REECE WALSH A FOOTY NERD SAYS ‘MADGE’

Michael ‘Madge’ Maguire has been in many meeting rooms with groups of elite young footballers, but it is doubtful he has experienced anything like a visit to the Broncos’ Performance Centre in August, 2025 by 60 former players from the glory days of Brisbane Rugby League.

With Allan ‘Alfie’ Langer as the guide, the former BRL stars marvelled at the facilities available to today’s fulltime professionals on the tour of the gym and coaching and administrations offices of the Clive Berghofer Centre at Red Hill.

Maguire spoke about his rugby league journey from player to coach, while also detailing the challenges faced by young men on NRL contracts. Maguire said glamour boy fullback, Reece Walsh was a footy nerd, who thought nothing of staying behind for an hour after the players had gone home, fine tuning his skills. Broncos’ CEO, Dave Donaghy also gave of his valuable time to detail the behind-the-scenes work of a club which ticks many boxes in its claim to be the most high-profile sporting organisation in the land.

You could have heard a pin drop as Maguire spoke about his playing dreams being crushed by a broken neck and how Queensland legend, Mal Meninga convinced him to give coaching a go in the late 1990s. Maguire revealed he almost gave up coaching a few years later when the Raiders lost their way after a prolonged period of success. But another former Raiders’ teammate, Craig Bellamy invited him to join him at Melbourne Storm, and the rest is history.

Maguire has gone on to coach Wigan to a English Super League title; South Sydney to a NRL Premiership; New Zealand to a Pacific Cup win and New South Wales to State of Origin success. And in October, 2025 he added another NRL Premiership to his achievements with the Broncos defeating Melbourne 26-22 in the Grand Final after an amazing finals series. He was brought to the club to provide a harder edge, and there is little doubt the mental toughness gained from a gruelling pre-season helped with some of the comebacks the Broncos achieved in the big games at the end of the season.

Maguire, Donaghy and Langer were interviewed by former Test forward and ABC television commentator, David Wright, who acted as MC. The trio also fielded questions from the former players.

Langer said he believed Queensland under-19 halfback, Coby Black shaped as the Broncos’ long term halfback. (Since then Black has signed with Canberra for the 2026 season). ‘Alfie’ said the highlight of his career was returning to Brisbane from Warrington in England to play for Queensland in the deciding State of Origin game in 2001.

Donaghy, the former Storm CEO, said he was often asked by Victorian friends about the Broncos. “I tell them to imagine what it would be like if Collingwood was the only AFL club in Melbourne,” he said.

From the Performance Centre the BRL stars moved across the road to the Broncos’ Leagues Club for coffee and biscuits in Alfie’s Bar, where there was a chance to discuss the glory days. In the display cabinets around the walls there was memorabilia from the Broncos’ inaugural season in 1988, up until the current day. A 1988 team photograph included three players who started in the Brisbane competition in the 1970s – Greg Conescu, Joe Kilroy and the Broncos’ inaugural skipper, Wally Lewis. Allan Langer graduated to the Broncos from the Ipswich Jets, a club which joined the BRL in 1986. And of course, Wayne Bennett cut his teeth as a coach in the Brisbane competition, with Souths and Brothers. He won a Premiership with Souths in 1985, but also claimed a wooden spoon – with Brothers in 1981.

Players from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s who were part of the group hosted by the Broncos, included former Test skipper, Greg Veivers (Souths) and former Test halfback, Greg Oliphant (Valleys, Redcliffe, Wests and Balmain in Sydney). Others in attendance included Steve Davis, Mark Crear (Wests and Brothers); Dave Moffett (Wests and Redcliffe); Cliff Coyle (Wests); Barry ‘Tubby’ Dowling, Barry Lafferty, Murray Schultz, Reg Cannon, Ian Dauth, Mike Seary, Clinton Mohr (Brothers); Tom Duggan, Ron Gurnett and Peter Affleck (Valleys). Seary, who played for Queensland in 1971 and ’72, travelled down from Bundaberg for the day.

Dowling and Cannon were members of the 1967 and ’68 Brothers’ Premiership winning sides, with both men having graduated from Marist Brothers’ College Rosalie, which is just up the road from the Broncos. They both played for Queensland against Great Britain in 1970.

Cannon played for Wests’ Juniors who were based on the football ground adjoining the Broncos’ Leagues Club.

“That’s where we trained and played games, and where the Performance Centre now stands was a cow paddock,” Cannon said. “I lived nearby and when I was five I would go down to the paddock with sugar bags and fill them with cow manure, which I would sell for two shillings a bag. The Leagues Club was once Wests Old Boys, and that’s where my wife (Roslyn) and I were married in 1968.”

Cannon, who coached Brothers’ First grade in the late 1970s, said he was impressed with Michael Maguire.

“He was prepared for us, and his talk was outstanding,” Cannon said. “He changed my opinion about a lot of things and opened my mind to the challenges of the modern day coach. It was an eye opener to see how hard the players of today work. It’s a shame the general public doesn’t understand the amount of effort that goes in every week.” 

Also in attendance was George Symonds, a menswear icon from Brisbane who donated a suit for the weekly winner of the Brisbane Best Player award, and award which extended from right through the 1970s and 80s, taking in the early years of the Broncos. Some of BRL players on the tour of the Broncos had won the suit three times. One joked that the suit he won went out of fashion the following year, while another said he had kept his in the belief it would come back into fashion.

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