Brisbane Broncos CEO Dave Donaghy said the club was left “shocked and disappointed” after assistant coach Ben Te’o suddenly handed in his resignation from the club on Tuesday.
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The resignation came after reports of a clash between Te’o and head coach Michael Maguire, who he also played under and won a premiership with in 2014 during his time at South Sydney.
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According to Code Sports, Maguire and Te’o are said to have disagreed over team tactics at a dinner in the lead-up to their win over Melbourne last week.
While Donaghy couldn’t comment on the specifics of the altercation, he told reporters that he sat down with Te’o on Monday and had a “long conversation” that was “very respectful”.
The Broncos CEO said he was “very surprised” to be having that conversation with Te’o, adding that it also caught Maguire off guard.
“We were shocked and certainly disappointed that someone like Ben, who we hold in such regard, had made that call,” he said.
“But Ben’s also an adult. He’s a grown man. He’s a husband, he’s a father of young children. He’s made a decision.”
“I don’t want to speak Madge but I will here. He was (surprised) too, which was really unfortunate that we found ourselves in that situation,” Donaghy later added.
“Clearly Ben felt really strongly about where he was and what he was feeling and felt like he wanted to take a step outside the arena for a period of time. We should respect that. I certainly wasn’t expecting my Monday to start with that conversation.”
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Donaghy was asked on multiple occasions if he could clarify what exactly transpired between Te’o and Maguire for such drastic action to be taken, but he declined doing so and instead said that “robust conversations” are a natural part of being in any high-performance environment.
“I can’t really add too much there. I wasn’t travelling with the team last week,” Donaghy said.
“Any high performing environment, whether that’s any elite sports team or organisation, any NRL team, certainly those that I’ve been part of for a long time and at the pointy end of business, you have a lot of strong, robust conversations.
“That’s what pushes you forward and that’s what gets the best out of a team of people. I saw it at the Broncos last year, and I saw it in Melbourne for a long time before that.”
While Te’o’s days at Red Hill appear numbered, Donaghy would not confirm whether he had resigned effective immediately, telling reporters that football boss Troy Thomson would “lead” the conversations with Te’o to work out when he will conclude his time at the club.
The Te’o saga is just the latest off-field headache for the defending premiers to deal with, having already lost superstar prop Payne Haas to South Sydney.
Add in the club’s disappointing 0-2 start to the year and criticism of Maguire’s coaching style and last Friday’s win over the Storm was all the more important to quieting some of that outside noise.
Donaghy, however, thinks it is just that — noise, hitting back at suggestions there is more behind the scenes that the club is hiding.
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“I don’t think a lot’s going wrong with the club, to be fair. I think a lot of external perceptions or views don’t marry up with what’s happening internally,” he said.
“Look at our member numbers, we’ve almost hit 70,000 members. We’ve got a really strong stable of sponsors.
“We’ve got players making their club debuts — Aublix Tawha and Grant Anderson recently and on the weekend let’s not forget Friday night and for the first time in 10 years, we beat Melbourne in Melbourne.”
Donaghy also defended Maguire from suggestions that he is “hard to work with”, telling reporters he knows “for a fact” that the Broncos coach is “pained” by those claims.
“Because he deeply cares for his people,” Donaghy added.
“He’s got a long relationship with Ben. It stretches back to when they were winning comps together at Souths and then they win a comp together in the coaching staff at the Broncos a decade or so later.
“They go back a long way and I’m sure that relationship will last into the future in a different capacity.”
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As for who could replace Te’o, former Broncos teammates Peter Ryan and Brad Thorn were floated to Donaghy by journalists as two potential options the club could turn to.
Donaghy wasn’t willing to comment on specifically who the club could target, but he did add the defending premiers have plenty of experience to lean on without Te’o for the time being.
“We’ve got a terrific group of assistant coaches there like Trent Barrett, Matt Ballin (and) Adam Brideson,” he said.
“Trent has obviously got a wealth of experience with his previous roles as an NRL head coach. Matty Ballin’s now been spoken about in that realm as well.
“When Madge came in here I had a conversation about wanting to be a development club, so that was really clear, whether that was players on field or staff off the field. We want to be a development club.
“We think we’ve got a terrific club that’s a real destination for staff and players. Nothing changes. Nothing has changed. We still believe that really strongly, and we’ll look across both internal options and external options.”
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