Brisbane Broncos' head coach Kevin Walters has moved to bury any reported problems with the club's former head of football Ben Ikin.
Ikin left his role at the Broncos recently to take up a new position at the Queensland Rugby League amid plenty of talk that Walters and Ikin didn't get along.
Among the chatter was the suggestion that Ikin hadn't been able to do his role as he had originally been hired to do at the Broncos, who are flying high at the top of the NRL ladder ten rounds into the 2023 season after a horrid slide at the back-end of 2022 saw them ultimately miss the finals.
But Walters has his Red Hill-based side humming in the new campaign, and Walters said Ikin was a big part of that, and the job he has done in his role will continue to be a big part of that moving forward.
"Ben has been a part of what is our group moving forward," Walters said after Brisbane's final training session before heading to Melbourne to play the Storm on Thursday evening.
"There is no one person in the whole group, myself included, that are more important than anyone else and more critical, so we wish Ben all the best at the QRL. He will do a great job in there, but we need to move forward. Ben isn't here, we are moving forward and that starts tomorrow night against the Storm."
Walters said Ikin's work at the Broncos, and the club's approach towards the former director of football may ultimately have been what scored Ikin the job at the QRL.
"We wish Benny all the best at the QRL. He has a great job he has walked into, maybe on the back of some of the work he has done here, we have helped him get a job at the QRL," Walters said.
"I like to think the Broncos have done a great job with Ben developing him as a football manager into the position he can do now at the QRL."
The head coach, who at one point in 2021 and again at the back end of last year seemed to be under pressure for his job, said a replacement for Ikin has not been sourced yet.
"[Broncos' CEO Dave Donaghy] and I will sit down and discuss that. We haven't had a lot of time to think about it, but we will get the right person in here to do the right thing by the club and by us. We are very confident about that," Walters said.
He added Ikin's departure had not been a distraction thanks to the communication between he and the club.
"Not really," Walters said when asked whether Ikin's exit was a disruption.
"Ben has been in great communication with us around the job, so we have been waiting for this moment to happen for the last few weeks."
