What a night! Dolphins’ dominate Battle of Brisbane win

The Dolphins’ Battle of Brisbane win over the Broncos is one for the club’s history books, with Wayne Bennett’s team sheet shake-up paying off and keeping their finals’ hopes alive.

An apparent 11^th hour decision to start Isaiya Katoa on the bench, move Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow into the centre, play Trai Fuller at fullback and partner Jake Averillo in the halves with Sean O’Sullivan surprised many but seemed to make a difference to the Dolphins’ attack at Suncorp Stadium tonight.

See photo gallery at the end of this story

The Dolphins beat their hometown rivals 40-6 in a demolition of the Broncos that had their Head Coach Kevin Walters unable to offer an explanation.

It was a dominant display which followed stand-in captain Mark Nicholl’s admission earlier in the week, that they needed to go ‘back to basics’.

He said they needed to ‘run hard and tackle hard’ and get the little things right to be in a position to win.

They did just that, with plenty of energy to fire up the 50,049 people who turned up to see the clash.

Among those players whose game lifted for the occasion was former Bronco Herbie Farnworth, who scored two tries and had a hand in two others. He also clocked up the most run metres (289) and the most line breaks (3).

The 24-year-old may still be in trouble with the coach for revealing Bennett told the squad earlier in the week of his plan to make big changes but opted not to train them in their roles in a bid to keep it under wraps for as long as possible.

Bennett was pleased with how the squad’s reshuffled players adapted and lifted in their new positions.

“They played really well. They played with confidence, all the things that you need to play well. I’m pleased it worked for us all. There was a risk there, but it was worthwhile taking,” he said.

“We were beating ourselves up until then ... we’ve had many occasions this year when we’ve had the game won and we’ve lost it. I thought making a change with some of the positions may help us.”

Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow was in sizzling form in the centres, running 90m to score in the 28^th minute. He made it a double in the second half (55^th minute).

Jake Averillo scored two himself and had a blinder in the halves, setting Farnworth up to score, and adding strike power to the Dolphins’ attack.

The only sour note was the sin binning of Felise Kaufusi for a late shot on Adam Reynolds.

Dazzling turnaround

So, what made the difference to their performance tonight, after a crushing loss to Melbourne last week?

“The Super Coach had a few tricks up his sleeve this week. He had a bit of speech yesterday that fired the boys up,” Nicholls said.

“We obviously turned up, ready to go and then we managed to put some scoreboard pressure on them and they started making errors. To be fair, they probably played how we’ve been playing the back half of this year. It seemed the longer the game went, the better we defended.”

The Dolphins are now eighth on the competition ladder, after the Dragons’ loss the Eels.

They will need to play with the same intensity to beat the Knights in Newcastle next Sunday and give themselves every chance to secure a maiden finals’ berth.

“That was a pretty confident performance you saw out there tonight ... players in the sin bin ... we didn’t play a perfect match, but we played really hard and put a lot of effort into it,” Bennett said.

“That’s why they kept the scoreboard down to six because they were defending errors that were made and crucial decisions that were made.

“It’s a pretty good position to be in to go down there (to Newcastle) with this behind us now.”

When asked if he would stick to the formula that worked tonight, Bennett was coy.

“We’ll have some secret meetings. We won’t invite you to them and you’ll have to work it out through the week,” he said grinning.

The large contingent of Dolphins fans in the crowd loved every moment of the game, booing the Broncos as they ran out, doing the Mexican wave in the final 10 minutes and singing Sweet Caroline in the final three minutes.

It was a night they, and everyone connected with the club, will be talking about for years to come.

Nicholls said: “There was a big crowd, everyone in the stadium knew the stakes of that game and we turned up ready to play, and we got the result. We’re very happy”.

Photo gallery (click through)

By Dominika Lis