Kodi Nikorima should take his inspiration from 2006 premiership halfback Shane Perry

KODI Nikorima doesn’t have to look to Allan Langer or Kevin Walters or even Darren Lockyer for inspiration, but to the most unlikely hero in Broncos history.

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA — MARCH 15: Kodi Nikorima of the Broncos talks with Allan Langer during the Brisbane Broncos NRL training session on March 15, 2018 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

IF you could put a motivational poster on Kodi Nikorima’s bedroom wall before his clash with the Cowboys who would it be?

Darren Lockyer, you say. Or maybe Kevin Walters or Allan Langer, champion playmakers one and all.

Straight from left field, we might just have a better one with more relevance to Nikorima’s story — Shane Perry, the battler made good who was the Broncos’ last premiership halfback way back in 2006.

The question of who is going to run the Broncos team is just as much a mystery as ever with Wayne Bennett saying at Thursday’s captains run he had not anointed Anthony Milford or Nikorima as chief playmaker.

“I don’t need to,’’ Bennett said.

“They both have a shared responsibility out there and it needs both of them to do it. It’s not a one-man band, it’s an effort between both those players. One has to get a backline working and the other has to get his forwards working.’’

That may be true but league teams are like rock bands — they generally have a lead singer. No one doubts that Cameron Smith is the boss of any side he plays in or that Daly Cherry-Evans runs the show at Manly.

Can Nikorima run the show for Brisbane.

Sharing the load might just work but it can also be a tricky business.

One of the reasons the Titans have faltered in recent seasons was the feeling that young playmakers Ash Taylor and Kane Elgey were so wary about stepping on each other’s toes they ended up in a grey zone where nothing was clear.

This year, however, there are no issues. It’s Taylor’s team.

Nikorima’s challenge to emerge from fringe player to shot-caller is an interesting one because he will be charged with ordering around some players who are far more experienced than he is.

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He has been at the Broncos for six years. That’s great in some ways but challenging in others because he is like the errand boy who grew to be chief executive and has to get to grips with bossing around players like Sam, sorry, Mr Thaiday.

And that’s where Perry comes in.

Perry only played 43 games for the Broncos and could have easily been starstruck in a side that had Shane Webcke, Justin Hodges and Petero Civoniceva.

But he wasn’t.

Perry helped steer Brisbane to a title in 2006.

Lockyer may have been the chief organiser but Perry was also a key voice, barking out orders when he had to, ordering around players who had a far deeper resume than he did.

This is Nikorima’s challenge, for he is leading a double life as a player who may have played Test football for his country but is still on trial at his club.

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At age 23, and with Jack Bird hovering and soon to return, the boy must become a man ... quickly.

The Broncos trained with great intensity on Thursday. There’s an old saying in rugby league tipping that the best roughie of the weekend is normally that side that has had its backside scorched by media criticism that week.

The Broncos are that team.

They will come out steaming and our tip is that by the five-minute mark at least one commentator will say “this is a very different Broncos side to the one which faced the Dragons’’.

But whether they can maintain the rage is the big question. What happens in the rest of the game will tell us what they are truly made of.