THE LONG HARD LOOK WITH MIKE WILSON
Brisbane Broncos v Gold Coast Titans
Suncorp Stadium, 7:35pm
Broncos $1.22, Titans $4.25
Broncos: Josh Hoffman, Gerald Beale, Justin Hodges, Jack Reed, Jharal Yow Yeh, Darren Lockyer, Peter Wallace, Ben Hannant, Andrew McCullough, Scott Anderson, Alex Glenn, Sam Thaiday, Corey Parker. Â Interchange (from): Matt Gillett, Ben Hunt, Mitchell Dodds, Josh McGuire, Kurt Baptiste, Dunamis Lui.
Titans: Luke Capewell, Steve Michaels, Clinton Toopi, Bodene Thompson, David Mead, William Zillman, Scott Prince (c), Luke Bailey (c), Matt Srama, Anthony Laffranchi, Greg Bird, Mark Minichiello, Ashley Harrison. Interchange (from): Matt White, Michael Henderson, Luke O’Dwyer, Preston Campbell, Brenton Lawrence
Rivalry round kicks off in QLD with Brisbane and the Gold Coast playing for a bit of south-east QLD pride. It probably still makes you scratch you head when you look at where these teams sit on the ladder (Broncos 5th, 26 points, Titans 16th & Last, 12 points) and think back to Round 3 when the Titans went heart-breakingly close to winning that match. How did the Titans get that close? They have played like a Toyota Cup side all year so hopefully for their sakes things are going to turn around soon. The Titans were beaten fairly comprehensively last week by the Warriors 22-6 but I won’t say they played bad. Losing last week by 16 points to the Warriors in New Zealand on a cold, windy night wasn’t such a bad result for a side on the bottom of the ladder. Perhaps the return of Matt Rogers has sparked the team into action, but in saying that, he has not been named to play.  Hopefully they can be competitive in this one.
The Broncos have all their superstars onboard for this clash and the players would have enjoyed a full seven days preparation together for the first time in a few weeks now that State of Origin is done and dusted for another year. It all looks pretty straight forward for the Broncos as they play for a chance to finish the round in the top 4. The bookies agree having opened them up in the betting at 9/2 on ($1.22).
Mike’s Best Bet: None
Starting Bank: $2000, Current Bank $2541.42
(Team lists sourced from nrl.com.au)
