Who'd be a coach?
There's a question many would pose when considering the plight of mentors in the NRL, even those who coach teams planted at the upper end of the table.
"I haven't lay awake at night staring at the ceiling at all this year, not yet anyway," Kevin Walters assures ESPN.
The Brisbane Broncos coach is responding to a question about his own stress levels, in a season which began with rumours of player discontent, middled with a feud between him and former Football Manager Ben Ikin, and has been punctuated throughout with noise over the future of Payne Haas. Among other things.
Walters has Brisbane sitting snugly at the pointy end of the NRL ladder, as talk around the rugby league circles moves beyond Origin and toward finals, while continuing to skirt around the ugly sidebar of THAT pay dispute with head office.
The Broncos have exited the Origin period with a high-scoring win over the Bulldogs, a convincing shutout of the Rabbitohs and a comfortable victory over the Roosters. They are the best placed of Queensland's NRL quartet; with the Cowboys making a well timed charge, the Dolphins remaining in the finals mix, and the Titans seeking to rediscover themselves after the brutal axing of Justin Holbrook.
Kevvy is in a good spot, but he knows simply breaking Brisbane's short finals drought will not be enough to completely dispel any questions around his own coaching future.
"Wayne Bennett always said there are two types of coaches," Walters muses.
"One that's just been sacked, and one that's just about to be."
"What happened on the Gold Coast (Holbrook's sacking) came as a huge surprise. I thought it was an unwarranted call, but it's not my club and not my call. It's a brutal business."
Phil Gould is one observer convinced Brisbane can't snap a 16-year premiership drought this season. While lauding the Broncos' fitness and strike, 'Gus' says he's not been convinced by their defence.
It's a point Kevin Walters is willing to concede, to an extent.
"It's been a big focus (defence) all year, of course it has," the 55 year old concedes.
"There have been a couple of scores against us that have crept past 18 points, which is unfortunate. The guys know their job, and they know that we are in a position to do very well this year. They also know how to tackle, and we've done everything we can to iron out defensive structures. Now it's about belief and mental capacity."
The mental game is always a relevant question. While the Broncos seem to have the ingredients and belief, is there a risk that simply making the finals this year will bring a dangerous sense of 'mission accomplished' into the still young'ish squad?
"We broke our season into segments," Walters says.
"Getting to Origin, getting through Origin, and the run home. We worked hard to freshen the boys during that Origin period, we only had one player (Pat Carrigan) involved in game three. Now we set sail for home, and it really feels like the guys are ready to go."
The Broncos held a mini-camp ahead of their 36-20 win over South Sydney in round 21. The team and coaching staff travelled to Twin Waters on the Sunshine Coast, driven by an agenda of honing in on the final segment of the season and ensuring all are singing from the same song sheet.
"It's not just the players," says Walters.
"I'm feeling really comfortable, like I've got my head around the direction we're taking. It's the same with all the performance staff and coaching staff. We're thinking about the next game, and the preparation and performance required for it to be successful."
It very much sounds like the Broncos are daring to dream in a year they've apparently crossed off a few missing boxes from recent misfiring seasons. The conversation turns to individual players, and the awkward first question for Kevin Walters pertains to the work of his son and starting hooker Billy. Is it harder telling Billy he's not doing the right thing on the field, than it is with other players?
"I've been telling Billy for 28 years what he's doing wrong and what he's doing well, so I'm comfortable with that," Kevvie asserts, before swapping the father's cap for a coach's clipboard.
"I've been excited by the improvement of Bill. He's made some giant strides, and gone a long way to achieving some of the targets we set for him. Him and a lot of players in the club have taken that step up."
Another player who steps up on an extremely regular basis is superstar prop Payne Haas. With Haas, the sidebar of where he'll play in coming seasons is, sadly, as consistent as his running metres. Most recently the talk has been around the 23 year old weighing up his value on the open market at season's end. Not a club in the league won't want to talk to him, they say. Add this to the ever present whispers of Australian rugby, throw in the NFL, and you have a potentially coach rattling level of distraction.
The question for Kevin Walters is a simple one. Does Payne Haas owe the Broncos?
"No he doesn't owe us," Kevvy tells ESPN.
"With all of this noise, all of this speculation, honesty is the best policy. If there needs to be a strong conversation, we'll have one, but I'm really comfortable with Payne and his management, and the situation they want to put themselves in.
"We're a big club and a powerful club here at the Broncos, and we certainly want to do the right thing for our players. Like a two-way street, we expect our players to do the right thing by the club as well. We've supported Payne, and Payne's supported us, so we're comfortable with him sticking his head up and having a look around. He can play his best football here, I think he knows that. I guess this is just a bit of a checklist for him, because it's a short career in the NRL world."
No conversation with anyone around the Broncos would be complete without reference to the influence of Reece Walsh. Many have earmarked him as the x-factor that gives Brisbane the point of difference in their pursuit of an elusive premiership. But his season has been interrupted by suspension and concerns around onfield attitude. Could the same hot headedness that cost Walsh three weeks and an Origin cap, cost the Broncos in the pressure cooker of finals footy?
"He plays with a lot of energy, and sometimes lets his emotions get control of him," says Walters, stating the obvious.
"He's a young player, 30 or 40 games in, and he's still learning the right way to go about things. We don't want to block the enthusiasm and energy that also contributes to his speed and his impact across the field. He's got good leaders around him at the club, and they'll keep pushing him in the right direction to get the balance right."
So what is different to 2022, the year of the great slide from finals contention to football oblivion?
"A lot of things," says Walters.
"The learnings from last year are different. We've got a different squad, we're a much more mature playing group, the connections are better. We haven't got a lot of 200 gamers, but do have a lot of guys coming into that 100-game mark. That's when you better understand yourself and the preparation required to get that consistent football happening."
The coach nominates Pat Carrigan as the shining example among the group that now 'gets' what's required to stay up. Carrigan played out of position against the Rabbitohs and Roosters, occupying an edge and offering his team a degree of flexibility and grunt that should serve them well in the run home.
"He's a smart footballer Patty, he knows what he needs to get himself up for games. I thought he learned a lot last year during that Origin period, being around those elite players. He was a different player when he came back to us, and that's continued this year."
Carrigan, Walsh and Haas are leading the charge for a Brisbane side that has also flexed the crucial ingredient of depth across the Origin period.
"Tristain Sailor has been great for us at the back in the absence of Walshy," Walters says.
"He's a smart footballer, especially defensively. He gets his numbers right and knows where to be, he's always trying to think a few steps ahead of the play. And he's an instinctive attacking player. It's just what you want in a number 1.
"Brendan Piakura has been great as well. He's really grabbed the opportunity this year when our rep players have been unavailable. Everyone knows you need depth to win in the NRL, and I think we have a lot of it right now. A lot of these younger players are better than they were last year, and they'll be better again next year."
The Broncos enter the final stretch of the 2023 regular season with a genuine glory tilt within reach. You have to beat the best to be the best, and the Broncos last month is a gauntlet of premiership contenders. The Cowboys, Eels and Raiders will prove steely assignments before a round 27 meeting with Melbourne provides a legitimate heavyweight clash on finals eve. Throw a bye in, and Brisbane's minor premiership prospects could well come to fruition. Come finals time, there's another big question for Kevin Walters. Can the Broncos stand opposite the Panthers and say 'we got this?'
"We set the tone for our season with a win over Penrith way back in round one," Walters recalls.
"We got beaten up next time we played them, and they're the team everyone's chasing. They've set the benchmark for preparation and mental commitment. Right now we're level with them, and we need to believe we can now go past them."
The ingredients are there, the excitement is brewing, and Kevvie Walters is driving the bus with both hands on the wheel.
Who wouldn't be a coach?