It’s almost a year to the day his father was sacked as Brisbane head coach.
Now, injured Broncos star Billy Walters has revealed his thoughts on the tumultuous events of 2024 and how they ultimately drove his breakthrough performances under new coach Michael Maguire.
Appearing alongside Kevin on the Inside Ball podcast, Walters explained there was a period in late 2024 when he didn’t want to be at the club anymore.
“He (Kevin) put a lot into the club and it was disappointing how it ended, he didn’t deserve what happened, I don’t think it was his fault at all—but I probably can’t say too much,” Walters said of what his father describes as ‘an awkward situation.’
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“I remember I spoke to dad pretty early on and he wanted me to stay at the Broncos, in the first week or so I didn’t want to play (for Brisbane in 2025), but I love the club and didn’t really want to move my family again,” Walters said.
“That made my decision a lot easier (to stay) and I’m pretty grateful I did stick it out and stay around.”
‘I thought I was going to lose my spot’
Walters admits he was highly motivated to come back and prove he could still make the first-grade team without his father as coach, but it was something he initially feared may not happen after Michael Maguire took a very different approach to his position in the Broncos squad.
“I didn’t get to train much at nine (under Maguire), I lost my spot without really getting to fight for it,” Walters recalls of the pre-season.
“He (Maguire) saw me in a different way to Kev and wanted to make sure I could cover in the halves as well—that’s where he saw me.
“I was pretty filthy, because a couple of weeks in he wasn’t really putting me into the nine and I thought I was going to lose my spot, especially as we’d obviously signed Ben Hunt and he was going to be the hooker once everyone was fit.”
But as so often happens in life, opportunity presented itself from the most unexpected of places when teammate Ezra Mam was hit with a nine-match ban in the off-season, ruling him out for a significant early portion of 2025.
“Ezra was serving his suspension for the first nine games and I knew there was an opportunity because we needed someone on the bench that was able to cover both half and hooker,” Walters reflected.
“I decided ‘it is what it is’ and I started trying to train and play well in the halves to make sure that when the time came to pick the seventeen I was going to be in there somewhere.”
History shows he was indeed in there somewhere for the bulk of 2025, with Walters enjoying one of his best ever seasons free from the burden of being the ‘son of the coach.’
“Not having him (Kevin) as coach, I definitely felt like ‘I don’t have to go out and prove it to anyone’, I just have to try and play footy and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, I’m not letting Kev or the family down,” he admitted.
“It seemed to come off this year and I seemed to play some pretty good footy, but it helps when the whole team is going well—in the last two weeks all I had to do was pass Walshy the ball and he’d come up with something amazing.”
‘No way I’d be able to play’
Speaking of the past two weeks inevitably brought the conversation to the devastating knee injury that has since ended his 2025 season.
“I got tackled with about five minutes to go in regular time (against the Raiders) and I just got up and it was sore and it was clicking. I couldn’t really run, but I don’t think we had any interchanges so they were just like ‘we’ll have to strap it up and see how you go’,” he said.
“They didn’t think it was ACL on the night, but when I woke up the next day and found the footage, there was no contact, it was just me stepping off it and they said there was probably a bit of concern for the ACL.
“I got the scan back, it was a bit of a weird one, it was definitely damaged but we had to see the specialist to see how bad it was and he just said it was too loose and too much of a risk—there’s no way I’d be able to play.”
‘I’ll probably get a bit sad and down in the dumps’
After speaking with coach Michael Maguire, Walters made the decision to delay surgery until the end of the Broncos season so he can remain around the playing group and help his teammates in any way he can.
“I’ve kind of come to terms with it, but I’ll probably get a bit sad and down in the dumps (when the team runs out on Sunday), I’ve had a pretty good run with injuries since my last ACL, it’s all part of the game,” he said.
Does he think the Broncos have any shot at beating the red-hot Panthers?
“If they play like they did on the weekend (against Canterbury) it’s going to be tough, but we can beat Penrith definitely, I actually think we’re one of the only teams that even if Penrith are on, we can still beat them.”