Brisbane Broncos bury Wests Tigers

Brisbane Broncos 48 def Wests Tigers 18

It was the Brisbane side of late 2006 revived. The Broncos lived up to the hype in front of their home fans, on a cold and wet night at Suncorp. Amazing that 30,000+ Brisbanians still turned up in shocking conditions. Monday night footy has been a massive success.

When the Broncos scored off their first set, it always looked like being a long night for Wests Tigers lovers - but to their credit, the young Tigers hung in. They scored from their own kick off and tried hard to make a game of it.

The Broncos were simply too hot, on the back of Tonie Carroll magic they charged in for try after try. Carroll was simply impossible to tackle, the big unit hitting the line at speed and defenders barely able to lay a hand on him let alone stop him.

The left hand edge defence for the Tigers was extremely poor. Brisbane smartly kept peppering this side, with Carroll setting up 2 tries then scoring 1 himself soon after.

Whenever the Tigers got a sniff, discipline let them down. Giving away silly penalties and thus throwing away any field position they had.

Referee Shane Hayne had a night he'd like to forget, not playing advantage to the Tigers early in period 1, where they would have scored and then giving the Tigers an obvious 'make up' call soon after when Tuiaki was clearly bundled into touch, with the referee actually blowing his whistle - then changing the call (both Hayne and touch judge getting it wrong).

While the match was over early, with the Broncos running riot - a minor blow up between Petero Civoniceva and Bryce Gibbs injected some excitement. The crowd got right into the mood, and gave Civoniceva a standing ovation as he was sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes (for being the third man into a flare up)

The Broncos face the Panthers next week (minus their Qld Origin Component) and the Wests Tigers have a horror road trip. Facing Canberra in the ACT on a cold wet night.