{"id":500470,"date":"2026-04-29T04:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T04:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=500470"},"modified":"2026-04-29T05:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T05:23:08","slug":"ex-broncos-star-baffled-by-timing-of-ridiculous-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=500470","title":{"rendered":"Ex Broncos star baffled by timing of 'ridiculous' criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brought<\/p>\n

Broncos<\/a> great Andrew McCullough<\/a> has offered an insight into the intense scrutiny \ufefffaced by the Brisbane club, and taken aim at "ridiculous" criticism that came their way earlier this season.<\/p>\n

Brisbane broke a 19-year premiership drought last year, winning the grand final in Michael Maguire<\/a>'s first campaign as head coach.<\/p>\n

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Yet despite that ultimate success in October, by March the team and the coach were under the pump and facing ongoing attacks from people outside the club<\/a>, led by former player Gorden Tallis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tallis went on a crusade against his old team<\/a>, Maguire and the captain Adam Reynolds over a number of weeks on his media platforms with Fox League and Triple M.<\/p>\n

\ufeffIt started when superstar prop Payne Haas announced he would leave Red Hill and join South Sydney<\/a> at year's end. That fed a narrative that Maguire overworked his players and was on the nose with many within the squad.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

The team then flew to England and were stunned by Hull KR in the World Club Challenge.\ufeff<\/p>\n

After returning to Australia the Broncos were flogged by Penrith in round one, then suffered a shock loss to the Eels in round two.<\/p>\n

After three consecutive defeats the knives were out for Maguire, but since then they've won five of six games even in the midst of a crippling injury crisis.<\/p>\n

While missing basically an entire starting team in the past two weeks<\/a> Brisbane has beaten the high-flying Tigers and the Bulldogs\ufeff.<\/p>\n

Now, Broncos backers are taking aim at those who doubted Maguire and his men just a few weeks ago.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"\ufeffI for one have never heard any rumblings about in-fighting or any of that sort of stuff," Nine commentator Peter Psaltis said on Wide World of Sports' QLDER<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2026 NRL season live and free on Nine and<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.\ufeff<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Andrew<\/p>\n

"\ufeffI think what's occurred in the last couple of weeks should just shut up a few of those down south that suggest it's a club in turmoil, players are off the coach and all that.<\/p>\n

"I think the team has done enough to prove, through all the adversity they've faced in the last \ufeffcouple of weeks, to say yep, you know what, this is a club that's hell bent on going back to back (premierships)."<\/p>\n

McCullough started his NRL career with the Broncos in 2008 and played 260 games for the proud club before leaving in 2020 for a short stint with the Knights, then two seasons with the Dragons before retiring.<\/p>\n

Having endured tough times, as well as relative success like making a grand final in 2015, he knows all too well what it's like wearing a Broncos jersey and the spotlight that comes with it.\ufeff<\/p>\n

He is now working with the club and tries to help young players understand and deal with the high level of scrutiny.\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"Who<\/p>\n

"That's the education part now, with young players understanding what Brisbane can be like \ufeffand in particular the Broncos," McCullough told QLDER<\/em>.<\/p>\n

"You are either going really good or really bad, there's not much in between.<\/p>\n

"The wave is there. You get the pats on the back… but \ufeffyou've got to be able to cop a fair few hits when you do lose because that's just amplified, because we know how big the club is.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffWhen I have been at other clubs the cameras at training, the media speculation is definitely not the same.<\/p>\n

"There's good and bad, it's being able to judge that \ufeffat the time and get through that.<\/p>\n

"But it was quite ridiculous at the start of the year to have that much speculation about a club that had just won the competition, I've never seen that before.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffIt may be good for media outlets but it certainly wasn't warranted."<\/p>\n

The battered Broncos head south to Sydney to face the Roosters<\/a> in round nine.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Broncos great Andrew McCullough has offered an insight into the intense scrutiny \ufefffaced by the Brisbane club, and taken aim at "ridiculous" criticism that came […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":421423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=500470"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":500476,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500470\/revisions\/500476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/421423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=500470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=500470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=500470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}