One win in the bag, seven to go.<\/p>\n
It sounds a daunting task but one Broncos players are relishing, especially if fullback Reece Walsh carries on the scintillating form he showed in the upset 14-12 win over Penrith.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Reece is \u2018on\u2019 like he was tonight you\u2019ve just got to give him the ball and let him do his thing,\u201d centre Kotoni Staggs told NRL.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Cowboys are next \u2013 2000km away from a wet and chilly CommBank Stadium in Sydney \u2013 so travel becomes another element in the premiers’ quest to win the remaining seven matches to make the NRL finals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSeven games to go and this is exactly where you want to start winning \u2013 the business end,\u201d said Staggs, after he played his part against the Panthers with a try, 151 run metres and 11 tackle breaks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps when you have a full-strength team on the paddock.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew through all those losses (eight straight) that key players were missing and this would be the first time in a couple of months we had our top team.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Josiah Karapani Try<\/p>\n
Brisbane enjoyed the return of halves Ezra Mam and Adam Reynolds from injury, along with forwards Pat Carrigan and Payne Haas.<\/p>\n
But the work of two mainstays of the pack, Jordan Riki (20 runs for 175 metres) and Xavier Willison (22 runs for 223 metres), was colossal. Between them they racked up 218 post-contact metres.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good feeling to finally be back in the winners\u2019 circle. We finally had all the boys back so there were no excuses for us not to perform,\u201d Willison said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last couple of weeks we\u2019ve definitely had the effort but little things didn\u2019t go our way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Kotoni Staggs Try<\/p>\n
Now to the Cowboys and forwards like Jason Taumalolo, Jeremiah Nanai and Reuben Cotter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s really no excuses, like I said, so it\u2019s about everyone getting their prep right and training hard,\u201d Willison said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Broncos had 14 players from their 2025 grand final-winning 17 side on the field at CommBank Stadium and Willison is grateful to them all \u2013 especially Walsh.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s leading us from the back and steering the ship. We listen to him because he\u2019s definitely grown as a leader and we trust him to do his job,” Willison said.<\/p>\n
Last year the Broncos won five of their last seven games to finish the regular season in fourth spot. They need all seven this time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Is it do-able?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne hundred per cent \u2013 we\u2019ve done it before,\u201d Staggs said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of confidence out of tonight so hopefully we keep turning up with the right attitude, which is a willingness to learn and get better each and every week.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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From the field: Reece Walsh<\/p>\n
After the Cowboys the Broncos face more top-eight teams in the Knights, Dolphins and Warriors \u2013 but all three are home at Suncorp Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then it\u2019s Raiders in Canberra, Storm at home, and the Bulldogs in Sydney.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Willison may have to draw on the tattoo of Marlin Brando from the blockbuster \u2018The Godfather\u2019 he has on his lower right leg.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely my favourite movie and I used to watch it all the time at my Nanna\u2019s growing up,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the old-school Italian mafia sort of movies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maybe channeling a little Don Vito Corleone might also help against the Cowboys.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One win in the bag, seven to go. It sounds a daunting task but one Broncos players are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-530227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}