Brisbane warhorse Petero Civoniceva has urged teammates to dig deep to rediscover the defensive steel that had them flying earlier in the NRL season.
In an honest assessment of the Broncos’ hat-trick of losses, the 36-year-old warrior said Brisbane’s defensive ethos, so good a month ago, had been badly exposed last weekend by a ruthless Melbourne.
And he warned unless there was an immediate attitude change and more commitment, Wayne Bennett’s struggling Newcastle Knights could ambush them at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday.
“We’re in a bit of a hole at the moment and the only way out is to work hard as a team to fix it,” said Civoniceva, one of three State of Origin players rested by coach Anthony Griffin from the 34-10 loss to the Storm.
Civoniceva said Melbourne had delivered a clear message.
“We’ve addressed a few things as a team,” he said on Thursday.
“We probably dropped off our standards a little bit after starting the season really well.
“Melbourne drove that home to us.
“That was probably the biggest disappointment out of the loss, that the standards we’d set for ourselves at the start of the year had dropped away.
“Obviously Melbourne being the team they are, they exposed us.”
Having had a close relationship with Bennett at the Broncos, Civoniceva knows what’s coming, tipping the master coach to pull out all the stops to spring a huge upset against his former club.
“Knowing Wayne he’ll be preparing his team to come up here for a bit of an ambush,” said Civoniceva.
“Wayne won’t want them to be fancy, just do simple things right.
“We acknowledge they are a very good team who’ve been under the pump and we know they will want to play for their coach on Sunday.”