Adam Reynolds celebrated his Brisbane Broncos debut with a 16-10 win over the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs in a defensive thriller at Accor Stadium.
It was billed as a battle of young and new with Reynolds going up against young Bulldogs half Matt Burton. Both sides defended with incredible resilience - something that was notably absent from both sides in recent seasons.
Tevita Pangai Junior was in the thick of the action early keen to get some revenge on his former Bronco team-mates after his disgruntled exit midway through 2021. TPJ was placed on report for a late hit on Reynolds and may face some scrutiny from the match review committee. Canterbury started the match the better when Matt Burton took his aerial airshow to Accord Stadium giving nightmares to the Broncos back three. It was off one of Burton's towering kicks that set up the opening try when a brilliant set move from the Bulldogs got Jake Averillo and Matt Duffy involved before linking up with Braiden Burns as he slammed it down for the opening try of the game to put the Bulldogs up 4-0.
Brisbane quickly hit back when Albert Kelly hit a perfect banana kick to Corey Oates who celebrated his 100th first grade try in style and his second for the season. Reynolds put the kick wide and the scores remained even at 4-4. Canterbury had a near chance moments later when Matt Burton showed clever footwork to go oh so close to scoring. It took a brilliant cover tackle from Kotoni Staggs to deny the playmaker his first for the year. Canterbury had the better end of possession throughout the opening 40 minutes but the Brisbane defence held firm, a penalty against Staggs for an escort on the Fox gave Burton a chance to redeem himself with the boot, however, he too pushed the kick wide and the scores remained even at half-time.
Off the back of some more possession and poor discipline from Brisbane allowed much-maligned Canterbury hooker Jeremy Marshall-King to crash over and put the Bulldogs back in front and with Burton's conversion, it pushed the margin out to 10-4. Unfortunately, this was short-lived as a clever one-on-one strip from Herbie Farnworth and some questionable defence from Jayden Okunbor allowed the Brisbane centre to race 50m untouched to bring the margin within two points. Reynolds too landed his conversion and we were locked up again at 10-10.
Adam Reynolds did his best audition as an NFL offensive linemen with a miraculous hike to Kotoni Staggs to go over for what everyone thought was a try. However, bunker official Steve Chiddy spot a little knock on and revoked the try from the Broncos. Their pain was short-lived however after Jake Averillo put it down off a miscued set play. Brisbane perfected a scrum play and some more questionable defence allowed Herbie Farnworth to race away and claim his double. Reynolds made no mistake with the boot and put the Broncos out by a converted try.
Despite numerous sets on Brisbane's line, Canterbury was unable to put away an attacking opportunity despite TPJ and Paul Vaughan going agonisingly short. Albert Kelly saved the game for Brisbane when he cut across and caught an in-field kick from Josh Addo-Carr to halt Canterbury's final attack.
Canterbury was far from disgraced and showed they've got the defensive resolve required in the competition, however, they do have a trip to play Manly next Sunday night. Brisbane on the other hand, have a QLD derby to prepare for against the Cowboys in an extremely rare Sunday afternoon game.