But as Maguire insisted the chaos would not derail the Broncos’ premiership defence, Reynolds led from the front to grind the Dolphins out of the contest.
“Ren’s just doing what he’s capable of doing. I’ve been able to ride the wave with him for a long time and see him develop, and there are a lot of people who have their thoughts about what he can and can’t do,” Maguire said of Reynolds.
“But what I do know is he can perform like he did tonight. He jumped out there, and I could sense he was coming back and getting himself in the right frame of mind to play like that.”
The Brisbane halfback directed the attack with composure, generating the field position for Ezra Mam to drop a grubber in behind the line for Kotoni Staggs to score the night’s opening try.
Reynolds then did it all himself to extend the lead, shaping to go wide at close range only to kick for himself to score. Early in the second half, his decision to run the ball on the last play then paid huge dividends – firing a short ball for interchange forward Ben Talty, whose remarkable no-look flick pass put fullback Reece Walsh through a gaping hole to strike.
Ben Talty’s flick pass for Reece Walsh to score.Nine
The captain then set about turning the screws with his long kicking game to pin the Dolphins deep, as side remained largely error-free in the final 40 minutes. Brisbane’s defence flourished on the back of that, a try-saving tackle on Kulikefu Finefeuiaki by Walsh at the death one of 40 tackles they made inside their own 20-metre zone, which ultimately led to Deine Mariner and Staggs making breaks for the latter to score his second.
“I could see the team that I know and what they can achieve. They had to dig pretty deep … but they’re hung strong, they worked for each other and came up with some special plays,” Maguire said.
“It’s always a work in progress, we’ve been able to shown signs of where we’re chasing, and I was just really happy with the resilience each of them showed for each other. The fact they did the 40 tackles and worked hard right to the death of the game was a special performance.”
In contrast, execution plagued the Dolphins, a Kodi Nikorima forward pass in particular denying Finefeuiaki, while a Thomas Flegler knock on at close range stripped them of another chance.
While they finally struck through winger Jamayne Isaako in the first half, they rarely looked likely to wrestle back momentum in the second term – a Francis Molo knock on in the opening minute setting the tone.
If not for a fortuitous try to Jake Averillo, in which Mam fired a shocking pass well behind his own team for the Dolphins centre to swoop on, and the men from Redcliffe would never have gotten close.
Eventually, that poor execution trickled into the rest of their game, with some confusion between Isaako and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow under a Walsh bomb gifting Gehamat Shibasaki – who joined the fray after Grant Anderson suffered a knee medial injury – a try. With less than four minutes remaining, and the Dolphins on the attack, Tom Gilbert’s messy play the ball in front of the sticks ended any hopes of a late fightback.
“We were right in it, it was a close game and tough game, and I was proud of our effort. But when we got our opportunities we didn’t quite nail them, and they did,” Dolphins coach Kristian Woolf said.
“Some of our pass wasn’t quite right and some of our decisions weren’t as good as they can be at times.”