Brisbane players have been vocal this pre-season about not wanting to be known as the "comeback kings" of the NRL.
The Broncos became known as the kings of catchup football in their run to the premiership last year, but their latest loss against Hull KR revealed the habit had finally caught up with them.
The Robins led 30-4 in the World Club Challenge in Hull last month and the Broncos came storming home to lose 30-24. The reality dawned they had given themselves too much to do.
Last year the Broncos won six matches, including the grand final, after stunning reversals. They came back to win once after trailing by 18 points, twice from 16 points and on two occasions from 14 points behind before overturning a 10-point margin in the decider against Melbourne.
It is a romantic notion to suggest it is a template for success, but a realistic view of those wins is it is not a sustainable path to victory.
Brisbane and Australia centre Gehamat Shibasaki said the Hull KR loss was a reality check about the fallacy of conceding leads, despite the brilliant attack the Broncos showed in their failed comeback attempt.
"We need to stop doing it," Shibasaki said.
"We need to start playing like that at the start of the game. We keep doing it to ourselves but that is another learning curve for us. We will sort that out for round one."
Second-rower Jack Gosiewski said "we let ourselves down" in Hull.
"They started a lot better than we did and then we ended up chasing our tail at the end of the game," he said
"There were a few times last year where we were in a similar position and missed the start so we are trying to focus on nailing our start for round one."
The attacking genius of fullback Reece Walsh was mostly the focal point of Brisbane's comebacks in 2025.
It started in round 16 against Cronulla at Suncorp Stadium when they trailed 28-12 in the 53rd minute before four tries in 18 minutes took them to a 34-28 win.
Two weeks later at Accor Stadium they appeared gone for all money at 18-0 down against Canterbury after 44 minutes. Four tries in 13 minutes did the trick and they won 20-18.
The Broncos were ninth on the live NRL ladder in the 49th minute of round 24 against the Dolphins when they trailed 28-14. True to form, they scored four converted tries in 15 minutes to win 38-28.
The standard wisdom was they couldn't repeat that in the finals and prosper. Incredibly, they conceded deficits in all three of their final wins. They were down 28-12 against Canberra away and won 29-28. Then Penrith led 14-0 at halftime in the preliminary final. Another late charge and a 16-14 win qualified the Broncos for the grand final.
Melbourne had won 29 of 29 finals under Craig Bellamy after leading at the break and at 22-12 up they were specials, but the Broncos scored three second-half tries to win 26-22.
Shibasaki said it was a good thing the Broncos had to host Penrith on Friday night in round one after so many epics against them in recent years.
"Everyone is keen. That semi-final we had against them last year was such an unreal experience," he said.
"To get them in round one we are really keen and we know what we need to work on."
