Several years ago, I wrote a newspaper column in which I made the observation that the Broncos had ‘lost their aura’. Other clubs, I said, were no longer intimidated by them on or off the field and they were nowhere near the force that had once dominated the league and infuriated its bosses.
 
The next time I saw Broncos’ chief executive Paul White he pulled me aside for a quiet word. I was expecting a short, sharp recitation on why I was wrong, but to my surprise he told me that he agreed. The Broncos had, indeed, lost their aura and he was working hard to ensure they got it back.
 
Well, apart from a brief flurry in 2015 when some Johnathan Thurston brilliance and an uncharacteristic blunder from Ben Hunt saw the Cowboys snatch a grand final win from the Broncos’ grasp, it would be fair to say the club hasn’t managed to come close to re-scaling the heights they once occupied for so long.
 
Which is why it has was so good for their supporters to have seen the goings-on of the past few days. Regardless of the outcome of Brisbane’s reported interest in signing Hunt for the rest of the season, the mere fact that it was being mooted was a great sign. As was the fact that supporters of other clubs were blowing up on social media and commentators were all weighing in with their two bobs’ worth.
 
For the first time in years people hated the Broncos like they did in the good old days. For a while there they simply weren’t successful enough to be unpopular. No-one cared. When the club’s current CEO Dave Donaghy read all the comments over the weekend that the Broncos were ‘pushing their weight around’ and the that the NRL should step in to stop them encouraging Hunt to break his contract with the Dragons, it must have been like music to his ears.
 
‘We must be doing something right,’ he’d have been telling himself. ‘Because everyone thinks we’re doing something wrong’. It couldn’t have come at a better time, with the team coming off its worst performance of the season against the Titans on Sunday. I’ve never seen the usually affable Kevin Walters so upset.
 
Sure, there were some negative factors working against the team. They were coming off a bye and had four players backing up from Wednesday night’s Origin game, but this was a match they simply had to win. Especially as they now go ‘on the road’ until the last round of the season, with Suncorp Stadium hosting one of the world’s major sporting events, the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
 
Kevvie remembers all too well that it was around this period last year that the Broncos’ season imploded. He would have wanted to enter the run to the finals on a high. The team didn’t deliver any spark on Sunday, but maybe Ben Hunt can. There is plenty of debate about the legality – and even morality – of Hunt breaking his contract with the Dragons, and there is just as much conjecture of where he would play, with Adam Reynolds and Ezra Mam established in the halves and Hunt saying he prefers not to play hooker.
 
But no matter where he lines up – or if he even ends up joining the club – the mere fact that the Broncos are back doing what they once made an art form of: stirring things up, is good news. They might not have found their lost aura yet, but at least they are looking in the right places.