Broncos captain Adam Reynolds has backed Ben Hunt and Billy Walters to continue to steer the team against the Raiders in Sunday\u2019s qualifying final after delaying his return for at least another week.<\/p>\n
Reynolds underwent a fitness test on Tuesday before the teams were announced for the opening weekend of finals matches and while he was confident of playing it was decided to err on the side of caution as the loser in Canberra gets a second chance. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The star playmaker injured his hamstring in the Round 23 loss to the Storm but despite being without Reynolds and five-eighth Ezra Mam, the Broncos have won their four matches since to secure a place in the Top 4.<\/p>\n
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NRL Finals: Moments that matter<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s the luxury of finishing in the Top 4,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cThe boys have done a fantastic job in the absence of myself and Ezra.<\/p>\n
\u201cBenny Hunt’s stepped in and done an amazing job and Billy Walters has been outstanding, no matter where he plays he’s performing for us extremely well, so to have those blokes in there gives you a lot of confidence and makes the decision a bit easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other team selection news for the opening round of finals:<\/p>\n
Raiders prop Josh Papalii (ankle) has been named.
\nSharks five-eighth Braydon Trindall (ankle) returns.
\nPanthers winger Tom Jenkins has been dropped for Paul Alamoti
\nThe Warriors welcome back Wayde Egan (hip) and Jackson Ford (suspension).
\nNick Meaney starts at fullback for the Storm, with Joe Chan named in the centres and Tyran Wishart at halfback. Harry Grant returns from suspension.
\nEnari Tuala shifts to centre for the Bulldogs with Blake Wilson and Jethro Rinakama the new faces on the wings, although Jacob Kiraz has been named on the extended bench.<\/p>\n
While many assumed Brisbane\u2019s season was over when Reynolds and Mam limped from the field after tearing their hamstrings in the same play while attempting to chase Melbourne winger Xavier Coates, Broncos coach Michael Maguire challenged his players to step up.<\/p>\n
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Story of the season: Canberra Raiders<\/p>\n
At the time the Broncos were three points outside the Top 4 in sixth place, but they ensured a second chance in the finals by beating the Storm 30-14 last Friday night at Suncorp Stadium.<\/p>\n
Having scored 152 points in the past four matches, the Broncos edged out the Sharks for fourth spot on for-and-against.<\/p>\n
\u201cMadge is a great leader of men, he understands the game extremely well, he understands how to get the best out of his players and that’s showing at the moment,\u201d Reynolds said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just said to get excited about the challenge. It’s easy for outsiders to write us off, but it’s the belief within the four walls at Red Hill that really matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know we’ve got a lot of depth in our squad. Whether it’s in the halves, the outside backs or the forwards, we feel like we’ve got the players that can come in and get the job done for us, and that showed over the past four weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve lost our two starting halves, and we sort of haven’t missed a beat. It\u2019s been good seeing the boys rise. We’ll take a lot of confidence out of the last couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fullback Reece Walsh came from the training field on Brisbane with a calf injury but has been named to play against the Raiders, while Queensland Origin centre Gehamat Shibasaki returns to the side after being dropped last week for disciplinary reasons.<\/p>\n
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Reece Walsh’s magic show<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are standards that we live by and as a playing group we need to abide by them,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cYou can’t step out of line and if you do there’s other players that would be there to take your spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a harsh lesson for Gehamat but he’s proven to the boys, that it was a mistake and it won’t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deine Mariner moves to the wing, while Jesse Arthars is 18th man.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broncos captain Adam Reynolds has backed Ben Hunt and Billy Walters to continue to steer the team against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-130972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}