{"id":827894,"date":"2026-07-27T23:24:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T23:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827894\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T23:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T23:24:18","slug":"nrl-news-2026-brisbane-broncos-season-darren-lockyer-and-billy-slater-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827894\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Brisbane Broncos season, Darren Lockyer and Billy Slater comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brisbane<\/a>\u2019s desire to back up its 2025 NRL<\/a> premiership has been questioned by club legend Darren Lockyer<\/a> and fellow league icon Billy Slater<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Broncos are essentially out of the finals race after losing to North Queensland on Saturday<\/a>, less than a year after claiming their first title in 19 years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ezra Mam and Reece Walsh react after Brisbane\u2019s loss to the Cowboys.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

They will be the first team since the 2006 Tigers to miss finals the season after winning a premiership.<\/p>\n

Lockyer – a club icon and current Broncos director – admits he was \u201cnervous\u201d before the season even started.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been turning points in games where they haven\u2019t, in my opinion, had the same desire as last year in winning the moments that matter,\u201d he said on Nine\u2019s 100% Footy. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously been very disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brisbane\u2019s failure to match the feats of last year has come in a season of turmoil<\/a> with injuries to key players.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s also been the impending departure of Payne Haas<\/a> to South Sydney and Ben Te\u2019o\u2019s fallout with coach Michael Maguire<\/a> which led to him quitting as assistant coach. <\/p>\n

The Broncos are now four wins outside the top eight and their slight mathematical chance of making finals has become unrealistic.<\/p>\n

Slater says he saw danger signs at the start of the season.<\/p>\n

He compared the attitude of Brisbane players to that of Penrith\u2019s, given the Panthers won four NRL premierships in a row and are once again at the top of the ladder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could see at the start of the season that they, individually and collectively, they didn\u2019t have a great pre-season. That\u2019s where it all starts,\u201d he told Nine\u2019s The Billy Slater Podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe game is too hard to play when you\u2019re not fit, and there were too many individuals that, whether the success got to them a bit, whether they relaxed a little bit… that\u2019s why what the Panthers have done is incredible.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Broncos veteran Ben Hunt and his teammates during a loss.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Panthers have held this hunger and drive to succeed year after year, week after week, and I feel that\u2019s what the Broncos struggled with over pre-season, and you saw it at the start of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were playing catch-up the whole year and now they\u2019re in this situation. I really feel something happened\u00a0in the pre-season.\u201d<\/p>\n

League icon Phil Gould suggested there could have been a struggle for the Broncos to get themselves motivated physically and emotionally after the highs of their 2025 grand final run and asked Lockyer if he saw anything in the players\u2019 attitudes that could have foreshadowed this season\u2019s misfortune. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always nervous when the Broncos are getting a lot of pats on the back because it\u2019s amplified in Brisbane because of the following of the Broncos,\u201d Lockyer replied. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also a lot of people critical of them when they\u2019re not going well. I think this has been a learning curve for the players this year because you can\u2019t just turn up, even when you\u2019ve got a talented team. You\u2019ve got to put the effort in every week.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Broncos will play their next three matches at Suncorp Stadium against the Knights, Dolphins and Warriors. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane\u2019s desire to back up its 2025 NRL premiership has been questioned by club legend Darren Lockyer and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-827894","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\/827894","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=827894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}