Can anyone tell me is it possible (and how) to get the virtual machine to recognise the host's hardware, and get the actual Broadcom NetXtreme adapter working?
It's not possible! What you had to begin with was what it's supposed to be as VMware virtualizes the NIC used by the Guest OS and the Guest OS does not directly see the Host's Physical Network Adapter.
Read Chapter 7 "Configuring Network Connections" in: Getting Started with VMware Player 4.0
Just for reference to the various types of network adapters have a look at: Choosing a network adapter for your virtual machine (1001805)