Anthony Milford is set to be forced out of the Brisbane Broncos after the battling NRL club put an expanded proposal in front of young gun Kotoni Staggs.
7NEWS Brisbane’s Chris Garry reports Staggs is set to put pen to paper on a rich three-year deal this week, snubbing the Gold Coast Titans’ even more lucrative offer.
The Titans had earmarked Staggs for their five-eighth role – but the Broncos have now won him over with the same promise.
The opportunity for Staggs spells bad news for Milford, whose four-year contract worth up to $1 million per season expires at the end of the 2021 campaign.
The Broncos are unlikely to cough up big to re-sign a player who will not be a first-choice half, leaving him with little choice but to explore his options.
But it’s unclear where Milford’s future lies after struggling for years to regain the form that earned him the lucrative extension while playing under super coach Wayne Bennett.
Staggs, meanwhile, emerged on the scene as a try-scoring centre in 2019 after starting his career off the bench a year earlier.
He started his first game at five-eighth in the last round of the 2020 season but lasted just 10 minutes before tearing the ACL in his left knee.
The 22-year-old is not set to return until midway through this season at the earliest.
Broncos seek to bounce back
Brisbane fullback Jamayne Isaako knows there will be more NRL misery for his side unless they “come out of their shells” to counter South Sydney’s rampaging fullback Latrell Mitchell.
The Broncos were reduced to bystanders as Melbourne No.1 Ryan Papenhuyzen scored an incredible four tries in 11 minutes to fuel a 40-6 drubbing last week.
The powerfully built Mitchell is a different beast to the fleet-footed Papenhuyzen but is just as damaging.
Isaako admits things need to change if the struggling Broncos to have any joy on Thursday night.
“We all know in those windows, those lapses when teams are scoring points on us, when we do face a bit of adversity and its gets tough boys tend to go into their shells a bit and the confidence goes down,” he said.
“Good teams work together and that’s something we haven’t been doing.
“In those times we need to find a bit of resilience to bounce back and get up and running again.
“We all know what Latrell can bring with his running game and his passing game’s certainly developed … if we do a job on him and limit his running ability it’ll go a long way.”
The Broncos’ 24-0 win over Canterbury a fortnight ago ended a 13-game losing streak but after an early runaway try saw them take the lead against Storm, Papenhuyzen ensured all that momentum was cancelled.
Games against the Rabbitohs, Penrith and Parramatta loom in the next three rounds but Isaako insisted coach Kevin Walters sees a light at the end of the tunnel.
“It’s frustrating; we’re not getting the results that we want and we know we’re capable,” Isaako said.
“It’s his (Walters’) passion; in all our meetings, we sit down as a team and talk about what went wrong you can see his passion and how much he wants to win and turn things around.”
– with Murray Wenzel, AAP