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.
2. Errors, errors, errors
The error count has been a recurring talking point and the statistics are damning.
Against the Panthers, the Broncos completed just 11 of 18 sets compared to 19 of 26 by Penrith in the first half alone.
In the same match, the team committed a staggering 19 errors overall and conceded eight penalties.
The Broncos made 12 errors compared to the Eels' five on Thursday night and conceded eight penalties to their threee, despite having an 81% completion rate, regularly needing to defend back-to-back sets.
Even in a game where set completion improved, the in-set errors and unforced errors from not catching the ball of a kick, even giving away possession at the halfway mark for a kick-off going out on the full, creates relentess defensive pressure and opponents maximsing the opportunity to being clincial in capitalising off those chances.
Reece Walsh made three errors in Thursday night's loss, two unforced and from Parramatta kicks, which was a continued theme from the Panthers match in round one.
The star fullback has made six errors in the first two games, currently on pace for 72 errors assuming he maintains three errors per game, which is a dramatic escalation, even for his standards.
Since joining the Broncos, he has finished 1st in 2023 with 45 errors across 19 games (2.37 per game), 18th in 2024 where he had a injury-riddled season with 28 errors in 14 games (2 per game), and 4th last season with 39 errors in 18 games (2.17 per game).
