Brisbane Broncos forward Jordan Riki has revealed the decision behind his re-signing with the club in early 2021.
While the Broncos are 80 minutes from competing in yet another Grand Final, less than five years ago, no one would have expected this result.
After making his NRL debut in 2020, the same season the club claimed their first Wooden Spoon, Riki decided to remain at Red Hill and re-sign rather than leave for a rival club.
Now, nearly three years later, the loyalty Riki has shown could earn him a maiden Grand Final berth. Arguably in his best season to date, the forward will be eager that the Broncos can dethrone either the Warriors or Knights next week to earn themselves a place in the 2023 Grand Final.
Coming through the Broncos Academy along with the likes of Herbie Farnworth, Thomas Flegler and Keenan Palasia, Riki has opened up on the decision he made back in 2021. A decision that saw him re-sign with the club.
"No, I definitely wanted to stay at the club," Riki said via AAP.
"That was a thing for me straight away. I am huge on loyalty. My family is all back home in New Zealand but I call the boys here, and the staff members, my family. The Broncos gave me an opportunity when I was just 15 years old.
"We were lacking maturity in the game (in 2020) and learning our positions and how to play them properly, but now we have games under our belt and can fully understand the game and how things work."
"It is crazy. (Finals) is one of things I could see when I first re-signed at this club," hesaid.
"I go back to the dark times and we were such a young group but I knew if we could all stick it out and stay together hopefully it would all pay off."
After losing to the Melbourne Storm in the last round of the regular home-and-away season, they were able to defeat them 26-0 with the game on the line in the first qualifying final of the 2023 NRL finals series.
"The biggest saying for us when we came back into training after the Melbourne game was, 'The job is not done', and we are definitely all on board with it," he added.
"Last year we just missed out on the top eight and that was burning us.
"We want to take it out this year and put Brisbane back on the map where it belongs."
The Brisbane Broncos will have to wait to find out their opponent for next week's preliminary final, as the New Zealand Warriors and Newcastle Knights will go head-to-head on Saturday afternoon.