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Thurston and Leniu altercation overshadows Roosters win against Broncos
Nicholas Quinlan • April 12th, 2025 12:31 pm
The Sydney Roosters have extended their winning streak against the Brisbane Broncos at Suncorp Stadium to five games after a 26-16 win last night.
Considering that the Roosters were beaten comprehensively by the Broncos in their opening clash of the season 14-50 only 37 days ago, the turnaround is quite considerable.
Although the main story of the match was to come from the sidelines.
Although the main story of the match was to come from the sidelines.
In the aftermath of the match, reports began to come out of an alleged verbal altercation between Spencer Leniu and Johnathan Thurston occurring on the sideline.
It is believed that the conversation was surrounding Leniu’s eight-week suspension for using a racial slur towards Brisbane’s Ezra Mam last season.
When asked about the incident in the post-game press conference, Roosters coach Trent Robinson was quick to point out that he did not think that neither Leniu or Thurston had crossed a line, but merely just having a discussion.
“They had a discussion on the sideline, I don’t think the details are clear yet but it’s just two passionate guys having a conversation about differences of opinion,” Robinson noted.
“From what I saw, there wasn’t any crossing the line there.”
The match begun out slowly with neither team scoring until the 11th minute until Sandon Smith converted a penalty goal after a dangerous tackle by Reece Walsh.
This was followed up by a Billy Smith try a couple of minutes later in his first game starting in 2023 to see the Roosters go 8-0.
Smith was then sin-binned and placed on report in the 18th minute for a tackle involving head contact with Walsh.
This would see Brisbane get into the game with Selwyn Cobbo and Walsh scoring tries to give the Broncos the lead 10-8.
Although the Broncos got a sin bin of their own with Jack Gosiewski receiving one in the 29th minute. He was also placed on report.
The Roosters were able to take the lead with another Billy Smith try in the first half and would hold onto the lead for the remainder of the match.
It was the Roosters ability to heap pressure on the Broncos by being able to get through more set completions and being more effective with the ball that would ultimately see them win the match.
In the match, Sydney managed to complete 36 out of their 46 sets. Brisbane only managed 27 out of their 38 sets.
They were also helped by the kicking game of Hugo Savala, who had made his starting debut in the NRL replacing Chad Townsend for the number seven position.
Savala managed a total of 478 kicking meters off of 12 kicks (39.83m per kick) which put the ball deep into Brisbane’s territory and put them under pressure to get the ball out of their own half.
Speaking in the post-game press conference, Broncos captain Adam Reynolds echoed coach Michael Maguire’s sentiments that his team should have played better.
“As Madge said, we were poor, we were ill-disciplined; we’ve got to be better,” Reynolds admitted.
Looking ahead to next week, the Broncos will look to rebound against the Warriors in Auckland on Saturday afternoon.
The Roosters will be up against the Panthers at Allianz Stadium on Saturday night.
