Allana Ferguson has lifted the lid on a conversation she had with Reece Walsh off camera that goes to the mindset of the Brisbane Broncos fullback and how frustrated he’s been with his performances. Walsh had one of the worst games of his NRL career in Round 2, making four errors and missing four tackles as the Broncos went down to the Raiders.
Brisbane put 50 points on the Roosters in the opening round, but even then Walsh wasn’t at his best. There was a telling moment in the first half of that game when Walsh made a break and completely butchered a try by not passing to a teammate.
Instead of drawing fullback James Tedesco and passing to one of a number of teammates in support, the 22-year-old tried to run around his opposite number. He eventually tried to pass after realising his mistake, but Tedesco managed to knock the ball down and prevent the try.
Speaking on the ‘Immortal Behaviour’ podcast with Andrew Johns on Thursday, Channel 9 star Ferguson revealed she spoke to Walsh about that incident before he went on-air for a post-game interview that night. Ferguson ribbed Walsh about not passing and joked that she was going to mention it during the interview.
But tellingly, the young fullback begged her not to bring it up and was very embarrassed about his mistake. “We were speaking to Reece off-air before he came onto the panel,” she revealed. “I gave him a little bit of stick and was like ‘I’m going to bring it up’. He was like ‘don’t bring it up’ and was filthy about it.
“It wasn’t necessarily because he didn’t want to have a laugh. But you could see how frustrated he was despite doing a lot of good things that game. To see how filthy he was after that, I feel like that says a lot.”