Everyone in rugby league has a Michael Maguire story.
The “torture camp” ex-Rabbitoh Angus Crichton describes from his years at the club, which concluded with players separating an esky of brown and white rice into two piles at 4am, to a soundtrack of ACDC’s Thunderstruck on repeat, takes some beating.
As the biggest club in the NRL in a city of 2.5 million and the spotlight that accompanies it, the Broncos have always been a lightning rod for criticism when times are bad.
So this is the story of how Brisbane saved their 2025 season as the walls of dingy, suburban Brookvale Oval closed in.
This is the day all those Maguire stories that Broncos players had heard and nervously questioned teammates about, and a searing spotlight on the coach’s madness and methods, faded into the background.
That miserable May night at Manly, the next-day flight home, and the uncomfortable days and conversations that followed have driven Brisbane right to Sunday’s grand final.
The Broncos were trounced 34-6 by the Sea Eagles, just days after Maguire had fronted the Broncos board to ease concerns around five losses from their previous six games.
“That was the turning point for us,” skipper Adam Reynolds says.
“‘Did we want to bow out and have a poor year like the year before?’ was the conversation we were having. ‘Did we want to actually make something of our season and work hard, really buy into what we needed to do?’
“There was obviously a little bit of change for the boys with a new face [in Maguire], new philosophies, and work ethic. That game at Manly, it was good to go through that as a group. It highlighted some key areas that we were pretty poor at. I think we needed that to wake us up a little bit.”
That disastrous Sea Eagles loss was Brisbane at their worst. Commitment to the cause was hard to spot. Five-eighth Ezra Mam was booed with every touch in response to his perceived light punishment for a drug driving incident that left three people injured. A clumsy post-game interview from the five-eighth didn’t help.
Talk of player burnout under Maguire’s polarising training methods gathered momentum. Especially given the knives were already out after the cut-throat way his predecessor, Kevin Walters, a most popular figure with media heavy hitters and Broncos old boys, was rolled to make way.
Dressing room footage was analysed. CEO Dave Donaghy and chairman Karl Morris were put on blast, and leaders Reynolds and Kotoni Staggs were openly questioned about player revolt.
“Externally, all that chat was pretty big and hard to ignore,” hooker Cory Paix says.
“But we did because we were having the proper conversations, those very hard, very honest chats ourselves.
“As a group, we ended up demanding commitment from one another because the coaches can say and do as much as possible, but at the end of the day, it’s up to the players to turn it around.
“We went back to work, trained harder, got in and did what we needed to. Looking back, that really was our turning point.”
When Brisbane emerged at the end of a long week, they ran onto Suncorp Stadium resembling the All Blacks in what is now an iconic, completely black kit as part of the club’s mental health round and charity partnership with the Black Dog Institute.
A 44-14 blitz of the Titans was Brisbane at their all-running, all-attacking best, just seven days after bottoming out at Brookvale.
In 14 games since, they’ve lost only twice - including a 22-2 defeat in Melbourne where Reynolds, Mam and Selwyn Cobbo all tore their hamstrings and their season was apparently gone.
The graft and grind their coach prizes above all else was plain to see in running down Penrith from 14-0, defending their goal line like demons all the while.
And as for Maguire’s much-discussed intensity, methods, and a little madness, back-rower Jordan Riki can only laugh now. Along with Reynolds and prop Payne Haas, the Kiwi international’s prior experience of Brisbane’s new coach was eagerly, and at times apprehensively, mined by his teammates.
For anyone who’s had their fingers crushed in one of Maguire’s vice-like handshakes - “and he’s got this big grin on his face when he does it” Riki laughs - it’s as good an indication as any of what you’re in for.
“There is a bit of an aura about him, you know, when he steps into a room that he needs everybody’s attention and he needs you locked in and focused,” Riki says.
“That’s quite special, he’s touched gold and won comps in Super League, with Souths, he’s won with the Kiwis and [as NSW coach] in Origin as well.
“A few of the boys were nervous and asking us, ‘What’s he really like?’ But we’d just laugh because we knew he’d be good for us.
“One thing I really love about him is that he’s massive on his one-on-one chats. He’ll pull someone aside, have a really good chat and give you a bit of brain food.”
Sydney Morning Herald
