After defending the club’s Hospital Cup title last September, a slow start cost Brothers in this year’s Australian Club Championship against Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.

Despite that, most consider Brothers the team to beat again this season, as the Filth look to become the first team since Canberra in the early 2000s to win three straight premierships.

Overview with Ben McCormack: 

“It’s been a tricky preseason but that’s been good character-building for the boys,” McCormack said.

“We’ve had to navigate a number of challenges, with limited access to our fields, the weather and playing the Australian Club Championships a few weeks ago.

“We’ve been training all over the place and had to move a few trials around but the silver lining is that it gives us an opportunity to prove that we’re adaptable and that we can overcome the little hurdles that pop up and get on with it.

“I can’t comment if the second premiership was tougher to win than the first. But from my point of view they are all bloody hard to win so you saviour them when you get them.

“Reflecting on last year, I was really proud of how our boys performed against a gun Wests outfit that had talent everywhere.

“We were very focused and confident we knew how we could beat them and the boys showed patience and belief and stuck to our plan 100% which was really satisfying.

“That was last year though and while it was a fantastic achievement, it’s all about this year now.

“In the Australian Club Championships, we just gave a good Easts outfit too big a head start. You can’t give up a 28-point lead and expect to win, even though we probably still should have.

“Unfortunately that’s been a little bit of a trait of ours at different times. Most people who have been in and around our group comment about how relaxed we are, particularly in our game day prep, that is just our style.

“But we can’t let that mean we are slow starters so we’ve got a bit of tweaking to do there to avoid that happening throughout the season.”

2024: Premiers (defeated Wests 29-27 in grand final)

Ins: Jude Gibbs (Northern Suburbs), Henry Smith (Japan), David Fusitu’a (rugby league), Theo Fourie (Waratahs).

Outs: Patrick James (retired), Lawson Creighton (Waratahs), Brad Kapa (retired), Oahu Davey-Phillips (Norths), Harry Lloyd (retired), Jayden Christian (Warringah), Mosiah Christian (rugby league).

What style of footy will we see from Brothers this year? 

“Mate, it doesn’t change at all,” McCormack said.

“As a club and a team, we want to play intelligent football based on the pictures we see from the opposition, that means being expansive and using the ball when the opportunity is there and then playing direct when things need to tighten up.

“We want to play a multi-faceted style with multi-skilled and intelligent players, be able to pick teams apart in different ways and while there are certain things we’re working on more than others, underpinning all of it is an attacking mindset both in attack and defence.”

Player(s) to watch: 

“I think Hamish Muller will have a big year again on the back of a breakout season last year. He made his first grade debut in the first few rounds, then ended the year on tour with the Reds.

“We’ve also got a couple of good up and coming kids. Vaiuta Latu and Charlie Brosnan are both backrowers who are still colts eligible and working their way through the Reds academy.

“They’ve got a tough road ahead of them because we’ve got some good, hard, experienced backrowers at the club but they’re good footballers with heaps of upside and when they earn their chance, I’m sure they’ll do well.

“I’m also looking forward to seeing how Jude Gibbs does when we get him back. He hasn’t featured for the Reds yet, but the 35 minutes he gave us in that Club Championships was exciting.”

Which two teams will play in this year’s grand final? 

“We played Wests in a trial a few weeks ago now and they seem to have regenerated quite well after losing a fair few players from last year,” the coach said.

“They had a lot of big humans who were all pretty handy.

“So I think they’ll be there or thereabouts again and hopefully it’ll be us and them for the third straight year.”