Kevin Walters is hopeful of having injured duo Adam Reynolds and Jesse Arthars back for the business end of the season despite injury setbacks in the Broncos’ 40-18 loss to the Roosters.
Reynolds suffered a torn bicep, while Arthars went to hospital with a broken jaw in a sorry night for the title contenders.
“Yeah, not looking too good for him,” Walters said.
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“He’s got the bicep injury, torn bicep, so I guess he will have to have surgery and he’ll be out for a substantial period I would have thought.
“Potentially (season ending), yeah. Until they actually get in there and operate on him, I guess they don’t know.
“I don’t know a whole lot about biceps, but I know he’s going to be out for an extended period, so that’s all I can tell you.”
However, Walters is confident the Broncos have the depth to fill the void for the rest of the season and still challenge for the title.
“Yeah, certainly mate,” Walters said.
“We’re very fortunate at our club we’ve got great depth in all positions.
“Jesse Arthars has broken his jaw as well, so that’s two long-term injuries for us, but yeah, it’s the way it goes sometimes.”
Walters was more concerned with the Broncos’ lacklustre performances over the last month than the injuries to key players.
“No, I’m not concerned about that, we’ve got good depth, I’m more concerned with how we played tonight than anything else, so when we fix that, that’s what we need to do,” Walters said.
“And we’ll get Adam back, I’m pretty sure, before the year’s out, and also Jesse.
“We just kicked the ball away, silly little kicks, you can’t build pressure when you do that,” Walters said.
“And there’s other parts of our game too that I haven’t been happy with in the last three or four weeks, which got exposed tonight, so we’ve got plenty to work on, that’s for sure.
“But the good thing is, what are we Round 9?”
Walters challenged the whole squad and especially the senior players to stand up in Reynolds’ absence.
“I think the ownership needs to be spread across the group, with Paddy there, with Reece, with Ezra, and with Billy and Tyson, they all need to step up in that space with Reynolds not there,” Walters said.
“Moving Reece won’t be an option for us. We will leave him at fullback.
“Tristan Sailor is an option certainly. He’s got a good football IQ, and we’ve been defending him in the front line, he’s been doing that at Queensland Cup level, but we have got some options there, so we’ll just wait and see, let the dust settle over the weekend.”
New skipper Patrick Carrigan was stoic despite the tough night for his side.
“We’ll find out what we’re made of, mate,” Carrigan said.
“Tonight we fought our way back, we had a lot of things that didn’t go our way, but we got to an opportunity where I think it was 18-all and those little things that we haven’t been happy with, you know, crept out in our game again, so it’s such a life with 40, I think this happens to a lot of teams.
“Just keep on keeping on next man up. We’ve got a lot of depth in our club and I’m confident that whoever plays there will do a job for us. So there’s a footy team here mate. We’ve just got to iron out a couple things.”
Carrigan challenged his side to hold themselves to higher standards after a frustrating performance against the Chooks.
“Just holding the footy mate,” Carrigan said.
“It’s pretty simple just building pressure. Roosters a really quality team. Should give them a lot of credit. A lot of really good players and really well led by Teddy so you keep making mistakes, they’re gonna make you pay for them and they did tonight.
“So I think it’s a unique opportunity for us now. We’ve had Jordan Rikki play in the centres out there tonight.
“We had a lot of experience in pressure situations where hopefully we get full strength by the back end of the year and something chaotic happens and those boys have had some experience in those positions. So see it as positive and keep rolling.”
Originally published as ‘Not looking good’: Grim Broncos fears as Kevvie reveals options to replace Reynolds