{"id":761858,"date":"2026-06-26T16:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T16:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/761858\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T16:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T16:00:11","slug":"nrl-news-2026-brisbane-broncos-coach-michael-maguire-defiant-in-press-conference-after-loss-to-sydney-roosters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/761858\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Brisbane Broncos coach Michael Maguire defiant in press conference after loss to Sydney Roosters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Maguire<\/a> has hit back at suggestions the Broncos<\/a> are facing \u201can uphill battle\u201d to make the NRL<\/a> finals after they slumped to a seventh straight loss on Friday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Having lost 24-18 to the Roosters at Suncorp Stadium, the Broncos must likely now win eight of their last nine matches to be any chance of playing finals football.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Broncos coach Michael Maguire.\u00a0NRL Imagery<\/p>\n

But when asked in his post-game press conference what his message for his team was considering the \u201cuphill battle\u201d facing them, Maguire fired up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s an uphill battle with the team I\u2019ve got here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople can say whatever they like, to be truthfully honest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe belief I have in this group and the journey that I\u2019ve had with this group \u2013 there\u2019s a great group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you fight like that \u2013 we\u2019ll let that do the talking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only must the Broncos likely win eight of their last nine games to remain a chance of reaching the finals, they are scheduled to face a host of the top teams on the run home.<\/p>\n

Among them are the Sharks, Panthers, Dolphins, Warriors and Storm.<\/p>\n

The Broncos\u2019 seven-game losing run is the longest losing streak of a reigning premier since Western Suburbs Magpies in 1953.<\/p>\n

Maguire was asked if it was time to forget about this year\u2019s finals hopes and get game time into some youngsters, including front-rower Va\u2019a\u00a0Semu and hooker Cameron Bukowski.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t take kindly to the question.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou obviously weren\u2019t listening to what I just said there before,\u201d Maguire said, replying with a steely grin.<\/p>\n

The Broncos are dealing with a massive injury toll. On Friday night, they were missing Adam Reynolds, Ezra Mam, Gehamat Shibasaki and Patrick Carrigan.<\/p>\n

Maguire was chuffed with how his team went in those circumstances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was actually really proud of my players tonight,\u201d Maguire said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been through a bit in the last five or six weeks, and the way I\u2019ve seen the players commit over the last three or four weeks has been really good.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey fought like hell tonight for each other. We had \u2018X\u2019 [Xavier Willison] go off, one of our middles, and it sort of changed up what we were doing through the middle there. We got a few bumps and bruises throughout the game, but I thought the effort of the players was excellent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were moments in the game that you\u2019d like to have back, which would alleviate a bit of the pressure \u2013 we had a couple of yardage errors and things like that \u2013 but I saw a really committed group.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just said to the players then that I saw the team that I love coaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brisbane will take on Cronulla at Suncorp Stadium next Saturday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Maguire has hit back at suggestions the Broncos are facing \u201can uphill battle\u201d to make the NRL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-761858","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\/761858","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=761858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}