To miss the finals this year would be a failure for Brisbane but hooker Billy Walters has faith last season’s grand finalists can go on a winning run and do some damage in September.
Walters also took a shot on Tuesday at “a few fake fans” who had questioned whether his father Kevin Walters is the right coach to lead the Broncos into the future.
The 10th-placed Broncos, on 24 points, must win their remaining three games to get to 30 points and get in front of St George Illawarra (28 points) and the Dolphins (26 points).
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They have a far superior for and against to the Dragons so finishing on the same points as them would be sufficient to play finals. They also play the Dolphins in round 26.
First up is Parramatta at Lang Park on Friday night.
The Broncos had a superb 42-18 win over North Queensland before last week’s bye but will be without prop Payne Haas (foot) and fullback Reece Walsh (hand) for the Eels clash.
Tuesday’s training suggested Tristan Sailor would take Walsh’s spot with Selwyn Cobbo another addition on the wing.
Billy Walters agreed, when asked, that missing finals would be a failure but he said that had not happened as yet.
“There’s always the excuse of injuries but a lot of teams have had a lot of injuries this year and they’ve still managed to pull wins. I think missing finals is probably a bad year for anyone,” he said.
“We haven’t missed finals yet. We’re still a chance mathematically.
The pressure is on Broncos coach Kevin Walters after an underwhelming season from last year’s grand finalists.
“If we keep getting wins we’ll just keep building confidence and … once you get to finals it’s a whole new season. We’ve still got a big game against Parramatta this week. Get that done and the sky’s the limit for us
“If we sneak into the finals, I definitely feel like we’d be a team that other teams wouldn’t want to face.”
If the Broncos miss the finals it would be the third time in four years under Kevin Walters’s stewardship and the first time since coach Wayne Bennett’s squad missed three finals out of four in 1988, 1989 and 1991.
Bennett coached Brisbane to 21 finals series in a row after that. Walters said those calling for his father’s head were wide of the mark.
“It’s pretty red hot from a few, I suppose, fake fans to say Kevvie’s not the right man for the job,” he said.
“He took this team from a wooden spoon (in 2020) to within five minutes of a grand final (win in 2023) so I think it’s pretty red hot to try and turn around after one season with the injuries we’ve had to say he’s not the right man for the job.
“He’s definitely the most passionate Broncos man going around and he knows how to win and it’s definitely been on the players this year, not on Kev, that the results haven’t come. So definitely, he’s the right man for the job.
“It would probably be a bit disheartening if we do win all three of these games and still miss out on the eight, but again that’s on us. We dropped too many games during that Origin period and we’ve got no-one else to blame.”
AAP
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