It has been a long, dark night of the soul for Broncos fans over the past few years. There was a time when Brisbane was the most powerful club in rugby league and you never had to wait too long before they won another premiership.
Since 2006, when they last one the title however, there has been little to cheer about for Broncos supporters.
Kudos to those fans who never became ashamed to show their colours, even when Brisbane’s number one football team were flapping about like blind salamanders mid-table. And for those who pretended not to care anymore, or decided to hitch their wagons to the Reds or the Roar or the Heat … welcome back!
Supreme rugby league yogi Wayne Bennett is back and has led the boys out of the wilderness!
The Broncos are into the NRL grand final and it is time for those who lost faith to jump back on board and for those who never lost faith to go absolutely mental.
Here are 15 ways you can show your love for the Broncs in this NRL grand final week as they prepare to take on the also-lovable Cowboys.
- Play the 1992 classic smash hit ‘Hey, Hey We’re the Broncos’ by the Ipswich Connection loudly and repeatedly at your workplace throughout the week.
- Constantly grumble about how loveable league larrikin and living legend of the game Johnathan Thurston of the Cowboys isn’t actually THAT good at footy anyway and reassure people (your bus driver, the mail man, your neighbour’s cat) that you’re not at all worried about him going ballistic in the grand final.
- Take a cue from the players and keep referring to Sunday’s game as ‘The Big Dance’.
- Spend every evening this week eating a massive steak and sinking XXXX bitters on Caxton Street so as to get yourself into a ‘Suncorp Stadium state of mind’.
- Place eight candles in your window to commemorate each little death you have suffered every time the Broncs have failed to win a premiership since 2006.
- ‘Accidentally’ run into Locky as he completes his daily 10k run around Paddington in the morning. No, literally run into him. The worst that can happen is you’ll break his collarbone, but just a few drops of his sweat have been known to miraculously bestow the power of a thousand prancing Bronc-unicorns.
- Send one picture of yourself, naked except for a Sam Thaiday wig, to every North Queensland player, every day. If we all do it, it will end up being hugely distracting. I started last Sunday.
- Make the subject line of any email you send this week reference a classic Broncos moment, no matter what the actual correspondence is about. For example, respond to a meeting reminder at work with the subject line: ‘Steve Renouf scores a 90-metre try to wrap up the ’92 final against St George’, or if you are replying to your mum’s question about how to turn off predictive text, make it, ‘The mighty Broncs see off a late Illawarra surge to win the 1989 Panasonic Cup’.
- Painting your nails is so passé. Use nail polish to paint your teeth maroon and yellow to really light up your smile.
- Ride to work all week on an actual Bronco. For maximum comfort, try to get one of the bigger ones like Gordon Tallis or Glen Lazarus.
- Recreate the Allan Langer mask fad of 2002 by having your face surgically altered to look like Brisbane’s cheekiest and handsomest half-back.
- If you’re a bloke, rename your penis ‘Willy Carne’. If you’re a girl, christen your norks ‘Anthony Milford and Ben Hunt, the best halves pairing in the business’. Come on, it’s just for one week.
- You know that money you had been putting aside to buy a house with? Invest it in a jumbo HD television to watch the game on instead. If you can’t clearly see every tiny pore on the referee’s face, you’re not a real fan.
- Paint your parents’ car maroon and yellow. I wouldn’t recommend doing it to your own car as it will vastly diminish its resale value.
- As a show of confidence, get the Broncos emblem and the words ‘2015 PREMIERS GO YOU GOOD THING!!’ tattooed on your neck before the weekend. If it just so happens that they DON’T win, email me and I’ll explain how it can be quite easily turned into a frisky seahorse tatt.
Image credit: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images
