NRL 2023: Why the Brisbane Broncos must strike while ‘perfect tapestry’ is in place

Making the finals was once a pass mark for the Broncos. But eight years after their last missed opportunity, there is only one outcome the players will accept, writes Robert Craddock.

The Broncos are right in the frame to win the premiership. Picture: Getty Images

Forget the platitudes. This is Brisbane’s time. The chance they have been craving for eight years since Johnathan Thurston speared that field goal through the sticks and their hearts.

Initially this was a year where simply making the finals would have been some sort of modest pass mark for a Broncos team which hadn’t done so for four years.

Not now. Anything less than a premiership will have the players thinking they may have wasted the best chance of their sporting lives.

Winning a premiership involves the construction of a delicate, intricately woven tapestry and the one certainty is that the fabric, so desperately difficult to put together, is normally pulled apart well sooner than you think.

Even before they finish their season Brisbane are having their tapestry threads tugged at with Herbie Farnworth and Tom Flegler off to the Dolphins next season.

These are the reasons why only Penrith and the Roosters have won consecutive premierships in the last 24 years and why you simply, absolutely, must take advantage of any season where you have a decent chance.

It’s the Broncos’ time. Picture: Getty Images

That premiership window never stays open for long. You go up and the system pulls you back down.

For the moment, everything is in place. Brisbane have some niggles but have been lucky with injuries. That’s crucial.

Incredibly they have a spine where three of the four players (Ezra Mam, Reece Walsh and Billy Walters) cost them around $1 million a season collectively.

That’s bargain shopping in the extreme.

The wages of Walsh and Mam will soon double – if not treble – and, in time, others will have to leave the club to keep them.

But for the moment – this precious, potentially career-shaping four weeks ahead – the band’s together, all the while knowing after the final match this season the Broncos will never field the same side again.

There’s much talk about cracking the Melbourne Storm hoodoo this Thursday but the Broncos have quietly matched one of the Storm’s most impressive records this season.

Can Reece Walsh and the Broncos go all the way? Picture: Getty Images

The Broncos, remarkably for a team which in recent seasons couldn’t beat an egg on the road, lost just one of 11 away games, matching the record of the 2017 and 2019 Storm sides who were joint custodians of the best road record of the modern era.

Adam Reynolds claims that one of the reasons for that success is the team looks forward to their away games.

Reynolds said on Monday with jokers like former premiership captain Allan Langer in the ranks there is normally something to smile about.

Potentially the Broncos may just have one more away game – the big one.

Win that and they really will be laughing.

Originally published as NRL 2023: Why the Brisbane Broncos must strike while ‘perfect tapestry’ is in place