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But these are the other clutch moments, unsung heroes, and inside tales of an extraordinary, drought-breaking victory.
Prop, centre, wing - ‘it’s just the Madge way’
If any side could cope with losing a halfback of Reynolds’ calibre, even trailing the Storm 22-16 with 32 minutes to play, it’s Brisbane.
With Ezra Mam on the bench and Hunt able to switch to the No.7 role he has played for the majority of those 354 NRL games, the Broncos rolled on, fuelled by Mam’s brilliance.
But when Hunt was knocked senseless trying to stop a hard-running Ativalu Lisati, and joined Reynolds on the sidelines with eight minutes to play, and Brisbane clinging to a four-point lead?
“We actually practised those scenarios throughout the week,” back-rower Jordan Riki says.
“Madge (Maguire) will pull players out and mix up positions. I’ve been at prop, I’ve played wing and centre in other training sessions … you’ve just got to adapt.
“Nearly every day, we’ve done a training session where we’ve had nine players on the field once. It’s just the Madge way.”
Says Smoothy, who replaced Hunt in the 72nd minute: “I was back-row and halfback at the same time. I was just everywhere.”
Most importantly, the Wakefield-bound utility was harassing Cameron Munster on a late kick when Melbourne were on the attack, and beating one of the NRL’s most competitive players to the ball when it bounced back their way.
“That was such a big play,” centre Kotoni Staggs says, “An underrated one, but that’s been the way he’s played all year, just always competing”.
Reece’s pieces: the attacking brilliance
Before the fightback though, and even before losing 662 games in elite NRL playmakers, the Broncos were simply just trying to survive against a rampant Storm attack.
If not for Walsh, they wouldn’t have. If he had been sin-binned for his high shot on Xavier Coates early in the contest, the whole comeback could well never get off the ground. But at the 30-minute mark, Walsh took a ball from Corey Paix, swerved in behind a scattered marker defence and shoved his way through four Storm defenders with what Billy Slater described as “one of the most inspiring grand final tries I’ve ever seen”.
Lost a little, though, was the fine lead-up work from bench forward Kobe Hetherington.
Trailing 16-6, Brisbane had barely fired a shot at this point. But an inside ball from Smoothy had Hetherington shrugging through Shawn Blore, upending Harry Grant and laying on the quick play-the-ball for Walsh to run riot.
Chaos on the bench, inspiration in No.1
Even when Reynolds hobbled off – carried at one point on the shoulders of two Broncos staffers like a broken emperor – Walsh was in sublime touch.
Twice in three minutes on either side of the field, he threw clutch balls for first Deine Mariner and then Gehamat Shibasaki to plunge over and pinch a remarkable lead.
“But in between that, we lost an interchange because it was chaos on the sideline,” Broncos football manager Troy Thomson says.
“Xavier Willison had a head-knock but we were going to bring him off anyway for Payne [Haas]. So the cards got a bit mixed up and we lost an interchange there in all that too.”
Incredibly, in a contest featuring nine tries, not a point was scored from the 58th minute. But only because the Broncos somehow stopped Melbourne at every turn, when they really had no right to. Certainly not by the formguide on their superstar No.1 in any case.
“Day one Reece and I sat down,” Maguire explained after fulltime.
“And I said; ‘You’ve obviously got plenty of attack. But your defence – you work hard at that, and you’ll be one of the best fullbacks’. I think he saved five tries out there.”
Walsh’s shot on Tui Kamikamica when the Storm prop was over the line was critical. His 60-metre mowing down of Ryan Papenhuyzen after locking a scrum on halfway - inspirational.
“I was watching that from the other side, thinking ‘oh no’,” Staggs says.
“And then Reecey he just took off, just motored and somehow got there. Not many players could’ve done that.”
As Papenhuyzen struggled to get to his feet after an errant flick pass to finish the defining grand final moment, Walsh was roaring in triumph.
And the Broncos went with him.
Walsh and Mam produced heavy shots again when Melbourne targeted their right edge, the latter penalised for hitting Stefano Utoikamanu high.
Josiah Karapani’s 77th minute HIA cost the Broncos their left winger, which had Shibasaki shuffling to the flank, with Piakura and Willison gamely defending against smaller, faster men.
The Storm instead pressed left to star winger Xavier Coates, who had half a yard of space with two minutes to play.
“He never had us,” Staggs grins when you dare suggest he and winger Deine Mariner did well to recover a defensive lapse.
“It might have looked that way, but we’ve got faith in our scramble and slide defence. That was a big moment for us again, but we had him covered.”
The last moment of the contest, of course, belonged to Walsh.
Eliese Katoa broke into the backfield with 29 seconds to play. Twenty metres later, he had Papenhuyzen on his inside and bodies everywhere. Including Walsh’s, hurled straight at his opposite number with a premiership on the line.
“I don’t know to be honest,” Walsh said when asked how he’d managed to pull off yet another match-winning defensive play.
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“You could say there’s a method, but not really. Our boys just scramble so hard and we pride ourselves on it… there are just moments in the game where you put yourself in the right position. A good mate of mine says; ‘you buy enough tickets in the raffle, you’re bound to win at some point’.”
After 19 years, with their star halves sidelined and their teammates defending like demons, the Broncos have emerged with a win for the ages.
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