when he spilt it in a play-the-ball.

Soon after, Gehamat Shibasaki tried to link up with Josiah Karapani but threw the ball into touch.

And like rain and thunder in a Brisbane storm, the errors kept on coming.

All told, the Broncos tallied up 18 errors to the Panthers' 14.

They also only completed at 61 per cent. The Panthers weren't flash in that department, either, but did complete at a superior 72 per cent.

Consequently, the Broncos only had 42 per cent of possession.

And in defence, Brisbane chalked up 40 missed tackles to Penrith's 19.

It was put to Maguire that the Broncos had "missed the jump".

"That came from the errors," Maguire replied.

"I mean, we did put a lot of pressure on ourselves, and I think we didn't get to the long game that people talk about when you're kicking into the corners.

"And when you don't put yourself into a position because of the pressure you're putting on yourself, fatigue finds you, and then the game eventually got to that stage."

The loss to Penrith follows last month's dismal 30-24 defeat to Hull KR in the World Club Challenge. At one stage in the UK, Brisbane was trailing 30-4.

The Broncos will try to shake off their premiership hangover against the Eels at Suncorp Stadium next Thursday night.

"They're a pretty tight group. They're disappointed, but what they'll do, they'll go and look at their game. That's one thing that they do really well. And they've been able to capture that, so they'll be thorough amongst each other and they'll be chasing their best game," Maguire said.

"We didn't do a few things that we spoke about, so they're tidy-ups that we need to make sure that we get back into our game."

Maguire sprung a surprise an hour before kick-off when he pushed Mam out of his starting side and brought in Hunt.

Mam was injected into the game in the 30th minute, at which point Brisbane was trailing 10-0. He partnered Adam Reynolds in the halves, Hunt shifted to hooker, and Paix took a breather.

"We thought about that throughout the week," Maguire admitted.

"We obviously didn't get our start with the way that the game rolled, we didn't put them under pressure, we didn't put the fatigue into them.

"Having Ez come on the way we know he can, he then wasn't able to show himself the way he can play. So it's part of building a whole game."