{"id":803986,"date":"2026-07-16T13:16:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803986\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T13:16:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:16:22","slug":"nrl-news-2026-broncos-keep-season-alive-with-upset-win-vs-panthers-reece-walsh-three-try-assists-dylan-edwards-vs-ezra-mam-fight-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803986\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Broncos keep season alive with upset win vs Panthers, Reece Walsh three try assists, Dylan Edwards vs Ezra Mam fight video"},"content":{"rendered":"

With their season on the line, Brisbane<\/a> weren\u2019t going to go down without a fight as tempers boiled over twice in the space of a minute during Thursday night\u2019s must-win clash against the ladder-leading Panthers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And the fiery clash only spurred the Broncos towards a massive upset, toppling the Panthers 14-12 at CommBank Stadium to keep their slim finals hopes alive and snapping a disastrous eight-game losing streak in the process. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Reece Walsh was enormous for the Broncos.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

The hostility began when Ezra Mam<\/a> sparked a scuffle by shoving Liam Martin<\/a>, which drew Dylan Edwards<\/a> in and spilled things over towards the crowd.<\/p>\n

On-field referee Todd Smith gave a warning to both teams, but less than a minute after play resumed, things erupted again between Payne Haas<\/a> and Liam Henry.<\/p>\n

Haas gave his opposing front-rower an old-fashioned facial on the ground, which prompted an immediate reaction from Henry and a brief melee. <\/p>\n

Smith was forced to intervene again and threatened to take further action. <\/p>\n

\u201cI left that push and shove to sort yourself out, but it happened again … there\u2019s any more coming together, players will sit down, okay? Tell them,\u201d he told captains Adam Reynolds<\/a> and Nathan Cleary<\/a> after the fracas.<\/p>\n

Haas was penalised for instigating the clash, gifting Cleary a shot at a penalty goal, which he successfully converted to give Penrith a 12-8 lead at half time.<\/p>\n

Reece Walsh had his fingerprints over everything for the Broncos, laying on two tries in the first half for Jordan Riki and Kotoni Staggs<\/a>, but it was a double from Panthers winger Brian To\u2019o that gave the hosts a narrow buffer.<\/p>\n

In the second half, there was some more pushing and shoving but Smith didn\u2019t stay true to his word, with no Broncos or Panthers players forced to sit down.<\/p>\n

The visitors started edging closer towards a crucial try, before Edwards intervened with a try-saving tackle on Josiah Karapani in the corner.<\/p>\n

But with just 12 minutes remaining, Walsh threw a cut-out pass to Karapani who crossed in the corner, before the star fullback slotted the sideline conversion.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Nine post-game, Walsh admitted the noise around the Broncos during their losing streak made the feeling even more special.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew it was gonna be a really tough game and I\u2019m really proud of the boys, it\u2019s been a while since we\u2019ve had this feeling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a tough couple of months for us boys and you can see now what it really means to us. There\u2019s a lot of things being said about us and our club \u2026 I\u2019m just really proud of the boys and their efforts tonight. We deserved that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Reece Walsh speaks to Phil Gould post-game.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old was also asked by Phil Gould<\/a> who made the decision for him to take the final conversion instead of captain Reynolds. <\/p>\n

\u201cMine,\u201d Walsh replied with a smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe took one off me last year and I said the old legs have been out for a few weeks, so I\u2019ll let him rest up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reynolds told media post-game that he was \u201ccramping up\u201d and heaped praise on Walsh for stepping up in a clutch moment to seal the result.<\/p>\n

The victory eases a little bit of pressure on coach Michael Maguire<\/a>, who has been under the pump as Brisbane\u2019s slide down the ladder continued.<\/p>\n

Maguire never lost hope in the Broncos making a late run for the finals, but knows there is still a long way to go with seven wins from as many games required. <\/p>\n

\u201cReally pleased for the players and the staff, we\u2019ve obviously gone through a bit over the last couple of months, but always believed that was inside them … but we\u2019ve obviously gotta keep doing it now,\u201d the experienced coach said. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople talk about what\u2019s missing, but we\u2019ve actually been missing quite a few of our players who were actually out there today – that\u2019s the simple truth. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Michael Maguire speaks to media after round 20.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had some unbelievable performances, Patty [Carrigan] came back and he hasn\u2019t played for about six weeks. Payne hasn\u2019t played a whole heap of footy, Reyno hasn\u2019t played a whole heap, Ezra hasn\u2019t played a whole heap. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have said things around us, but what I see at training every day is what I saw in the performance tonight. When you get players out there that you know you have, they all complement each other \u2026 people like Reece can come up with a performance like that off the back of what we do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said that every week. The fight that I\u2019ve seen from the team and then the quality of players we put out there, you get a performance like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reigning premiers did cop an early blow when Brendan Piakura was forced from the field with a head knock and failed his HIA, ruling him out for round 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With their season on the line, Brisbane weren\u2019t going to go down without a fight as tempers boiled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-803986","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\/803986","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=803986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}