Brisbane coach Kevin Walters has appeared before the club board as he prepares to lead a summit with the goal of ending the club's premiership drought.
According to NewsCorp, Walters has presented the board with his blueprint for a premiership, delivering a 45-minute presentation on Tuesday.
With a focus on the team's late-season collapse, Walters delivered a number of findings that offer points for improvement ahead of the 2023 season.
The presentation revealed that the club's current playing group lacked the discipline to sustain their title challenge, lacked the required mental toughness and ultimately lost focus toward the end of a winning run that saw the team enter the top four with six regular season rounds to play.
The findings come ahead of a two-day conference next week, where Walters and the club's football department will plot a return to the NRL finals in 2023.
After missing the top eight in consecutive seasons, it's widely believed that this could be Walters' final chance to elevate the team.
The conference will include assistants John Cartwright and recently-appointed former NRL dummy-half Matt Ballin, as well as new development coach Lee Briers and head of football Ben Ikin. It's believed the club have given Walters the scope to hire an additional assistant as well.
“We need a general resilience and toughness among the group,” Walters said of where his team needs to improve.
“That's the thing we need to get better at.
“When we were on our (seven-game) winning streak our defence was really good. We kept Manly to nil this year, which hasn't happened for a few years.
“There are some good signs, but we have to improve our poorer performances. That comes down to defence and the tougher parts of the game mentally that are important.”
While some Broncos fans will be happy with a return to the finals in 2023, Walters sees little point in aiming for the lowest target.
“The goal next year isn't just finals – I want a premiership,” the coach said.
“There is only one winner each year and all the other clubs will do reviews and come back wanting to have a crack at winning it.
“The finals are a good stepping stone, but we have to work towards winning a premiership.”
Maybe start picking the right players from the squad might be a good start.
He is making a road for his own back.
If he had said “my aim is a Preliminary Finals appearance” then that would have been seen as a credible aspiration – given the cattle he has. It also means that by j-u-s-t squeezing into the Prelim – even if the Broncs then get flogged by the Panthers – he would have met the goal he had set, and which the Board had accepted.
But now, anything less than complete success will be seen as failure.