Brisbane begin another NRL season on Friday night against South Sydney and the machine is already rolling.

Training sessions have been live tweeted in breathless detail. Up-and-coming rookies have been compared to all-time greats. Their first game will be in prime time because that is where the Broncos live.

Former club legends have been consulted on their view of Kevin Walters' side, what they'll do this year, how they'll go and why. Superstars who are not off-contract for many, many months have been linked to the club on the off-chance they will be the magic signing that makes it 1992 all over again.

Whenever anyone talks about the Broncos, they talk about the past a lot. That's fair enough – it's a very impressive past, after all, and it doesn't feel that far gone because the Broncos glory days were all on TV, live and in colour, and that means they stick faster in our memories. Wayne Bennett, the ruler of the original Brisbane empire, is still around and is still one of the great powers in rugby league.

But that won't last forever. The past is already written and the ink is already dry and one day, all those moments the Broncos faithful hold so dear and those wonderful games and seasons that made them the modern pride of the league will just be memories.

Since 2000, Brisbane have won two premierships and played in another grand final – a return many clubs would kill for, but not an exceptional one.

Soon, there will be Broncos players who were not alive when the club won their last premiership. Already there will be players who don't remember the 15-8 triumph over Melbourne in 2006.

For say, a 21-year-old, their entire rugby league life has not been dominated by Broncos exceptionalism, but by the Storm and the Roosters and, in recent years, the Panthers.

They know the Broncos not as a power that moved earth and heaven, but as just another one of the clubs who aren't at the top.

Taking less money to play on a good team, always featuring in the premiership discussions no matter what, feeling like the biggest club in the game? For an entire generation, that happens in Melbourne and it happens in Bondi and it might be starting out in Penrith, but it doesn't happen in Brisbane.

The current crop of Broncos still venerate the club's history, and rightly so, but history becomes more distant as time goes on. As Walters, who was appointed coach specifically to bring back the old ways, begins his second season in charge, the current Broncos are not tasked with restoring a legacy but with building one anew. They have to make their own memories.

According to former skipper Pat Carrigan, who grew up a Broncos fan and at 24, is old enough for those glory days to have been very real indeed, it's something Walters and the rest of the Broncos understand. There is no way back to what the club was before and they want to give a legacy of pride back to the club by creating one of their own.

"Kev always says he's had his time and other people have had their time. This is our time. We need to do something with it," said Carrigan.

"It's really cool [the history], a lot of people think it's a lot of pressure but it is what it is, you either sink or you swim.

"It's an awesome opportunity, we are where we are as a club because of the old boys, Kev always tells us he won five comps and those five comps are why the Broncos are where they are today.

"When you're a kid you love the Broncs because of what they were. I just want to take us back to that.

"Kids all over Queensland, the Broncos were who they wanted to be and who they wanted to play for. Kids in New South Wales as well. You remember that.

"I don't know if you take that positive out of that with all the spotlight on you, but if you can be successful in that environment it'll be a pretty good time.

"That's what you remind yourself."

The prestige Carrigan is talking about is not something that lasts forever. Look no further than South Sydney for proof of that. The Rabbitohs were the pride of the league for even longer than the Broncos, for a lifetime after their inception in 1908.

But after their 20th premiership in 1971, a long, slow plummet began. By the time they were axed by the league in 1999, they were just another club. It took the threat of extinction for their pride to be restored and it took Russell Crowe's money and a fair bit of time for them to climb the mountain again.

They got back there, eventually, and everything crested one glorious night in 2014 when they finally won their 21st title after 43 years of waiting. The Rabbitohs can call themselves the pride of the league again, but it was a long journey to get back to where they once stood. You can lose these things and sleeping giants don't always wake up.

Carrigan has already had a taste of the wilderness that exists between success. He was cast into the fire during the earliest days of his career – the third time he hit an NRL field as a starting player, it was as co-captain of the Broncos.

When you are captain of the Broncos, that means you are forced into the company of Wally Lewis, Gene Miles, Allan Langer, Darren Lockyer and Justin Hodges, whether you like or not.

Through their interminable 2020 season, when they finished last and plummeted so far down that rock bottom was just a happy memory by comparison, Carrigan was there and was wearing the shots. There were plenty of them.

Then last year, which was supposed to be a year of making amends, he did his knee and missed months of footy.

"Coming off the back of 2020, where I led the boys for a bit, it was tough because even though you give your all in every game we weren't getting the result. Knowing where you're going wrong and trying to change it was a tough thing," Carrigan said.

"When I did my knee was really tough because I set myself up with a good preseason and I wanted to repay the fans and stick it to some people who hadn't supported the group much.

"To get injured and not even be able to try and do that was really tough."

Carrigan is still viewed by the club as a leader but he's not captain anymore. That's on star recruit Adam Reynolds, who will miss Friday night's season opener against the Rabbitohs due to COVID.

And unlike when he was thrown to the wolves, there is a structure in place for Carrigan to grow into leadership rather than have it thrust upon him. It's a good sign for Brisbane's future that they are rebuilding Carrigan by science and not magic. There is no point signing the best young player in the game if the process to make him the best player in the world isn't there.

"There was a lot involved in the last few years in some of the leadership positions I found myself in. I was confident in my ability to play good footy first and foremost as a leader, then to try and lead the boys around in whatever facet it could be," Carrigan said.

"Reyno [Reynolds] is a laid-back guy but he's brought a great camaraderie, a real sense of teamwork that's brought the group together.

"Ryan James was a very young captain as well and seeing what he went through with injuries and whatever else and having Reyno, who captained a team in a grand final, has helped a lot.

"Because I'm still young I've got time on my side and you can't buy experience without going through it.

"Maybe in a couple of years when we're successful and there's another young guy coming along who's having some tough times at the start of their career or who's going through what I went through then I can give them a bit of advice and help them out."

Even the bravest Broncos fan must be tempering their expectations for this season. There are some things to look forward to, like the continued development of Tesi Niu and Selwyn Cobbo, the chance to see more of Brendan Piakura and the ongoing impact Reynolds can have on the rest of the club.

Walters showed himself capable of getting the playing group together in 2021 and had them playing hard on a reasonably regular basis, which after the horror of the year before was no mean feat. He needs a good season to stop the knives coming out – maybe not a finals berth, but pretty close, although it is worth noting the Broncos have never missed the finals three years in a row. 

Time is of the essence and not just because a legacy is at stake. From next year the Broncos will not have Brisbane to themselves anymore.

Barring a string of truly incredible signings, the Dolphins won't be top contenders from day one, but the ground under the Broncos' feet will shrink just a little.

It's easy to panic in a situation like that and look for the quick fix that saves the day. But what the Broncos seem to be understanding now is that the quick fix doesn't exist.

The process is as important as the result because the result comes from the process. The greatness of a club is not a birthright, it must be earned over and over and over again.

"It's been pretty public we want to play finals footy this year, but not just play finals footy but really compete and be the best version of ourselves can be," Carrigan said.

"We'll go out there with a team of 17 as part of a squad of 36 who are all going to play for each other.

"My approach has always been the same, to go out there and play the best footy I can with some of my best mates and win some footy games.

"I just want to win some footy games this year."