{"id":517235,"date":"2026-03-04T03:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T03:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/517235\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T03:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T03:02:11","slug":"nrl-news-cooper-cronk-goes-public-with-eye-opening-claim-about-payne-haas-decision-to-quit-broncos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/517235\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news: Cooper Cronk goes public with eye-opening claim about Payne Haas’ decision to quit Broncos"},"content":{"rendered":"

NRL<\/a> champion Cooper Cronk has completely written off the Broncos’ hopes<\/a> of winning the premiership again in 2026, saying Payne Haas’ decision to leave will send a negative message to his teammates. The Broncos are already under the pump before the NRL season has even started, after losing the World Club Challenge <\/a>to Hull KR.<\/p>\n

Haas will join Souths in 2027<\/a>, but has vowed to give his all in his last season for the Broncos. But according to Cronk, Haas decision has already torpedoed Brisbane’s chances of going back-to-back.<\/p>\n

\"Cooper<\/p>\n

Cooper Cronk (L) reckons Payne Haas (R) has already torpedoed the Broncos’ chances of winning again. Image: Getty<\/p>\n

“I think the Broncos will finish top four, but I don’t think they go back-to-back,” Cronk said this week, according to The Courier Mail<\/a>. “The whole story that Wayne (Bennett) did this stealth mission (poaching Haas from the Broncos), I love it.<\/p>\n

“But there is something that says arguably your best player has just won a comp and wants out a year later. What does that say to the rest of the group?”<\/p>\n

\"Payne<\/p>\n

Payne Haas is playing his final year at the Brisbane Broncos.<\/p>\n

(Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Cronk pointed out that the current Broncos playing group “have a history of not working as hard as you should” – a reference to when they missed the finals under Kevin Walters in 2024. Michael Maguire instilled a harder edge in 2025, but there’s huge question marks about whether he can get the players up again for another gruelling campaign under his demanding methods.<\/p>\n

“If arrogance ever comes into it or they (feel they have) achieved Everest, you will be a couple of per cent below the desired mark and every other team is going to chase you down,” Cronk said. “Their talent says they can do it, but there is a big question mark around whether their best players have the desire to do all the one percenters again – because it is hard.”<\/p>\n

Reece Walsh says Broncos won’t be resting on laurels<\/p>\n

But according to superstar fullback Reece Walsh, the desire is still there despite Brisbane breaking a 19-year drought last season. The Broncos only had four games last year in which they had their first-choice spine of Walsh, Ezra Mam, Adam Reynolds and Ben Hunt.<\/p>\n

“To be honest, I don’t think we even scratched the surface with what we can do as a spine,” Walsh told AAP. “If we can all continue to grow and try and gel as much as we can and get on the same page, it’s exciting for us as a team for sure.”<\/p>\n

Maguire has named Cory Paix at hooker for the Broncos’ blockbuster against the Panthers on Friday night, with Ben Hunt on the interchange. But many are predicting a late change that could see Hunt start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NRL champion Cooper Cronk has completely written off the Broncos’ hopes of winning the premiership again in 2026,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,5366,11101,6407,761,762,158,13390,85],"class_list":["post-517235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-broncos","tag-cooper-cronk","tag-michael-maguire","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-payne-haas","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517235","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=517235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}