Broncos name team for trial against Wynnum

Author: broncos.com.au
Timestamp: Tue 31 Jan 2023, 06:15 PM

Some of the Broncos best emerging talent will suit up for the club’s opening trial of the season against Wynnum Manly Seagulls on Saturday afternoon at Kougari Oval.

Centre Deine Mariner and backrower Brendan Paikura – both with two NRL games under their belts – headline a team that also includes Mariner and Piakura’s fellow NRL Top 30-contracted players Ethan Quai-Ward (centre) and Logan Bayliss (prop) who both impressed for Broncos Affiliate Souths Logan Magpies in last season’s Hostplus Cup.

Also named are Broncos Development List players, hooker Tyson Smoothy and playmaker Josh Rogers, who were both standouts themselves in the Hostplus Cup last year for the Sunshine Coast Falcons and Burleigh Bears respectively, as well as emerging young prop Ben Te Kura.

Toowoomba-born Queenslander Smoothy played four NRL games for the Storm in 2021 and the 23-year-old has impressed during the preseason, as have a number of the Broncos’ Train-and-Trial contracted players who have been named in the bulk of the other spots for the opening trial.

Former Dragons fullback Tristan Sailor and forward Shalom O’Ofou have both caught the eye across the three months of preseason work and have been rewarded with starting spots against Wynnum – with Sailor’s voice, pace and creativity at the back showing why he has already played five NRL games during his time at St George Illawarra.

O’Ofou is a hard-running and compact backrower/lock who has also impressed, with no less than skipper Adam Reynolds calling him and Sailor out in a recent media interview when asked who had done well during the club’s preseason slog.