Did anyone honestly, genuinely, heart of hearts believe the Broncos could beat Penrith?
The glamour club and its rockstar roster. A run of wins to lift the spirits and up the expectations. An attack to dismantle any opponent and a roster with depth to cover some enormous blows leading into the home Preliminary Final. A team to derail Penrith, no doubt about it. But could they work through all the scars, find the discipline and nail the execution required to unseat the finest team the game has seen this century (at least)?
On Sunday Adam Reynolds and his men sprinted onto Suncorp Stadium like a team that believed, and ultimately that's all that mattered.
Say what you like about the Brisbane Broncos, they can pull a hell of a crowd. The 52,491 highly vocal and mostly yellow, white and maroon clad individuals roared the hopes of a proud sporting city as Adam Reynolds tested the dodgy hammy by treating the tunnel as an Olympic running track. Brisbane's wider sporting public, still drunk (in some cases literally) on the Lions skinning the Cats a day earlier, raised the roof beyond Origin decibel levels. A sense of opportunity had descended on the future Olympic city, and it seemed well reflected in its six-time premiership winning home team.
Penrith's ultimate demise came after a typically near-perfect half and no significant reason for coughing up a 14-point lead other than enthusiasm. The Broncos rode the passion of its roster and the belief of a club and fanbase to find a gear the four-time premiers simply could not find. Teams have been gone before, teams have made bigger comebacks. But this was something else, and it's become a habit at precisely the right time of the year. Michael Maguire, take a bow.
Amid the jubilation of the Broncos returning to the decider and the soul-healing significance of this particular victory over this particular team at this particular time, it remains a fact that for almost 70 minutes the ultimate result did not seem possible. The fact it unfolded silences everyone who sharpened blades against Red Hill and Maguire in 2025, even with a Grand Final yet to play.
Taking the emotion out of it though, and you have a result that means a great deal for both Penrith and Brisbane.
So how did it unfold?
Scott Sorensen's run of four straight premiership rings ends with a Category 1 inside two minutes. Brisbane start with the ferocity and vigour of a team fresh off a long turnaround and full of belief. Hunting in numbers to stifle early momentum. Reece Walsh getting busy, the ball moving. And yet, early and sharp reminders of just who they were dealing with.
Emerging from the opening 11 minutes with a lead says both everything and nothing about the AI powered machine that is the Penrith Panthers. The premiers weren't being dominated nor dominating in a physical and rugged opening stanza. Then the Broncos made an error and gave up a penalty almost immediately after. It became 6-nil. The machine learns and it adapts. Paul Alamoti's inclusion in the finals series was a coaching masterstroke even by Ivan Cleary's standards. The ease of his latest finals try on the back of a shift to the right and a defensively hesitant Gehamat Shibasaki and Josiah Karapani confirmed an early momentum shift that saw the home side's energy shift from assertive to uncertain in the space of a set of tackles. Physicality and aggression traded sides and it all swung toward the visitors. The Broncos early preference toward Penrith's left edge became Penrith's dissection of Brisbane's right. Errors. Disruption. The machine whirring.
Brisbane defy the advice of so many pundits by lurching into set-for-set footy. Payne Haas is being contained by Moses Leota, Jordan Riki is ineffective, Xavier Willison is lacking impact. On the other side there are names like Martin, Yeo and Kenny. Doing what they always do.
Camps are set up deep in Brisbane's half. Adam Reynolds' 22nd minute dropout on the full allows the machine to pummel its adversary's line further, and highlights the yips that punctuate his first half and finals' footy reputation in general. A glitch comes when the Panthers commit an error, but any immediate advantage is surrendered by further Brisbane mistakes.
Only 25 minutes in and six errors committed by the Broncos. If it's not clear at this point they wont be playing the type of game they really wanted to play. The immediate result is a slip in discipline; errors and outbursts feed the machine, Nathan Cleary controls the tempo, and it quickly becomes 14-0.
Ezra Mam is on the field in the last five minutes of the first half, but there are no signs of what is to come. A half ends with the hopes of a city deflated like one of the hundreds of maroon and yellow balloons hanging outside Suncorp Stadium. Seven penalties, 11 errors, and a season slipping away. At the ground, a keen sense of opportunity morphs into a bleak inevitability. Penrith haven't had to do anything beyond their usual, elite level. And yet the Brisbane Broncos are asked the question this premiership machine asks of all its victims.
Will you swim out to the deep water with me?
The game experiences its second momentum shift almost 40 playing minutes after the first. The kick from Reynolds to put Kotoni Staggs over wasn't exactly the 'give it to Walsh' tactic many publicly begged of Brisbane's skipper in the buildup. But it got the Broncos on the board. And it confirmed an intention to swim in deep water with the four-time premiers. Is this a team that can put a frustratingly out of touch first half behind them and keep believing? Surely not.
Mam vs. Cleary in the 55th minute doesn't add to the NRL's season's sin bin tally but it adds the disdain of at least 45,000 incredulous fans to Brisbane's cause. It does even more for the Broncos. Mam's energy and aggression lifts his team as it did in THAT Grand Final. Physicality and aggression returns, a very talented roster behind to click. Kobe Hetherington and Corey Jensen bring starch from the bench. Haas bleeds for it in very literal fashion and Riki renergises by painting a target on Cleary. Errors continue to hold them back but the defence is magnificent in the face of territorial onslaught. The machine's rhythm might just be disrupted by the sheer energy of it all. Can it adapt?
Over the next 20-odd minutes and for the first time in four glorious years, one thing becomes clear for the Penrith Panthers. Adapting won't be enough this time. It's a fact and it spells the end of a dynasty. Cleary and Blaize Talagi aren't able to find the additional reserve to stem the tide of a team roaring home. A fearsome and vaunted pack is bending to the physicality, speed and energy of one so often described as a one or two horse show.
Brisbane errors are drying up, Penrith's attention to detail is slipping. Xavier Willison erases the demons of earlier ill discipline to crash over after a short side gamble (in the face of a stacked right) by Ben Hunt. A deflection, a bounce, nothing becomes something. Walsh misses a relative sitter but it's 14-10. Whether through hesitance or submission, Cleary isn't rolling the dice. The structure is bugging out and the machine has faltered.
It only takes a moment and that's all it took for Reece Walsh to back himself to squeeze an unlikely pass to Deine Mariner in the 75th minute. Commentators immediately bring out the 2021 Grand Final references as Reynolds steps up to convert. The moment to do what he didn't do for Souths and exact something rotten on his long term tormentors. Taking the emotion out of it, one of the competition's best kickers nails it and the Broncos are three minutes from the impossible.
Desperation and panic thwart a few final moments with ball in hand, but still the attack isn't audacious. Cleary critics will point out his apparent shortcomings in the Origin arena as a factor in not stemming the avalanche that hit his team in the second half and not doing what he has never not done in an NRL Preliminary Final. But as the final siren sounded and a championship era concluded, surely they realised (just as Cleary did) that the 2025 Broncos have built something quite spectacular. They did to the Panthers what the Panthers have done to so many, for so long. It wasn't a carbon copy by any stretch; Brisbane's overall performance was comprehensively more chaotic, scrappy, uncertain and gobsmacking than Penrith at their best. It was a half of trash followed by a half of brilliance, with sheer belief the most consistent aspect.
Ivan Cleary enters an earlier than expected off season with the knowledge he still has a team to rattle the cage of any opponent. This will hurt, and in every likelihood will result in another deep run next year. But the bar has been raised in an inexplicable fashion by a Broncos team who have proven that winning happens from anywhere and despite anything. How deep Penrith go in 2026 might just depend on how bold they're prepared to be.
Meantime, Michael Maguire might just pull this off when he takes this motley crew of superstars, veterans, journeymen and youngsters to Sydney next Sunday. Reynolds has returned with confidence and will need to work on his connection with Walsh. Ben Hunt must start at hooker and Ezra Mam's energy will be better deployed from the opening whistle. Pat Carrigan re-enforces a pack that has overpowered two powerhouses to get there, and Kotoni Staggs has been the games best centre over the past six weeks. Selection questions will be asked of the outside backs with Selwyn Cobbo fit to go, and the great omen that is a decider against the Melbourne Storm will play out loudly in the media.
But take the emotion out of it, and anything can happen.