Wayne Bennett put his arm around defensive coach Peter Ryan at the end of the 2006 grand final and told him a home truth that is just as relevant today.
"Defence won it for us tonight," coach Bennett said.
That 15-8 win over Melbourne in 2006 was the last time the Broncos won a title and Ryan, the mastermind of the side's defensive systems 17 years ago, told AAP that the Broncos needed to have their best defensive performance of the year in Sunday's grand final against back-to-back defending premiers Penrith.
"The first final the Broncos played against Melbourne where they won 26-0 was their best performance all year in defence," two-time Broncos premiership winner Ryan said.
"Brisbane's line speed against Melbourne was phenomenal and they were making their tackles close to the advantage line.
"It will be a similar scenario against Penrith. They will shift it wide to get out of their end and offload in contact to get extra metres if they have to.
"The big things again will be contact, connection and line speed."
The Broncos had hard heads Shane Webcke, Brad Thorn, Petero Civoniceva and Tonie Carroll leading the way in 2006.
"These Broncos have Payne Haas, Tom Flegler and Pat Carrigan and then Kobe Hetherington comes on and goes mad," Ryan said.
"I love that kid. He is nothing but tough.
"(Second-rower)Jordan Riki can hit well. I thought he got away from that the last couple of years but now he is back hitting with the top of shoulder rather than his chest. The Broncos have the players to do it."
Ryan recalled a defensive drill the day before the 2006 decider where the four members of the left edge, plus two middle forwards, would train in defence against nine attacking team members. Then the four members of the right edge would swap in.
"It was six v nine. Scramble defence is the difference between winning and losing in big moments," Ryan said.
"In that drill on that day all the players were in tune. Normally I'd be yelling, 'get your spacing right, push up … get you arse up there', but I said two fifths of stuff all because they were absolutely on.
"They were fully primed to go the next day."
The Broncos conceded 17.7 points per game on average this year in the regular season. The Panthers averaged 13 against. There is no margin for error for the Broncos.
Ryan said the Broncos had to perfect against the Panthers. They were far from that in the 42-12 win over the Warriors in the preliminary final.
The Panthers are hot favourites to win their third title in a row but Ryan said that was no barrier to Broncos success.
"Everyone said in 2006 that Melbourne were going to put a score on us but we went out and bashed them," Ryan said.
"The Broncs were never going to lose that night."
