When asked who the best signing of the 2022 NRL season was, Andrew Johns didn’t even need a second to think.
“Adam Reynolds, without a doubt,” he said on Nine’s Immortal Behaviour.
“He’s turned the Broncos from being outside the eight to a top four team.”
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Brisbane’s big win over the Eels on Thursday put them into the top four, leapfrogging the injury-ravaged Melbourne Storm, who face a big test against South Sydney this weekend.
“I think in the next couple of years they can really take on the top teams to win a comp – I don’t know if they can win it this year, I think they’ll be thereabouts – but I don’t know if they can win three or four big games on end – and I don’t think any team will beat Penrith.”
“But moving forward, with those young forwards they’ve got – Carrigan, Haas, Flegler – all these young guys, and the young guns in the backs, they’re a serious club.”
Johns said the gamble for Brisbane to hand Reynolds a big-money deal, as well as those made by the Cowboys and Sharks for Chad Townsend and Nicho Hynes respectively, had paid off in spades – and it was a testament to how shallow the No.7 position was at the moment.
“You go through all the clubs in the lower grades at the moment, there’s no real halfbacks standing out that you can see as that 10-year first grade player.
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While there are there some that look thereabouts, he said none jumped out like a young Shaun Johnson or Nathan Cleary, where it was immediately obviously would succeed.
“At the moment, there’s very limited halfbacks out there.”
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