Brisbane have a premiership to defend, a superstar fullback ready to dazzle, and a squad that looked every bit like a dynasty in the making.
Instead, three games into 2026, the Broncos find themselves staring at an 0-2 record (0-3 including World Club Challenge vs Hull K.R.), being defeated in England and embarrassed at home by the Panthers, then gutted in the dying minutes by a resurgent Parramatta side.
The same wounds keep opening. The same lapses keep appearing.
The final scoreboard keeps hurting.
This isn't bad luck, a bad draw, or a bad week.
This is a team repeatedly making the same six mistakes, and until they're fixed, the premiership defence is over in everything but name.
1. Catastrophic first halves
The most glaring pattern across all three games is that the Broncos have been playing themselves into impossible holes before the break.
Hull KR had an incredibly strong 18-4 half-time lead in the WCC.
Against Penrith, they trailed 18-0 at the break after a mistake-riddled first half.
After building a 20-6 lead against the Eels with under 15 minutes remaining in the first half, the Eels scored three tries, conceding the lead to face a two-point deficit at half-time after a remarkable Parramatta recovery.
Parramatta went on a 34-12 run for the rest of the game from the moment Brisbane had the 14 point lead with less than a quarter remaining in the first half.
The Broncos appear to either come out of the blocks flat, or when they do start well, lack the discipline to protect a lead through to half-time. Both are alarming signs.
