Did cunning Broncos dud the Blues out of Origin glory?

Peter Maniaty

Did cunning Broncos dud the Blues out of Origin glory? image

As the State of Origin post-mortems continue for NSW, a dastardly conspiracy theory persists for disheartened Blues fans—what if the calamitous 2025 series loss was all the work of the Brisbane Broncos?

Specifically, could it be that removing club legend Kevin Walters as head coach at the end of the 2024 NRL season was all part of an evil genius plan, conceived by the QRL and executed to perfection by the Broncos, to snatch Michael Maguire away from New South Wales just as the Origin tide seemed to be turning blue?

“This is all the Brisbane Broncos fault,” @beerboy182 posted explosively on X following the Game III decider won 24-12 by Billy Slater’s Maroons.

“We finally had a good Origin coach and they went and took him.”

MORE: Major questions for NSW Blues after nightmare collapse

“Always part of the plan,” replied the gleefully conniving @long987 proudly displaying the Maroons team logo as his profile photo.

“The Broncos bring in Madge so that NSW can bring back Laurie Daley. That’s an evil genius move! Hopefully, NSW will keep Loz around for the next ten years,” commented @AwesomeAntho91, barely able to hide his joy.

“Everything is the Broncos fault eventually,” added @simmons_jay1979 in a statement of rugby league fact since 1988 for anyone whose allegiances lie south of Coolangatta.

A timeline of trouble and trickery?

It was back in October 2024 that the Broncos confirmed Michael ‘Madge’ Maguire had agreed to terms on a three-year head coaching deal after the Blues boss secured an early release from a reluctant NSW Rugby League.

“The Broncos are one of rugby league’s great clubs and it will be an honour to step into the role of head coach,” Maguire said at the time, explaining he’d loved every minute of coaching the Blues to the 2-1 series win in 2024.

“The NSWRL were great and very understanding,” Maguire continued. 

“Naturally, I expected to be doing it again next year (2025), but they’ve always known that I see myself as a career coach, and I do miss club coaching.”

With that, Maguire was gone, and the rest is State of Origin history.

Well played, Broncos. Well played.

Peter Maniaty

Peter Maniaty is a contributing Wires Writer at The Sporting News based in Sydney, Australia