New coach Kevin Walters declared Brisbane have shown glimpses of improvement in back-to-back losses to start the 2021 NRL season following Friday’s 28-16 loss to the Gold Coast Titans.
But former Broncos coaching consultant and star forward Corey Parker believes little has changed in Walters’ first two games at the helm of last season’s wooden-spooners.
Parker served as a coaching consultant for the Broncos in 2020 but was shown the door by Walters in Brisbane.
Speaking on Fox League, the 347-game lock said he has seen growth from individual players such as Jordan Riki, Xavier Coates and Tesi Niu in the first two rounds.
MORE: Broncos 'on the right path', claims Walters
But Parker disagreed with the assessment of his former boss that the Broncos are ‘on the right path’ after suffering a club record 13th consecutive defeat.
“On a collective whole from the Broncos, from my opinion, I still see the same things that I saw last year,” Parker told Fox League.
“Now effort, you need effort, you can’t succeed in any sport if you don’t have effort, so I’m not buying into whole, well the effort was good last week in the first 40, you need more than that.
“Now, you need some unity, you need some direction, first and foremost and I thought at times tonight particularly from the people that you want direction from was just not there.
“And then you go into the forward pack, I just thought at a late stage of the game, yes Tevita (Pangai Junior) put his hand up and he really made it personal, but you need to do that from the kick-off.
“I mean they came down the M1 highway, they knew it was going to be a personal game between big brother and little brother, however they just lost the five-to-seven-minute period just before half-time, and by that stage it’s too late.
“So some real hard lessons to learn and unfortunately in the NRL you’ve got to learn them really quickly, otherwise it’s going to be a long year.”
The Broncos host the Canterbury Bulldogs at Suncorp Stadium next Saturday.
