These Brisbane Broncos started from the bottom. After the NRL grand final loss to the Panthers, it must feel like they’re back there again

At 24-8 with 20 minutes to go, the script was already written for the Brisbane Broncos.

From winning the wooden spoon in 2020 to being on top of the rugby league mountain in the space of just three years is a reversal of fortune the likes of which you rarely see.

Unfortunately for them, in the NRL grand final of 2023, the remarkable comeback swung the other other way courtesy of a Nathan Cleary performance, the likes of which you’ve never seen.

Finishing last hurts, especially for a club as used to success as the Broncos.

It can feel hopeless and helpless, but drawn out over the length of a season, there’s a resignation and a numbness that nothing could be done.

The team was built wrong and there was just too much to overcome. The rebuild is on. A world of possibilities ahead of you.

Things can only get better.

This time the pain for Brisbane is extreme and hyper-specific for every one of those Broncos because it’s impossible not to think about how one play could’ve changed things.

If Herbie Farnworth caught the dropout instead of batting it into Mitch Kenny’s path for the opening try. If Reece Walsh had seen Ezra Mam on his left when he broke through in the 71st minute. If Sunia Turuva had been penalised for knees in Walsh’s back on the tryline a minute later. If Jordan Riki had been just a little less eager to chase Kenny right with Cleary on the short side before the match-winner.

But none of those things happened and there’s nothing the Broncos can do about it now.

Now, after all the work and brilliant play to make it to the last day of the season, it’s back to square one to try and make the grand final again, which despite what Penrith may make you think, is actually very hard.

A Sisyphean struggle in the extreme.

To put it another way, if the wooden spoon season was like getting hit with 20 bricks, one at a time, week after week, then Sunday night was like getting all 20 dumped on them at once.

Now the Broncos have a choice to make.

They can stay pinned under that sack of masonry feeling sorry for themselves, or use them as the building blocks to something great. There is no in-between.

In 2015, it was the former. The heartbreak of that famous golden-point loss to the Cowboys left a scar and that Broncos team never fully recovered.

In 2020, for the Panthers it was the latter, and losing to the Storm was the ultimate harsh teacher about what it takes to win on grand final day.

In all three cases, the Broncos, Panthers and Broncos again played far from their best and went about as close to winning a premiership as you can without actually doing it.

Brisbane this time are probably closer to the 2020 Panthers than they are to the 2015 Broncos.

Even when you look at their roster knowing they’re young, you will likely still be struck by how many birth years have 2s at the front.

Mam’s grand final hat-trick came in the same year he turned 20, Walsh is the presumptive best fullback in the league at 21, running mate Selwyn Cobbs only a month older, and 23-year-old back rower Riki is destined for a Kiwis jersey this summer.

Then there are the senior members of the forward pack, Payne Haas, who was born 29 days before the Y2K Bug didn’t turn up, and 25-year-old Pat Carrigan.

Two more players who are in the conversation for the best in their respective positions while closer to 20 than 30.

The brilliance of those players is confounding in a similar, although perhaps less extreme way that people speak about Cleary’s abilities in his mid-20s (he was born a month-and-a-half before Carrigan).

But the key difference, aside from the premierships, is the position they play.

Great halfbacks are hard to come by and having one locked into your system is a huge step on the road towards greatness. Very few teams win premierships without a star in seven.

Brisbane have one at the moment too, but it’s that age question again.

While Cleary may not even be in his prime yet, Adam Reynolds is on the wrong side of it at 33.

He’s also an older 33 than plenty of other NRL halves thanks to any number of lower-body injuries that seem to turn up every season in one form or another. (He picked up another nasty one in the grand final).

He has been an exceptional player and leader for Brisbane since arriving before the 2022 season, but there is always one eye on the clock with Reynolds, with any Broncos extension a chance to look like a misstep if he plays a season or two too many.

There are apprentices in Brisbane like impressive 23-year-old Jock Madden, who is locked in through 2026.

The Broncos clearly view him as the successor to Reynolds and he’s learning from one of the best every time he goes through the doors at Red Hill.

When Reynolds does finish up, he will want to leave the club that helped reignite his love for the game better off than when he arrived, and imbuing a young playmaker like Madden with all his knowledge is probably the best way to do it.

But all of that is a long way off and Sunday night’s loss will hurt for these Broncos for a long time. Maybe forever.

Scar tissue will form, but every member of this team will carry with them a reminder of that loss. It’s what they do with that reminder that matters now.

Now we discover what this team is truly made of.