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
