{"id":301717,"date":"2025-11-22T15:51:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T15:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/301717\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T15:51:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T15:51:14","slug":"isnt-as-bad-as-vegas-broncos-legend-talks-condensed-prep-for-world-club-challenge-nrl-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/301717\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Isn\u2019t as bad as Vegas\u2019: Broncos legend talks condensed prep for World Club Challenge, NRL defence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Success is hard, but maintaining it is often much harder\u2014something the Brisbane Broncos<\/a> are about to discover as they begin the long journey to defending their 2025 NRL title.<\/p>\n

Brisbane played in the NRL season decider on October 5 before nearly half of the club\u2019s top 30 then went away on international duties for a further month.<\/p>\n

It means most of their first-grade stars, the bulk of whom are currently on leave, will get a handful of training sessions at best before Christmas, while it\u2019s unlikely the complete Broncos NRL squad for 2026 will train together until the second week of January.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s barely a month before they\u2019re on a plane for England to play Hull KR in the World Club Challenge on 19 February, before returning home to face a revenge-fuelled Penrith side in a heavyweight NRL season opener on March 6.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Reece Walsh vs Broncos\u2014star misses 2026 line-up following royalties, IP concerns<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tight preparation, but one former Broncos premiership winner and head coach Kevin Walters is backing the club\u2019s stars to navigate, even if much of it will happen away from Broncos HQ at Red Hill.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do need to get away from footy, and just try and wipe it out of your system for a bit,\u201d Walters explained<\/a> on the Inside Ball podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you also have to train yourself and keep ticking the body over\u2014once you get through two, three, four pre-seasons you start to understand what you need to do each year to get your body right.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose blokes are disciplined enough to do that, they don\u2019t want to come back and be sloppy at the back of the pack, a player like Reece Walsh has football running through his veins, he won\u2019t be able to stay away from training anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walters also gave his thoughts on next February\u2019s World Club Challenge, predicting it will be a far less stressful preparation than playing in the opening NRL round in Las Vegas which his Broncos side did in 2024, losing 20-10 to the Sydney Roosters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe World Club Challenge isn\u2019t as bad as Vegas where obviously there are (NRL) points on the line,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to win it, sure, but it\u2019s more a trip of enjoyment and a reward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Success is hard, but maintaining it is often much harder\u2014something the Brisbane Broncos are about to discover as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-301717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}