Welcome to Pony Picayune, a monthly newsletter about the Brisbane Broncos.
I don’t really get writer’s block. You tap at the keyboard and get something, anything, down. Even if that first attempt sucks, you can bash the words into some shape as the idea clarifies. Not everything has to be Tolstoy, or even Tolkien. With all those years of practice and that low bar to hurdle over, I still find myself at a complete loss for words trying to process the Broncos’ premiership victories.
There are four emotions. Firstly, there’s screaming joy: the boys and girls did it, they got it done, this is a lifetime highlight for everyone1. Secondly, there’s overwhelming relief: they didn’t fuck it up, there were plenty of opportunities but they didn’t. Thirdly, there’s a hint of guilt: even though I spent most of the game calming down myself and anyone who would listen2, because I knew intellectually it was all in hand, I didn’t really believe it until it was done.
Brisbane? The Broncos? Two premierships? On top of the Lions? Oh, ye of little faith.
Finally, there’s a space where an emotion used to be: an absence of something hanging over us, even if it is very small in the grand scheme of our ordinary humdrum existence, that has been there for a long, long time. The drought is over and we don’t have to worry about it anymore. After spending the preceding 24 hours with the same feeling in the pit of my stomach that precedes any two hours of high octane stress, it is no longer my problem. I thought I would cry at full time and I didn’t3. It is done. The rollercoaster is at its terminus. The holiday is over and we’ve come home. It dissipated in an instant. Why were we ever worried?
At the risk of making the season review of the single greatest year of Brisbane Broncos football all about me, the protagonist of the universe, I suppose I could have worked overtime to show the parallel lines of the history of the city of Brisbane and that of the Broncos. You can pick a starting point at 1988, at 2006, at 2011, at 2015, at 2020 or at 2023 and trace an arc to around 8.30pm on Sunday, 5 October 2025. Plenty of the post-match coverage did exactly that, so I won’t belabour the point.
Plenty more tore the game down to its individual atoms and then rebuilt a narrative from there. The women bashed the absolute shit out of the Roosters. Amazing what happens when you don’t spot the opposition 18 points in the first 12 minutes. Lauren Dam was right about getting off the bus earlier. The men played with a resilience I haven’t seen in decades, with efforts normally reserved for Origin. Crazy what happens when that outrageous confidence is tempered and channelled. Keep booing Ezra, it only makes him stronger. The Broncos lost both of their veteran halves and everyone was out of position by the end. There was an unnecessary amount of very unseemly analysis of refereeing4. Julia Robinson, Shalom Sauaso, Ali Brigginshaw and Tamika Upton. Deine Mariner, Payne Haas, Ben Hunt and Reece Walsh.
There’s potential for a tortured metaphor with the ways that the 2000s drought changed everyone forever and the premiership drought, and its eventual relief, did likewise. Too hard, timelines don’t align. Being a fan is Catholicism: deleted. Isn’t it interesting how all of these emotions are mediated by phones and the internet? No, no it is not. Take a leaf from the Broncos and don’t overthink this very simple moment.
I could have done a thousand solid words of hating5. OK, real quick. To the Raiders, who could not find a gear to compete with the Cronulla Sharks and still think they could have won this competition. Please. To the Panthers, who thought they could swan in from last place in round 12, not bother even competing for a top four finish and still win the thing. Have some respect. To the Roosters, good on you for throwing hands at full time and if only you'd brought that energy to the rest of the game instead of fracturing each other’s faces. Here's a comp your geriatric, wannabe mobster boss couldn't buy for your dozen fans.
To the Storm, who insisted on resting players in round 26 so they could go full strength against the Broncos in round 27 and lost, and then lost again in front of the biggest audience for a grand final in Australian history. Enjoy your regular season record against the Broncos because it’s all you have. Brisbane won the only games that matter. Would the Storm have been better off keeping Nicho Hynes or Scott Drinkwater at fullback? Marinate on that this off-season.
For the rest of the league, specifically the Bulldogs but also the rest, what do you goddamn morons get paid for? The most wide open competition in a generation and you let the team that everyone hates so much that they can’t even admit it to themselves win the whole thing.
Anthony Seibold. Hahahaha, go fuck yourself, you smarmy loser. You’re not fit to polish Kevin Walters’ boots.
If that doesn't seem like the usual 100 mile an hour fastballs, what can I say? Bringing the heat when we won and they didn’t would be unbecoming.
There are some apologies due. To Michael Maguire, I’m sorry I wasn’t familiar with your game. I’m still not entirely sure how much credit you should be given for Reece Walsh’s premiership but you get to keep the job, criticism-free, for a while6. If nothing else, that was clearly phenomenal management through the final six weeks of the season. To Gehamat Shibasaki, for all the nasty things I said about you in your first stint. To Billy Walters, for all the nasty things I said about you up until about halfway through this year. To Hayley Maddick, for me being pissed at you for not being Tamika Upton.
There is some credit to be given to the Storm. It was close. They were good. Thousands of quantum sliding doors of that game do not end with a Broncos premiership. Still, the Victorians just couldn’t find the best when they needed it. Munster went missing for the first time in half a decade, Hughes tried to get dirty, Papenhuyzen had an incredibly poor game, and the playmakers were meant to be their spine. The rest of the team couldn’t stand up to their Broncos counterparts. If there was a plan to deal with Reece Walsh, it was not in evidence. There’s no pity, no sympathy and there never is. It’s only sport and the beauty of sport is that you win or you lose and everyone has to make peace with their choices in life, even as the ramifications extend over decades.
The path to the trophy was always going to involve overcoming some demons. The way the ladder shook out meant that unless the Broncos got spectacularly lucky, they were going to need to beat the Panthers, tormentors of the 2023 grand final collapse, and the Storm, the club’s long standing bete noire, en route to the grand final. The Broncos didn’t give either of those teams anything to motivate them. The former by never truly challenging them, except for patches here and there until the second half of the preliminary final in which the Panthers finally folded, much to the relief of the NRL, and the latter by always losing in unusual ways, except for the biggest games of all.
This resulted in one of the greatest finals runs in the history of rugby league, perhaps in Australian sport. The 2025 Broncos are the first team since the 2015 Cowboys to win the premiership from outside the top two and the first to win a grand final from fourth since the 2009 Storm, and the first to actually keep the premiership since the 2005 Tigers.
Three come from behind victories combined for a total margin of victory of seven points. The 99 Storm (a 24 point defeat followed by three wins of two points each) and the 21 Panthers (a six point loss followed by three wins of eight total points) are the only comparable examples in the NRL era. Of the premiership winning teams that didn’t drop a finals game, the 16 Sharks totalled 16 points across three games, more than twice as many. The Broncos didn’t lose a game, won by a total of seven, all in come from behind victories that were down a total 30 points at halftime. Nothing has been quite like that or will ever be like that.
Here’s a weird fact. The last Broncos premierships, in both competitions, were the year before the Titans entered in 2007 and 2021. The Broncos have won their first premierships since the little Gold Coast franchise that couldn’t started getting in the way. Don’t have to worry about that anymore.
This isn’t a restoration. The advantages that allowed 1992 through 2006 are gone and aren’t coming back. The nature of those victories will not be seen again. 2025 was a campaign victory in a salary capped league, with another cap on football department spending, with equal central distributions - as level a playing field as you will see in professional sport - and the Broncos won. After decades commercially subsidising loser franchises like the Knights and the Tigers, we finally get something back.
People not from Brisbane aren’t really going to get what this win is like. Nine did a full hour of live coverage from Suncorp Stadium as the trophies were presented to 10,000 fans. The players looked like they’d rather be anywhere else in the world than under the spotlights, clearly hungover. Gayle Broughton spoke well. I’m going to miss her contribution. I was less enthused by David Crisafulli’s presence. This ain’t for Cowboys-loving dinguses based on the Gold Coast. This is for Brisbane. Where was that dork Schrinner?
The reason Nine would commit resources normally reserved for an election is that the Broncos appeal across an entire city. The Broncos are the first team to win the men’s and women’s grand finals on the same day, an achievement that should surpass Penrith’s four grades in 2022 but watch the octogenarian curmudgeons pay this no mind because there are no reference points from when they were kids. This is for tomorrow’s adults.
The Panthers’ four-in-a-row didn’t set Sydney on fire because most of Sydney is at best apathetic, and at worst derisive, of Penrith. While Melbourne and Sydney teams have won the AFL and the NRL in the same year, that suburban tribalism that the NRL prides itself on, undermines the magnitude of what that achievement could mean for a whole metropolis.
Maybe you would see something similar in Newcastle, if they ever get out of their own way, but Newcastle has a quarter of the population of Brisbane. This is big deal for a big city. This is still, effectively, a one team town; famously, they are Redcliffe. Now, the one team town has two trophies. The sport’s Sydney-centrism is never going to get it.
Oh well, that doesn’t matter now. Plumber out.
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Men’s player of the year: Payne Haas
It is something of an oversight to have waited this long to give this completely insignificant honour to Payne Haas. While I could have been justified in awarding PotY to the two previous winners, and he was not the most outstanding in a crowded grand final field, Haas’ season was monumental. Look no further than the preliminary final. Haas carried the team all season, motoring down field, covering in defence and largely invincible. A high five from a fired up Haas would sever my arm from my shoulder.
Previous winners: Reece Walsh (2023), Kotoni Staggs (2024)
Women’s player of the year: Tamika Upton
It would be hard to nominate anyone other than the two time Dally M medal winner. The return of Upton to her first club, no longer chasing the dollar and needing to be closer to home, was seen as the thing that would take this team from the clear third best in the league who couldn’t win a finals game, to premiership winners. It would be unfair to ignore the contributions made by numerous players - see below - to shaking that tag, but Upton was the most obvious. The attack and a non-trivial part of the defence runs through her and long may she reign.
Previous winners: Ali Brigginshaw (2023), Stacey Waaka (2024)
Advanced metrics
All metrics are regular season only.
Notes
I was born into the Broncos’ last dynasty but this Sunday could be the sweetest victory of all
‘I can’t mix my food’: Broncos star Billy Walters reveals autism spectrum diagnosis
Broncos bolter: how I nearly lost my eye (second story)
Rewind
See you next year.
It’s not best day of my life territory or even top ten - who even ranks these things? - but, as we all know, this doesn’t come along very often. Everyone’s milage will vary.
Somewhat undoing my own work by yelling (or doing this weird loud clap thing, the energy has to go somewhere) every time something good happened.
Why does Grant Atkins spend so much time on the phone to Ash Klein?
Many people think the postseason is about crowning a champion—about winning. No. The most frequent and tangible joy of watching the playoffs is reveling in the downfall of others. Why should you, a disinterested third party watching two clubs vie for glory that should rightfully be your team’s, be expected to have a rooting interest? You can simply root for each and every team’s downfall instead. Do this, and you will be rewarded 92 percent of the time, an unexpected benefit of the expanded postseason field. You’ll never find better odds.
Well, my team won both of the competitions so I get the benefit of being a fan of winners and a hater.
See also: Billy Slater. Hard to comprehend quite how bad the season looked at the end of May compared to now.