Maguire, Walters reveal shock Brisbane coaching switch

Michael Maguire has revealed the "empty feeling" that ultimately led to him coaching Brisbane as his predecessor Kevin Walters expressed his "shock" at being fired.

The new Broncos mentor, speaking at the club's season launch, reflected on a poignant moment of deep reflection on July 18 last year. He had just wrapped up a 2-1 State of Origin series win as NSW coach and had a moment of illumination that made him realise he wanted to return to NRL clubland, where he had spent 10 years with South Sydney and Wests Tigers.

"I will never forget how I had finished the Origin (series) and had to do some media the next morning and it was a really strange feeling," Maguire said.

"We'd had a great night together and I had to do some stuff on Channel Nine and the other. networks.

"I went back to say goodbye to the players (at the team hotel) and literally all of them and all my staff had gone back to clubland.

"I stood there I had this feeling of, 'where is my team?' I can't go back and do something with this group'."

Maguire got back into preparing for the 2025 Origin series with that nagging feeling of still wanting to be a club coach.

"Then the Broncos job came up literally out of the blue," he said.

"It was a job I looked at and I thought of the gravitas of what the Broncos are, the history and how some of the all-time great players have come out of this club. I thought, 'I have got to go and do it'."

For the job to "come out of the blue" a vacancy needed to emerge. That happened when club legend Kevin Walters was sacked just 12 months after taking the side to the grand final.

Brisbane had finished 12th and the club had launched an end-of-season review.

Walters, speaking on his new "Inside Ball" podcast with co-host Ben Dobbin, said he was preparing for the 2025 season with new assistant coaches Ben Te'o and Trent Barrett.

He'd been out for a meal on September 25 with the duo but had a premonition that something wasn't right.

"I accelerated things," Walters said.

"I rang my manager and said, 'I have got a bad feeling in my stomach that this isn't quite right'. He made a phone call and we went in and they made the decision to finish up with me.

"I was shocked because we were a long way down the track with 2025 planning."

Walters took over in late 2020 after the club has "won" its first wooden spoon and accepted "full responsibility" for what happened in a difficult 2024 season.

"We had 32 players wear the Broncos jersey last year. That is not in the coach's hands, that is in the hands of the rugby league gods," he said.

"The key part of any rugby league team is their spine and ours started in six games together for the whole year."

Walters won five premierships as a player at Brisbane and said his heart would be always with the club where he spent 21 years. His son Billy is still there.

"I want to see the Broncos do well," Walters said."I am comfortable with my contribution to the Broncos.

"Coaching is my passion. I am going to coach again (in the NRL). I have got a lot of belief in myself."

Canberra Times

 

[Sproj]

I was looking into his coaching awhile back and the thing that gets forgotten about with his time at the tigers is Covid.

His first year there he got them to 9th... previously their meme position, but good lord would they love to be back there again. Beyond covid they were horrendous, but the game completely changed at that point.

I think if I were to criticise him for anything during that period it might be that he didn't pick up on the trends of Vlando ball quick enough and adapt them, but I wasn't really paying attention to the tigers and whether they were playing the tactics and just didn't have the cattle. Overall that 2020/21 period was a chasm between the top 4-5 teams and everyone else, and you needed some stud players in key positions to be able to compete.

Looking at his coaching record overall the tigers are the only team that he has a negative winning percentage with and even then they didn't pick up the spoon until the year he was sacked. He also inherited the team before Ivan jumped off the bus and I think he left the club with some pretty shit contracts to deal with Matulino, Packer, etc.

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We're more similar to the Rabbits than Tigers in terms of talent pathways, club size and expectations, so let's hope he can produce something similar but better. His teams do tend to trend downwards but at least for now, on exposed evidence of literally one game, signs are promising.

 

[Manofoneway]

I was looking into his coaching awhile back and the thing that gets forgotten about with his time at the tigers is Covid.

His first year there he got them to 9th... previously their meme position, but good lord would they love to be back there again. Beyond covid they were horrendous, but the game completely changed at that point.

I think if I were to criticise him for anything during that period it might be that he didn't pick up on the trends of Vlando ball quick enough and adapt them, but I wasn't really paying attention to the tigers and whether they were playing the tactics and just didn't have the cattle. Overall that 2020/21 period was a chasm between the top 4-5 teams and everyone else, and you needed some stud players in key positions to be able to compete.

Looking at his coaching record overall the tigers are the only team that he has a negative winning percentage with and even then they didn't pick up the spoon until the year he was sacked. He also inherited the team before Ivan jumped off the bus and I think he left the club with some pretty shit contracts to deal with Matulino, Packer, etc.

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I'm yet to be sold on Madge as a coach. After this season we will know if he is the type of coach the guys need. My gut tells me our team are a bunch of pussies outside of haas carrigan and Reynolds and will ultimately capitulate when the going gets tough and madge brings a baseball bat to training.

The biggest concern to me is that after 4 years at the Tigers he really had no answers in turning it around. By the end of it he looked like a broken and shattered man, completely out of ideas. Could argue their roster was shithouse but literally none of their team improved in 4 years under madge. They just got worse. Anyway its a useless discussion. Kev got sacked and now we have madge. We should treat it with hope that he is the answer to our premiership rubix cube.

 

[BroncsFan]

We're more similar to the Rabbits than Tigers in terms of talent pathways, club size and expectations, so let's hope he can produce something similar but better. His teams do tend to trend downwards but at least for now, on exposed evidence of literally one game, signs are promising.

It would be interesting to know what happened at souths, but I think what is different nowadays, or at least should be different, is that players know what it takes to be successful and one of the main things is being fit as fuuuuuck.

Melbourne and Penrith are the benchmarks of the comp and if you as a player don't think that they're getting absolutely flogged every preseason, then you are kidding yourself and may as well find somewhere to play some flashy comfy footy.

It would be harder and harder to find a club not getting flogged during preseason, because of how important it is and the amount of coaches that are coming out of the Bellamy coaching school and now Cleary... Robinson is probably in that boat as well, but his teams haven't necessarily been able to compete with Melbourne and Penrith in recent times, despite having stellar rosters.

I don't even know if Madge will be the make or break component for us anyway... I think it will be the mindset of the leadership group.

Melbourne are the team they are because of the leadership group they've had since Bellamy started... they want success and if you aren't serious about that, then you're out on your ass.

Penrith are the same and they have to be to win 4 in a row... what is there to play for each year other than just wanting to keep on winning.

If Madge can show these guys a gameplan and pathway to success and premiership success then I think guys like Patty, Haas and Reece will be absolutely loving his coaching. They are so competitive and wanting success, whilst also putting in the hard yards that they will end up as the leadership group the club gets built around.

I'm thinking the fallout with Souths must've been the leadership group... they let the standards slip down there and then blamed it on being coached too hard. Since then they have been up and down and have only played their best under Wayne, who is a man manager that knows how to get his team up mentally.... but looking at their squad they don't look like a team that Madge would be able to take over at this moment... are they serious enough about their footy to dig in year after year.

Broncos are potentially similar as a club, but hopefully the leaders coming through are strong enough to set the standards and drag the young guys up to those standards with the end goal of winning and being a powerhouse successful footy team that competes every year for premierships.

 

[Foordy]

The biggest concern to me is that after 4 years at the Tigers he really had no answers in turning it around. By the end of it he looked like a broken and shattered man,

The Tigers are literally the worst club in the world to judge a coach on.

Take Ivan Cleary for example... never made the finals with the Tigers ... leave them and wins 4 straight.

and Cleary's record pre-Tigers isn't anywhere near as good as Maguires pre-Tigers career.

 

[Big Del]

The Tigers are literally the worst club in the world to judge a coach on.

Take Ivan Cleary for example... never made the finals with the Tigers ... leave them and wins 4 straight.

and Cleary's record pre-Tigers isn't anywhere near as good as Maguires pre-Tigers career.

Hate to say it but , Gus had a lot to do with the Panthers being sucessful today .
Ivan moved into the Mt Druit Mc Mansion Gus built .

 

[john1420]

They are going to have to make that decision. The thing is, Maguire typically only manages to get 2-3 years of decent performance from his teams before they seem to capitulate. So, he’s unlikely to be a long-term coach for us unless he has learned from the experiences of the last two teams he coached.

He had three good years at Souths followed by three pretty ordinary years. The same went for the Tigers: in his first year, he lost more than he won, and the three years that followed were horrendous.

Interestingly enough, he has a lower win record in the NRL than Kevie, although he has over 100 more games under his belt, to be fair.

The jury is still out on him in my mind. To be honest, I’m not sure he’s going to be the messiah that some people think he might be based on his past performances. The only thing he has going for him is that he turned the NSW team around—although that was only over three games, so it's hard to judge.

That said, the boys look fitter than they have in a very long time, which is one plus for him

Also, to be fair, a lot of those games were at the Tigers, where coaches go to die.

I submit that when discussing coaching records, all Tigers years should be ignored

 

[Ondi]

I've liked pretty much everything I've seen thus far. Maguire has been easy to get on board with and I hope he has a successful tenure with us. The great advantage over Kevy is I have no attachment to him. When he starts to lose his shine it will be an easy move to the next best coach.

 

[davidp]

I think most of what we have seen so far can be replicated throughout the squad - so even though we will have some hard patches, I do not think we will have extended poor periods - Madge will be good for us

 

[Sproj]

It would be interesting to know what happened at souths, but I think what is different nowadays, or at least should be different, is that players know what it takes to be successful and one of the main things is being fit as fuuuuuck.

Melbourne and Penrith are the benchmarks of the comp and if you as a player don't think that they're getting absolutely flogged every preseason, then you are kidding yourself and may as well find somewhere to play some flashy comfy footy.

It would be harder and harder to find a club not getting flogged during preseason, because of how important it is and the amount of coaches that are coming out of the Bellamy coaching school and now Cleary... Robinson is probably in that boat as well, but his teams haven't necessarily been able to compete with Melbourne and Penrith in recent times, despite having stellar rosters.

I don't even know if Madge will be the make or break component for us anyway... I think it will be the mindset of the leadership group.

Melbourne are the team they are because of the leadership group they've had since Bellamy started... they want success and if you aren't serious about that, then you're out on your ass.

Penrith are the same and they have to be to win 4 in a row... what is there to play for each year other than just wanting to keep on winning.

If Madge can show these guys a gameplan and pathway to success and premiership success then I think guys like Patty, Haas and Reece will be absolutely loving his coaching. They are so competitive and wanting success, whilst also putting in the hard yards that they will end up as the leadership group the club gets built around.

I'm thinking the fallout with Souths must've been the leadership group... they let the standards slip down there and then blamed it on being coached too hard. Since then they have been up and down and have only played their best under Wayne, who is a man manager that knows how to get his team up mentally.... but looking at their squad they don't look like a team that Madge would be able to take over at this moment... are they serious enough about their footy to dig in year after year.

Broncos are potentially similar as a club, but hopefully the leaders coming through are strong enough to set the standards and drag the young guys up to those standards with the end goal of winning and being a powerhouse successful footy team that competes every year for premierships.

Penrith are all home grown talent or at least mostly so, so they have the loyalty card they can play with is absolutely benefitted by being so successful and good on them, they worked hard to get to be so good, it is well deserved. They also have amazing systems in place from the ground up. I could actually see Redcliffe become something similar in about 10 years if they follow a similar blueprint, albeit having as much success as Penrith have had is going to be hard to follow.

Melbourne on the other hand can afford to flick players because they legally have no salary cap anymore, so if a player screws up / doesn't buy in / loses it, they can easily replace them with someone else, even a big name. They also have the best coach in the comp and a good pathways system, so if one falls, no probs, they can find someone else who is probably even better.

Brisbane has all the tools to do this and as you say, it comes down to leadership core and moving forward, it will be Haas, Carrigan and Walsh. My concern though for Walsh at present is, even though he is competitive and will be a great leader, is he at that point right now where he can pull someone like Mam in line and if not, have the guts to call him out or even suggest pushing him out if it comes to that? Maguire is probably a good fit IF the players have matured enough to the point where they will back up his message even if it means calling one of their besties out. If they aren't at that point, Maguire won't last long I don't think if we have another difficult season.

 

[Ondi]

I agree with a lot of that but don't forget big Dave in all this though. He seems to be taking everything very seriously. I think he would be happy to make the hard calls with Maguire in cutting certain players loose it they are holding the team back. The brand has taken enough of a beating in recent years. The players need to shape up or be shipped out. It's a privilege to play for this club it's about time they all took it seriously.

 

[BroncsFan]

Penrith are all home grown talent or at least mostly so, so they have the loyalty card they can play with is absolutely benefitted by being so successful and good on them, they worked hard to get to be so good, it is well deserved. They also have amazing systems in place from the ground up. I could actually see Redcliffe become something similar in about 10 years if they follow a similar blueprint, albeit having as much success as Penrith have had is going to be hard to follow.

Melbourne on the other hand can afford to flick players because they legally have no salary cap anymore, so if a player screws up / doesn't buy in / loses it, they can easily replace them with someone else, even a big name. They also have the best coach in the comp and a good pathways system, so if one falls, no probs, they can find someone else who is probably even better.

Brisbane has all the tools to do this and as you say, it comes down to leadership core and moving forward, it will be Haas, Carrigan and Walsh. My concern though for Walsh at present is, even though he is competitive and will be a great leader, is he at that point right now where he can pull someone like Mam in line and if not, have the guts to call him out or even suggest pushing him out if it comes to that? Maguire is probably a good fit IF the players have matured enough to the point where they will back up his message even if it means calling one of their besties out. If they aren't at that point, Maguire won't last long I don't think if we have another difficult season.

Yeah the big ones are which guys have the respect in the team... presumably Reyno, Bhunt, Patty and Haas at minimum.

I'm unsure on Staggs despite him being in the leadership group. I feel he has gaps in his game he needs to sort out before he can bark orders at others. You can't be a guy with 9 carries yelling at others to take hit ups... or a guy that sprints out of the defensive line to solve something himself also be a guy that yells at others for missing their mark.

Walsh is likely respected for what he brings to the team, and if he backs that up with total professionalism during training, etc. which by all reports he does (extras, fitness, etc.), then he likely also has a big voice across the group.

It then becomes needing those guys to all be moving in the same direction and if you're not coming with us you can leave.

I think Walsh is potentially the key moving forward... he seems the most likely to be verbal and call guys out if they're not going to the same standard he sets for himself.

Patty and Payne seem a bit quiet in that regard, and Reyonlds and Bhunt are probably only here for the next 18 months.

In saying that Patty did look like he had his angry face on for a lot of last year... he didn't look happy about how shit was playing out, so potentially he does become the guy who is respected across the league (would already be there) but also brings the voice that will call guys out for cutting any corners.

I think those guys are at the point where enough is enough and they want success. They wont like being dominant players coming through the grades just to be a laughing stock when they hit the NRL. They've got a coach that has a gameplan on how to succeed and if you're not coming with them I reckon they would be calling guys out for it.

At that point you look to the next guys coming through that have rep footy potential, like Mam, Mariner, Piakura, Willison, Mozer, BTK, Cobbo, etc.

Mozer and Willison look all business in the same way Patty, Payne, etc. do, but the others look a bit carefree to me and need to sharpen up (BTK an unknown though)... which is where you need the leaders to bring them into line so they are also setting the standards and calling out the guys below them.

At that point you have a self sustaining leadership group that keeps standards up and keeps bringing new leaders through.

Other guys like Kobe, Riki, Jensen, etc. are more like workers and may not get the respect to have a big enough voice, because of their standing in the game. They're not really rep players or guys that are top 10 or so for their position in the league.

You still need those guys, and there are lesser guys at succesful clubs that have a big voice and are respected but not seen from the outside. For them it would come down to how much respect they get within the squad to know how much weight they carry.

 

[KateBroncos1812]

The Tigers are literally the worst club in the world to judge a coach on.

Here Here. I hate how people compare the broncos to the Tigers two different teams. The Tigers are the first team to win back to back wooden spoons. People love bringing up that we haven't had a premiership since 2006 what about the Tigers they haven't had a premiership since 2005.

 

[Sproj]

Yeah the big ones are which guys have the respect in the team... presumably Reyno, Bhunt, Patty and Haas at minimum.

I'm unsure on Staggs despite him being in the leadership group. I feel he has gaps in his game he needs to sort out before he can bark orders at others. You can't be a guy with 9 carries yelling at others to take hit ups... or a guy that sprints out of the defensive line to solve something himself also be a guy that yells at others for missing their mark.

Walsh is likely respected for what he brings to the team, and if he backs that up with total professionalism during training, etc. which by all reports he does (extras, fitness, etc.), then he likely also has a big voice across the group.

It then becomes needing those guys to all be moving in the same direction and if you're not coming with us you can leave.

I think Walsh is potentially the key moving forward... he seems the most likely to be verbal and call guys out if they're not going to the same standard he sets for himself.

Patty and Payne seem a bit quiet in that regard, and Reyonlds and Bhunt are probably only here for the next 18 months.

In saying that Patty did look like he had his angry face on for a lot of last year... he didn't look happy about how shit was playing out, so potentially he does become the guy who is respected across the league (would already be there) but also brings the voice that will call guys out for cutting any corners.

I think those guys are at the point where enough is enough and they want success. They wont like being dominant players coming through the grades just to be a laughing stock when they hit the NRL. They've got a coach that has a gameplan on how to succeed and if you're not coming with them I reckon they would be calling guys out for it.

At that point you look to the next guys coming through that have rep footy potential, like Mam, Mariner, Piakura, Willison, Mozer, BTK, Cobbo, etc.

Mozer and Willison look all business in the same way Patty, Payne, etc. do, but the others look a bit carefree to me and need to sharpen up (BTK an unknown though)... which is where you need the leaders to bring them into line so they are also setting the standards and calling out the guys below them.

At that point you have a self sustaining leadership group that keeps standards up and keeps bringing new leaders through.

Other guys like Kobe, Riki, Jensen, etc. are more like workers and may not get the respect to have a big enough voice, because of their standing in the game. They're not really rep players or guys that are top 10 or so for their position in the league.

You still need those guys, and there are lesser guys at succesful clubs that have a big voice and are respected but not seen from the outside. For them it would come down to how much respect they get within the squad to know how much weight they carry.

So you kind of look at it like:

Leadership Core: Reynolds, B.Hunt, Haas, Carrigan, Walsh
Leadership Support: Staggs, Hetherington, Taupau, Riki, Hoeter
Squad Guys: Arthars, Walters, Smoothy, Mozer, Paix, Madden, Willison, Te Kura, Jensen, J.Hunt, Gosiewski
Need a Kick at Times: Mam, Cobbo, Mariner, Piakura, Haas' white shoes, Baker (to the curb)
Other/Unknown: Everyone else

 

[MrTickyMcG]

I'm looking forward to seeing if Maguire will call out incompetent refereeing when the time comes. I'm over our rollover attitude to this.

 

[McHunt]

So you kind of look at it like:

Leadership Core: Reynolds, B.Hunt, Haas, Carrigan, Walsh
Leadership Support: Staggs, Hetherington, Taupau, Riki, Hoeter
Squad Guys: Arthars, Walters, Smoothy, Mozer, Paix, Madden, Willison, Te Kura, Jensen, J.Hunt, Gosiewski
Need a Kick at Times: Mam, Cobbo, Mariner, Piakura, Haas' white shoes, Baker (to the curb)
Other/Unknown: Everyone else

Staggs is core.

 

[BroncsFan]

So you kind of look at it like:

Leadership Core: Reynolds, B.Hunt, Haas, Carrigan, Walsh
Leadership Support: Staggs, Hetherington, Taupau, Riki, Hoeter
Squad Guys: Arthars, Walters, Smoothy, Mozer, Paix, Madden, Willison, Te Kura, Jensen, J.Hunt, Gosiewski
Need a Kick at Times: Mam, Cobbo, Mariner, Piakura, Haas' white shoes, Baker (to the curb)
Other/Unknown: Everyone else

That's probably a reasonable way to look at it, but I think what is noticeable is the amount of starters or guys earmarked as starters that are in the need a kick at times group.

All the starters should be leaders and be too good every week to be kicked out of the jersey.

They should be setting the benchmark and be the guys that the young guys want to replace

 

[Sproj]

That's probably a reasonable way to look at it, but I think what is noticeable is the amount of starters or guys earmarked as starters that are in the need a kick at times group.

All the starters should be leaders and be too good every week to be kicked out of the jersey.

They should be setting the benchmark and be the guys that the young guys want to replace

True. I guess these guys all have massive upside though so you give them a bit of rope but you can only do so for so long. On the positive, both Piaks and Mariner looked noticeably fitter and played noticeably smarter in the trial so that's a good sign. We haven't seen Cobbo yet but Mam, to me at least, looked a bit out of shape in the box on the weekend, that's a concern.

 

[heartly87]

I was looking into his coaching awhile back and the thing that gets forgotten about with his time at the tigers is Covid.

His first year there he got them to 9th... previously their meme position, but good lord would they love to be back there again. Beyond covid they were horrendous, but the game completely changed at that point.

I think if I were to criticise him for anything during that period it might be that he didn't pick up on the trends of Vlando ball quick enough and adapt them, but I wasn't really paying attention to the tigers and whether they were playing the tactics and just didn't have the cattle. Overall that 2020/21 period was a chasm between the top 4-5 teams and everyone else, and you needed some stud players in key positions to be able to compete.

Looking at his coaching record overall the tigers are the only team that he has a negative winning percentage with and even then they didn't pick up the spoon until the year he was sacked. He also inherited the team before Ivan jumped off the bus and I think he left the club with some pretty shit contracts to deal with Matulino, Packer, etc.

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This is a great point, I think you will find he didn't have the cattle. Somewhat like us when the rules changed. Some squads just didn't have the fitness or the mentality to adapt to those changes which were huge.

The tigers had a lot of guys that were totally unwilling to get the job done. But they even gave us a touch up in this period. We were absolutely horrendous in at the time

I honestly don't think there is a coach in the game that could have done any better with what he had to work with. I remember watching Tiger town and you could see the frustration certain players had that were having a dig with those that weren't. Culture is very hard to change without cleaning out a joint. As a counter to that I believe if he was coaching us in that same period we would have gone much better. We had enough here and there was no excuse for that spoon in my opinion.