Walters aims high: premiership’s the goal, not play-offs
BRONCOS coach Kevin Walters says he wants premierships, not playoffs, as he welcomes back a raft of big guns for the Parramatta clash that can seal Brisbane’s finals redemption.
Two years of misery at the Broncos has been emphatically swept away by a Red Hill revolution under Walters, who has transformed Brisbane from wooden spooners to a team on the brink of their first finals campaign in three seasons.
Key Origin trio Kurt Capewell, Corey Oates and Pat Carrigan, and injured prop Corey Jensen, will return this week to bolster a fifth-placed Broncos side that would clinch a playoff berth by beating the Eels at Commbank Stadium on Thursday night.
When Walters took charge in September 2020, he inherited a Broncos basketcase fractured by the club’s first-ever wooden spoon and one of his first promises was to cultivate team-first unity at Red Hill.
In the space of 18 months, Walters has turned the Broncos into genuine finals contenders. But the Broncos legend, who claimed six premierships as a player, says he will not be satisfied until he constructs a historymaking squad that breaks Brisbane’s 16-year title drought.
“The atmosphere at the Broncos is to win premierships, not play finals,” Walters said ahead of their Commbank blockbuster against the sixth-placed Eels (+36), who only trail Brisbane (+61) on percentages.
“That’s what we are about as a club. We haven’t really been speaking about finals footy, we are trying to get better as a group, particularly around our defence.
“I thought our scramble defence was really good (in Saturday night’s gutsy 16-12 defeat of the Titans) and that is the part of the game you need for us to get to where we want to go.
“We have thrown that (a goal to win Brisbane’s seventh premiership) out there and when that happens I don’t know, but we are heading in the right direction.”
The Broncos have gone into an Origin-style camp at Kingscliff on the NSW far north coast to prepare for the Eels clash.