Broncos keep pressure on top four with resounding comeback

It’s another week and another comeback for the Brisbane Broncos as they continue their charge up the ladder following their Friday night win against the Bulldogs.

Following their Round 16 match against Cronulla, where they came back from 16 points down, the Broncos have followed it up by overcoming an 18-point deficit against the Bulldogs.

It was a remarkable win for the Broncos, who recovered from 0-18 down at the 60th minute mark to win 22-18 thanks to tries from Josiah Karapani, Delouise Hoeter, Billy Walters and Brendan Piakura within the space of 13 minutes that turned the game around.

The win becomes more remarkable considering the Broncos were without all their Origin stars such as Payne Haas, Pat Carrigan, Reece Walsh and Gehamat Shibasaki.

It’s the Broncos’ fourth win in a row, with the last three coming against top-eight sides as they now sit 5th on the ladder and enhance their reputation within the competition.

When asked by SEN’s Mark Braybrook about the match, Broncos’ legend Andrew McCullough was somewhat surprised about how Brisbane managed to win the game.

“What do you say?” McCullough said with an exasperated tone on SEN’s Broncos Radio.

“The pressure they built up after a period there, the Bulldogs, they were out of the blocks nice and strong and as you said, down 18-nil, the Broncos looked absolutely shot.

“Couple of lovely plays there, (Josiah) Karapani really set it up, but Ezra Mam had his hand on a couple of tries (that he) set up nicely.

“What a win for the Brisbane Broncos, not just the win, but it gives them the confidence now without those (Origin) players and what could really set up the rest of their year.”

Following that, Braybrook was still surprised how Canterbury didn’t walk away with the two premiership points.

“I’m still trying to work out how, in some respects, Canterbury lost it.”

“But that was because they were pretty average, and Brisbane just showed so much fight in that second half.

“They (the Bulldogs) only kicked a penalty goal in the second half.”

For the Bulldogs, this means they have lost three of their last five matches after starting 9-1 from their first ten games.

In his post-game press conference, Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo noted that his side had not learnt its lesson from last week’s loss against Penrith and that they had brought Brisbane back into the game.

“We came out last week and made a lot of errors after half time and lost control of the game, and that seemed to happen again tonight,” he said.

“There was some really good stuff that I’m really proud of. To get to 18-nil was good, but that wasn’t good enough that last quarter of the game.”