Kevin Walters could have a new nickname before the two months are over: ‘Moses’, as he leads his players through the wilderness.

With Suncorp Stadium unavailable for NRL matches as it hosts one of the world’s major events, the FIFA Women’s World Cup from July 21, the Broncos will be on the road until they face the Storm on Thursday August 31 in the last round of the competition. Their co-tenants at Suncorp Stadium, Wayne Bennett’s Dolphins, will also be without their major ground for much of that period, returning against the Cowboys on August 25 and the Warriors a week later but they will be slightly better off as they have one match at their second home base at Redcliffe. All of which raise the questions: just how important is the home ground advantage, and how will being on the road for so long affect the premiership chances of the Broncos and, to a lesser degree, the Dolphins?
 
Shorts answers: very important, and lots. Looking at the stats for the season so far, the Broncos have played at Suncorp Stadium 10 times and won six – a winning percentage of 60 percent. The Dolphins have played six times at Suncorp Stadium and have a 50 percent record. At Redcliffe, they are two from two.
 
There are many reasons why playing ‘at home’ is so important to a team. There is the familiarity factor. Players feel at home. They change in the same dressing room, use the same locker and know where everything is, from car parking to their family’s seats. Then there is the support of the home crowd and the local knowledge of the playing surface.
 
I remember when the media were taken on a tour of the brand spanking new Suncorp Stadium a few days before its public unveiling. With us was Wally Lewis who was gob-smacked over the changes made to the old ground that he had played on so many times. He told us that the field used to drop away on one of the corners and how he had used that knowledge countless times to his team’s advantage over the years. Whenever Wally needed to pin the opposition down, he would just kick for that corner. Suncorp Stadium doesn’t have any drops or dips, but you can rest assured that Adam Reynolds knows the current playing surface every bit as well as King Wally used to.
 
You only had to notice how slightly off-key his kicks appeared in Saturday night’s match against the Dolphins at the Gabba to see how much players need to adjust to different grounds. As former Broncos captain Corey Parker noted in the Fox commentary, playing on a rectangular ground inside an oval, such as the Gabba or Optus Stadium, Perth, where the Dolphins play the Knights in round 23, can have a disorientating effect. It is something Reynolds will have to work on before the Broncos meet the Eels at the Gabba in Round 24, because the last thing he and his coach want is a repeat of last year.
 
It has been estimated that to make the finals this season teams will have to win at least 13 games. With 12 wins already, and seven matches to go, the Broncos would seem certain to be involved in the finals for the first time since 2019 – but then again, we were saying the same thing around this time last year and they somehow managed to miss out. Which is why it was a very relieved Kevin Walters who faced the media after his team’s 24-16 win over the Dolphins last Saturday night. And why both he and Wayne Bennett will be so happy to get back to Suncorp Stadium. As any NRL coach will tell you, there’s no place like home.