Rising club to snare star playmaker in shock signing coup<\/a><\/p>\nBen Hunt\u2019s drop ball in the 2015 decider effectively decided the result.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Paul Crawley argued Reynolds won a premiership as a youngster in a team full of leaders, but he hasn\u2019t been able to lead Souths and Brisbane to a title as captain. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it can definitely,\u201d Crawley said on NRL 360. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you go through the individual careers, Adam Reynolds won a premiership as a 24-year-old in 2014, but since then he lost 2021 at South Sydney and he missed that vital goal near the end of the game that could have locked the scores. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd in 2023 they were home for all money in that game and any way you look at it, Adam lost control of the game and Cleary grabbed hold of it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Broncos out for revenge in prelim final | 01:40<\/p>\n
Crawley believes for all the great things Hunt has done in the game, that dropped ball in the 2015 Grand Final will be the thing people remember unless he can put a title exclamation point on his illustrious career. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith Ben Hunt, the 2015 Grand Final, it\u2019s arguably the greatest Grand Final of all time and the memory you take out of it is Ben Hunt dropping the ball,\u201d Crawley said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen seven seasons at the Dragons followed that and in seven seasons he made the finals once in 2018. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then you go to this year, and yes they won in week one of the finals and he lands the match-winning field goal. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut prior to that, he had a pretty ordinary game. In fact, I\u2019d say it was almost a shocker.\u201d <\/p>\n
However, Anasta defended Hunt\u2019s Grand Final error, as the Broncos had the game in their hands for most of the contest before some brilliance from Thurston and Michael Morgan locked up the scores on the bell. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think everyone remembers this moment and you\u2019ve got to feel sorry for him,\u201d Anasta said. <\/p>\n
The Daily Telegraph\u2019s Brent Read believes a title is more important for Hunt because Reynolds has already won a title, albeit early in his career. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s more important for Ben Hunt because Adam\u2019s won a comp and Ben hasn\u2019t and I think that\u2019s the key, right?\u201d Read said. <\/p>\n
Ben Hunt and Adam Reynolds are desperate to win a title for the Broncos.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
I think Adam\u2019s not perhaps under as much pressure from a legacy perspective because of what he did at Souths, the 2014 Premiership, what it meant for that club. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhilst Ben doesn\u2019t have it yet and that\u2019s the Grand Final memory everyone\u2019s got of Ben Hunt, so I think in terms of legacy, this week and next week, if they get there, means a lot more to Ben Hunt.\u201d <\/p>\n
However, Crawley believes Souths\u2019 premiership in 2014 was more due to the senior players in that team led by Sam Burgess. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith respect to Adam\u2019s 2014 Grand Final and taking nothing away from the part he played in that, but at that time of his career, you had Sam Burgess, you had Greg Inglis, you had John Sutton, like they were the dominant forces in that team,\u201d Crawley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s still going to ring though,\u201d Read interjected. <\/p>\n
Fitzy reveals turning point in season | 02:52<\/p>\n
However, Crawley believes lifting the trophy as Broncos captain and winning one with two clubs to bookend his career will be huge for Reynolds\u2019 legacy. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe sure does and you don\u2019t take that away, but as a leader, he was the skipper of Souths, and he was the skipper of the Broncos and it\u2019s just in that respect,\u201d Crawley said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese two guys will go down as among the great halfbacks of their generations, but the lasting legacy, people look back at premierships.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Daily Telegraph\u2019s Michael Carayannis agreed Hunt needs a title and Reynolds needs another to cement their legacies. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d argue that Adam Reynolds needs to walk away with two premierships to go down as a great of his generation and Ben Hunt\u2019s probably not there without a premiership,\u201d Carayannis said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo for both those players, they need to walk away with a premiership ring for different reasons.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane halves Adam Reynolds and Ben Hunt are two games away from changing their Broncos and rugby league…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-169049","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\/169049","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=169049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}