Brisbane Broncos head coach Michael Maguire was left counting the cost of his side’s slow start against Hull KR as they lost 30-24 in the World Club Challenge.
The NRL premiers found themselves 18-0 down in the first half of the contest at the MKM Stadium, with mistakes and dropped balls leading to tries from Tom Amone, Elliot Minchella and Joe Burgess.
Another error in the second half directly led to Oliver Gildart’s effort before the Broncos finally woke themselves up in the second half. The Australians scored four tries late on to go within six points of the Robins, but ultimately they never quite had enough in the tank to pull off the comeback of all comebacks and Maguire was visibly disgruntled after full-time.
“I’ll say congratulations to Hull KR,” the Brisbane boss said. “They jumped out of the blocks, put pressure on us early and we didn’t go with them at the start.
“If you’re going to wait until the end of the game over and over, eventually it’s going to hurt you and that’s something that we need to sort out and take into the season.
“We made three errors and they scored three tries, it was pretty straightforward there.”
He added: “What I’ve learnt, especially coming over here is it’s a big task. It’s not an excuse and I’ve done it with international teams, but when you’ve got a great crowd like that… I mean, the atmosphere was incredible and we use that when we’re at home.
“They jumped out of the blocks and they were up for it and that’s probably the disappointing part that we didn’t start well enough to put ourselves in the winning circle.”
Asked how he felt Rovers would fare in the NRL, Maguire said: “Well they just beat us. I don’t want to comment on how they would but they beat us so that probably tells the story.”
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