Despite drama, Broncos coach keeps cool
The prospect of taking on the Warriors in the first round of the NRL finals without Josh Hoffman and Sam Thaiday failed to rattle rookie coach Anthony Griffin as Brisbane gave skipper Darren Lockyer another fond farewell.
Hoffman, who limped off 14 minutes into Brisbane's costly 18-10 win over Manly at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday, will have scans on Monday for a possible season-ending right knee injury with fears he may have ruptured his posterior cruciate ligament.
Thaiday, who fortunately has no loading penalties, faces an anxious wait after being reported for a lifting tackle on Manly prop Brent Kite in the 68th minute which Manly coach Des Hasler said deserved to be graded.
If Griffin was worried by the events from a game which had no bearing on his side's finishing position, he wasn't showing it.
Asked if he was concerned about Thaiday's tackle which dumped Kite on his head he said: "I don't have a real issue with it. We'll just wait and see what happens, there'll be plenty written about it over the next few days".
Griffin said he felt for young Hoffman, last year's Broncos player of the year who has done an excellent job of filling the void left by the departure of Karmichael Hunt at the end of 2009.
"Obviously if Josh is gone, that's devastating for him," said Griffin, who said the return of world class centre Justin Hodges would be a boost.
"Ideally you don't like that to happen but every team has a couple out at this time of year.
"If that's the case we get Gerard Beale back there and we get Hodges back and we get on with it.
"I feel for him at the moment but it's just part of the journey sometimes."
Griffin said Beale, who scored an excellent side-stepping try in the second half which sealed the win, would handle the job against the Warriors if Hoffman was ruled out.
"At the start of the year when we were trying to establish ourselves in the competition, Gerard was one of our best at fullback, everyone was raving about him and rightly so," said Griffin.
"If it happens he is at fullback next week, he's a pretty good replacement."
Griffin felt his players had shown enough commitment and character to go on with the job.
"Manly were coming to get us. The way we dug and ground it out I thought it was perfect for us going into a semi-final," he said.
"I thought it was a real good brush up before next week."
Asked if he thought Brisbane could go all the way, Lockyer was positive in his response.
"We had a couple of opportunities if we had've scored it may have been a completely different scoreline," he said.
"I reckon we're capable."
Brisbane led 14-0 at halftime but Manly came out firing with two quick tries to get back to 14-10.
They had a third to winger Michael Oldfield disallowed in the 50th minute which would have put them in the lead.
"I thought they were very good given the circumstances coming up here," said Manly's Des Hasler.
"It was a great experience for our boys to play in an environment like that, I thought they handled it pretty well."
Manly host the Cowboys at Sydney Football Stadium in their semi-final next Saturday night.
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