Team Talk: Broncos 2023 overview, best 17, squad update

Predicted Round 1 team

1. Reece Walsh
2. Corey Oates
3. Kotoni Staggs
4. Herbie Farnworth
5. Selwyn Cobbo
6. Ezra Mam
7. Adam Reynolds
8. Tom Flegler
9. Billy Walters
10. Payne Haas
11. Kurt Capewell
12. Jordan Riki
13. Patrick Carrigan
14. Cory Paix
15. Martin Taupau
16. Keenan Palasia
17. Corey Jensen

Other: Jock Madden, Brendan Piakura, Blake Mozer, Deine Mariner, Delouise Hoeter, Ethan Quai-Ward, Jesse Arthars, Jordan Pereira, Logan Bayliss, Xavier Willison, Kobe Hetherington (injured), Tyson Smoothy (development), Josh Rogers (development)

Squad watch

• Squad spots filled: 28/30

The signing of experienced forward Martin Taupau and departures of Tesi Niu (Dolphins) and TC Robati (released) leaves two spots left in Brisbane's top 30 roster.

Taupau is likely to walk straight into the Broncos' 17 via the bench with Brendan Piakura, who battled injury last year, likely to miss out.

There is otherwise expected to be little surprises for the Broncos in Round 1.

Health watch

Reece Walsh looks set to slot straight into fullback but suffered a facial fracture in the first Pre-season Challenge and is in doubt for the season opener.

Kobe Hetherington underwent surgery last year after rupturing his biceps during training with an expected return mid-season.

Most contentious position

The fight for the starting hooker role between Billy Walters and Cory Paix gets even more interesting when factoring in the skills of the club’s fringe talents Mozer and Smoothy, who will both also be pushing to be in contention for selection.

Jock Madden – who has primarily come to the club to learn from halfback Adam Reynolds, also has skills and experience in the position.

After training in the position for the start of the pre-season, Walters is in the box seat to claim the spot, but given the club alternated between starting Walters and Jake Turpin (who has since moved to the Roosters) for the majority of the past season, there is still room for challengers to step up and impress.

Biggest strength 

On paper, the Broncos have an extremely solid forward pack, with the likes of Haas and Carrigan leading from the front.

Given how much has depended on their workload and form previously, it’s easy to forget how young they are, and both players will be aiming to maintain their high outputs in 2023.

Cobbo, who played seven games in 2021, more than doubled his matches in 2022, playing 18 games and scoring 15 tries.

Biggest question mark 

While the Broncos showed glimpses of what they could achieve as a team in attack, it was their defence that let them down at the back end of the season.

While they improved their defence overall, reducing it to 22.9 (down from 29 conceded per game in 2021), two huge blowouts essentially denied them a place in the eight, with Walters conceding his players needed to improve that area in particular if they were to play finals.

“We all learnt from last year, particularly the back end of the year, and it was our defence that fell away – our whole game fell away really – so defence has always been a strong point of every club’s pre-season and we are no different, so we are working hard to get a little bit more resilient there, particularly our goal-line defence," Walters said.

"We have got some work to do – it’s not great leaps that we have to make defensively, I thought we improved last year with our defence, if we can make those steady improvements again, it’s going to put us in a good position to be in every game."

• The Broncos 2023 draw snapshot