Success is hard, but maintaining it is often much harder—something the Brisbane Broncos are about to discover as they begin the long journey to defending their 2025 NRL title.
Brisbane played in the NRL season decider on October 5 before nearly half of the club’s top 30 then went away on international duties for a further month.
It means most of their first-grade stars, the bulk of whom are currently on leave, will get a handful of training sessions at best before Christmas, while it’s unlikely the complete Broncos NRL squad for 2026 will train together until the second week of January.
That’s barely a month before they’re on a plane for England to play Hull KR in the World Club Challenge on 19 February, before returning home to face a revenge-fuelled Penrith side in a heavyweight NRL season opener on March 6.
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It’s a tight preparation, but one former Broncos premiership winner and head coach Kevin Walters is backing the club’s stars to navigate, even if much of it will happen away from Broncos HQ at Red Hill.
“You do need to get away from footy, and just try and wipe it out of your system for a bit,” Walters explained on the Inside Ball podcast.
“But you also have to train yourself and keep ticking the body over—once you get through two, three, four pre-seasons you start to understand what you need to do each year to get your body right.
“Those blokes are disciplined enough to do that, they don’t want to come back and be sloppy at the back of the pack, a player like Reece Walsh has football running through his veins, he won’t be able to stay away from training anyway.”
Walters also gave his thoughts on next February’s World Club Challenge, predicting it will be a far less stressful preparation than playing in the opening NRL round in Las Vegas which his Broncos side did in 2024, losing 20-10 to the Sydney Roosters.
“The World Club Challenge isn’t as bad as Vegas where obviously there are (NRL) points on the line,” he said.
“You want to win it, sure, but it’s more a trip of enjoyment and a reward.”