Five straight losses. Cue the pressure on Michael Maguire.
Yes, that's right. The same Maguire who is one of the few coaches to win a premiership on both sides of the world. Also, one of the few who've won an Australian premiership at two clubs. Including the last one contested.
Haven't we heard this before?
Questions about Reece Walsh. Questions about team culture. Questions about selections. Questions about Michael Maguire's methods.
If you listen to the noise surrounding the Brisbane Broncos right now, you'd think the season was over. For many supporters, frustration is understandable. Expectations at Brisbane are always enormous. This is a club built on success, and anything less than competing for premierships is often viewed as failure.
This despite the fact that clubs South of the Tweed are now significantly better at picking off Queensland's best young talents than they were two and three decades ago.
Also, despite the fact that Queensland's NRL scene is now occupied by three other franchises, in the Cowboys, Titans and the Dolphins. All relative newcomers to the competition when you consider we've been going since 1908.
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Before Broncos fans hit the panic button, there is one important fact worth remembering.
Michael Maguire has seen this movie before. And more importantly, he's been the conquering hero at the end of that movie before.
One of the biggest mistakes we make in rugby league is judging seasons in weekly snapshots. A legacy of the world we live in unfortunately. 24-hour news cycles, social media and all.
A team wins three games and suddenly they're premiership contenders. A team loses three games and we're discussing what's gone wrong.
The reality is that successful seasons are rarely straight lines.
They're full of setbacks, injuries, poor form, confidence issues and periods where nothing seems to go right.
And in this era of fast rucks, six-agains, unseen levels of fatigue, most teams (apart from Penrith) are quite erratic.
The best teams don't avoid adversity; they learn how to navigate it. That's why I find some of the commentary around the Broncos fascinating.
Yes, they've lost games they should have won. Yes, they have looked vulnerable defensively at times. Yes, there are areas of their game that need improvement.
But struggling in June does not automatically mean failing in September. History tells us that better than any opinion ever could.
Only twelve months ago there were similar questions being asked about Brisbane. Concerns about consistency and whether certain players were buying into the coach's methods were doing the rounds.
Then they found their rhythm when it mattered and won the premiership.
If you are looking for reasons why Coach Madge has won those previous titles, it's because he understands this sport and the players under his care more than anyone seems to want to give him credit for.
There's every chance that Broncos have had a similar form line at this stage of 2025 and 2026 because it's all planned. Maybe Maguire has cranked the training intensity up in the last week or two to back end the Broncos prep for another finals run?
Good coaches don't become geniuses after a win and they don't become fools after a loss.
They stay committed to the process.
That's exactly why I wouldn't be writing off Michael Maguire. This is a coach with runs on the board.
He won an NRL premiership with South Sydney then another over a decade later in Brisbane.
He also won a Super League title with Wigan and has won at Origin level and internationally.
Trent Robinson has won less yet gets considered a master coach. Phil Gould won two premierships as a coach yet we class him as the smartest mind in the sport.
Michael Maguire has brought his expertise to NRL, Super League, Internationals and Origin and has won titles in all.
Everywhere he has enjoyed success, the formula has looked remarkably similar.
Demand high standards. Hold people accountable. Build resilience. Create a team-first environment. Not revolutionary ideas, just difficult to maintain consistently.
He's a coach who understands that talent alone doesn't win premierships. Plenty of talented teams never come close. Premiership teams are built on trust, discipline and accountability. And those things don't always look pretty while they're being developed.
One of the biggest lessons I have learnt throughout my own coaching journey was that growth often looks messy. There's not much time to be warm and fuzzy. When standards rise, resistance follows. When accountability increases, discomfort grows.
When coaches challenge players to improve, results don't always improve immediately, and sometimes things get worse before they get better.
I suspect that's where Brisbane currently finds itself.
The easy option for Maguire would be to start listening to the noise.
Drop this player. Change that combination. Abandon certain principles. Look for quick fixes.
Premiership coaches understand something that supporters and many journalists often don't. The goal isn't to win the media cycle. The goal is to build a team capable of winning important games when the season is on the line.
Will the Broncos defend their premiership? Nobody knows. Will they make the finals? Time will tell. But if I was a Broncos supporter, I wouldn't be abandoning hope just yet.
A lot of the media seem to forget that our ladder is populated with inconsistencies, with some teams getting points for byes while others haven't got theirs yet.
Many of those same commentators have predicted that the era of a team finishing outside the top four and winning the comp is fast approaching. And the same ones have also said that the game has changed significantly and we are seeing things we haven't seen before.
Including the Broncos side winning last year's title despite not being one of the best defensive sides, for example.
Broncos fans should not lose hope when their coach has already proven he can take teams through difficult periods and out the other side, time and time again, for close to two decades.
While everyone else is focusing on the last five weeks, Michael Maguire is almost certainly focused on the next five months.
And history suggests that's probably the smarter approach.
Lee Addison is a former club coach at Sea Eagles and Panthers and the founder of rugbyleaguecoach.com.au. He is a Coach Mentor and his programmes for coaches and clubs can be found HERE
