'There's no excuses': Seibold again searching for answers

Broncos coach Anthony Seibold must decide what to do with halves Brodie Croft and Anthony Milford after the 48-0 loss to the Wests Tigers, while the immediate future of Corey Oates has already been decided.

Oates was stretchered off Leichhardt Oval after he broke his upper left leg in a cover tackle by back-rower Luciano Leilua. There was no suggestion of anything illegal in the tackle.

Speaking after the match, Seibold said it was a suspected compound fracture and Broncos support staff would remain with the Origin winger in Sydney.

"It's a very serious injury. I only had a brief chat with him as he was getting into the ambulance – he was in a fair bit of pain," Seibold said.

The nature of the break could make it a lengthy stint on the sidelines.

Oates becomes the 15th injury out of Seibold's squad of 36. Considering that, calls to bring other players into the NRL side and drop the non-performers seems a pipe dream.

"We don't have a lot of options ... I've tried to stick solid and show belief in the group. But we can't keep putting up performances like that.

"It wasn't good enough tonight. There's no excuses. We're down on troops but there's not an excuse for a performance like that," Seibold said.

"There's nothing I can say. We're out of words – it's just about actions."

Seibold said he might be getting back three players – Kotoni Staggs, Tom Dearden and Matt Lodge – next week as the Broncos face the Storm at Suncorp Stadium.

But the temptation must be there to try and get more game leadership out of Croft and Milford.

There were seven line breaks to the Wests Tigers – none to the Broncos – and no repeat sets secured  by Brisbane's halves.

"We've got a group there that can't handle any chaos I guess, and it showed tonight," Seibold said.

"Things go our way and we play some decent footy. But we're so far off from where we want to be, or where we can be ... As I said before we're missing some quality players so it's been hard to make too many changes when we've got so many missing.

"So we're hoping to get some [players] back so I can make some changes where we think it's necessary. The players have to take responsibility for their performance and I take responsibility for the coaching staff and the entire group," Seibold said.

Asked if he was starting to doubt himself, the coach in his third NRL season said: "I'm not feeling that great, to be honest.

"We put a lot of time in preparing the team each week and we put a lot of time into preparing the team for the season. Those types of performances are totally unacceptable."

As hard as a nine-try drubbing is to accept, it was not the worst loss of the year for the Broncos. They went down 59-0 to the Roosters just six weeks ago.