Watch: The moment Broncos’ finals hopes were laid to rest
It was the moment Brisbane’s finals hopes went from life support to the grave.
With a minute left on the clock in Saturday night’s game and Brisbane trailing North Queensland 18-10, the Broncos were on the Cowboys’ try line and the equation facing them was simple.
A dejected Kotoni Staggs on Saturday night. Getty
Score a try on the last tackle and keep alive their chances of victory in Townsville, or wave goodbye to their wretched premiership defence.
For a brief moment, the play looked promising.
The Broncos spread the ball from the left side of the field all the way to the right, where Kotoni Staggs was met with a two-on-one overlap.
All he had to do was draw Murray Taulagi and dish the ball to either Jordan Riki or Ben Hunt, both of whom were unmarked on his outside.
And although he did draw Taulagi, the pass he threw was grassed by Riki.
“It’s the story of their season, Brisbane,” former Broncos hooker Michael Ennis said on Fox League.
The Cowboys held on to win 18-10 and kill off any remaining hope the Broncos had of making an improbable late-season charge to the finals.
After losing to the Sharks in round 18 to drop their eighth game in a row, the Broncos had to win eight on the bounce to be any chance of scraping into the finals.
They knocked off Penrith in Sydney to clear the first hurdle, but stumbled at the second on Saturday night.
“I’m pretty shattered for the players and the staff because they’re putting a hell of a lot of work in there at the moment,” Broncos coach Michael Maguire said in his post-game press conference.
“Unfortunately tonight we left a lot out there, with a missed opportunity. I think in the first half we put ourselves across the line two or three times and weren’t able to capitalise. Unfortunately, those things come back and get you later in the game.
“We need to keep turning out with a positive mindset around the fact that depending on what happens will happen.”
He gave a nod to some of his players departing at season’s end: captain Adam Reynolds, who was seated beside him in the press conference, as well as the South Sydney-bound Payne Haas and Perth signing Gehamat Shibasaki.
“We’ve got some pretty incredible people within our playing group that have got games left,” Maguire said.
“As a group I’m really proud of them, and there’s a lot of belief around who we are as a group, but it just hasn’t been our time at this present moment.”
The Brisbane team that took down Penrith last week and lost to North Queensland on Saturday night was a polar opposite to the Broncos sides that lost eight games straight.
Buoyed by the return of millions of dollars worth of stars, including Reynolds, Haas, Reece Walsh and Patrick Carrigan, they threatened Penrith and North Queensland in attack and were resolute in defence.
In the 55th minute of the Townsville clash, Reynolds, Walsh and Mam combined to cut the deficit to 16-10, conversion included, with Haas being used as a decoy runner.
It was a slick backline play deep in Cowboys territory that reawakened memories of the Broncos’ blazing run to premiership glory last season, when their stars were on song and their attacked clicked.
But Brisbane, in spite of a glut of possession on North Queensland’s line in the dying minutes, couldn’t crack the Cowboys’ defence again.
Meanwhile, the Cowboys’ win strengthened their hold on eighth place on the ladder.
Todd Payten’s side is one win ahead of the ninth-placed Bulldogs, who produced an upset victory over the Warriors earlier on Saturday afternoon.
