The Brisbane Broncos are reeling after losing 6-53 to Parramatta at home on Thursday night.
The loss marks their sixth from their last 10 games as they run the risk of dropping out of the top eight entirely.
Given that the Broncos sat in the top four just five weeks ago, The Daily Telegraph’s David Riccio believes their drop in form will be too hard to recover from and insists their hopes of challenging are “gone” in 2022.
“They’re gone, they are gone,” Riccio said on SEN 1170 Breakfast.
“They’re in reverse, they’ve got the beep, beep, beep on, they’re falling out of the eight.
“The big concern and I wonder if rival teams understand, we talk about defence winning premierships and defence being the key to finals success.
“Well, they’re marginally better than the Bulldogs, Manly have a better record as far as defence is concerned, St George Illawarra are around a similar mark, they’ve conceded 535 points this year and the Broncos are at 528.”
While 2022 was originally billed as a development year at Red Hill following a 16th place finish in 2020 and a 14th place finish in 2021, Riccio believes this season may also be considered a failure despite the side winning more games than the past two seasons combined.
“They’re gone, they’ve forgotten how to tackle, it’s hugely concerning, it will be a discussion now going forward when they do fall out of the eight, I believe the Raiders are in the prime spot to leapfrog the Broncos,” Riccio said.
“I think the discussion will go towards the Broncos and has this season been another failure?
“Five weeks ago they were sitting in the top four, should they drop out … it’d be a big slide from the Broncs.”
While the Broncos still remain a chance of playing finals if Canberra fails to jump them, rugby league great Greg Alexander thinks they’ll enter September with a “whimper” if they stay inside the top eight.
“Almost 200 points in the last five games, the Broncos,” Alexander said.
“They might scrape in, something might happen, they might win next week.
“But they’ll be a whimper in the finals if they get there.”
Brisbane’s final home and away game of the 2022 season comes against St George Illawarra next Saturday evening.