Brisbane Broncos were always among the best recruiters of Aotearoa rugby league talent but their NRL and NRLW championships in 2025 blew them past all other organisations in Australia. Broncos won both Grand Finals and could have added the State Championship to the equation as Burleigh Bears are now under the Broncos umbrella, but New Zealand Warriors dominated that encounter.

Broncos had four Kiwi-NRL juniors in their team who defeated Storm in the NRL GF and five NRLWahine in the NRLW team who defeated Roosters. Of those nine players, Brianna Clark is the only one who didn't play junior footy in Aotearoa as she was born and raised in Australia but like many men and women, she opted to represent Aotearoa instead of Australia.

NRLW recruitment and development systems aren't as comprehensive as the NRL yet, so Broncos didn't recruit any of their NRLWahine as youngsters from Aotearoa. Otara junior Annetta Nu'uausala started with NZ Warriors in 2018 and 2019 before one year with Knights before joining Broncos. Hawera's Gayle Broughton switched from rugby sevens to NRLW and played one season with Eels before she joined Broncos for the 2023 season, which was Mele Hufanga's first year of NRLW.

Hufanga was one of the best players at the 2022 Rugby League World Cup before she even played NRLW so Broncos didn't need to do much scouting there. Broncos have done well in developing these players as Broughton started her NRLW career at fullback with Eels and then shifted to the halves at Broncos. Along with Nu'uausala and Hufanga, these three NRLWahine have played at least three seasons with Broncos and their 2025 mahi sits in the career best zone.

Broncos didn't need to do much scouting to sign Stacey Waaka for the 2024 NRLW season and her class was on show in her impressive debut season. Waaka dipped out of the 2025 NRLW mix though and the best example of Broncos scouting/recruitment in NRLW was finding Waaka's replacement in Kerri Johnson from Kaikohe.

Johnson played all 13 games for Broncos this season and after leaving Northland/Blues to spark up her rugby league journey. Waaka didn't win an NRLW championship with Broncos but Johnson did and her 10 tries in her first season showed that Johnson was an excellent recruit to absorb the absence of Waaka.

Broncos also picked up Azalleyah Maaka from rugby union in Aotearoa and she had a few games coming off the bench in her first season. The Gisborne product played more NRLW this year than former Black Fern Tafito Lafaele, who joined Broncos for the 2023 season and only playedd one game this season.

Clark is a Kiwi Fern from Australia and Nu'uausala is a rugby league junior. Hufanga excelled in both codes before settling in NRLW and the other four NRLWahine at Broncos were recruited from rugby union. Most notably they came from different levels of rugby union in Aotearoa with Broughton joining from Black Ferns Sevens, Johnson and Maaka coming from Super Rugby Aupiki and Lafaele being a Black Fern before her NRLW career.

Broncos didn't have a player from the South Island in their NRLW crew but Kaikohe, Hawera and Gisborne are represented along with Auckland. This is the same vibe for the Kiwi-NRL Broncos as Auckland, Taharoa and Christchurch are represented by Josiah Karapani, Deine Mariner, Xavier Willison and Jordan Riki.

Karapani started his journey with NZ Warriors before moving to Rabbitohs where he progressed to be on the fringe of their NRL group. His chapter at Rabbitohs didn't end so well and Karapani found a home at Broncos where he has played 22 games in two seasons, building from nine games last year to 13 games this year.

Broncos did something that no other NRL team in Australia has done in recent memory with three Kiwi-NRL juniors who they recruited from Aotearoa, playing in the same team together and winning a Grand Final. The only other team in this category seems to be Roosters who had Naufahu Whyte (Bay Roskill), Siua Wong (Burnham/Manurewa), Benaiah Ioelu (Otara) and Salesi Foketi (Manurewa) in their team at various stages of the season.

All four were recruited by Roosters as youngsters from Aotearoa and they climbed up through the Roosters system to settle at the NRL level. Broncos didn't need to do much scouting for Riki as he was a fabulous junior coming out of Christchurch with Hornby and St Thomas' of Canterbury College. That did give Riki plenty of options and Broncos still had to entice Riki to Brisbane, with Riki being able to finish school in Christchurch before moving to Australia a factor.

Mariner and Willison on the flipside were Kiwi-NRL recruitment deep cuts. Both left Aotearoa with a couple years of school left to go to Palm Beach Currumbin State High School on the Gold Coast. The funky wrinkle here is that Keano Kini (Northcote) made the same move to Palm Beach but he was linked to Titans the whole time.

Mariner was a Marist junior who went to St Paul's College and he made a few Auckland rep teams before being scouted by Broncos. Willison is from Taharoa and was a Whatawhata junior while also going to Hamilton Boys High School, before being scouted by Broncos when he was playing for Waicoa Bay. While there athletic ability should have been easy to scout, there wasn't much junior buzz about Mariner and Willison until Broncos identified them as long-term development projects.

Most NRL teams have players from Aotearoa but Broncos are unique in having three who they recruited from Aotearoa and invested in as youngsters. For some organisations like Knights, they do a wonderful job in recruiting juniors from New Zealand but whether it's Joseph Tapine (Harbour City) Starford To'a (Mt Wellington), Simi Sasagi (Ellerslie) or Haami Loza (Mangere East/Otara); the best Kiwi-NRL juniors who move to Newcastle then leave Knights just as they are entering the NRL mixer.

Storm offer an interesting comparison as they had four players from Aotearoa in their team that lost to Broncos. None of them were recruited by Storm directly from New Zealand as youngsters though. Will Warbrick came from rugby sevens, Jahrome Hughes played NRL for Titans and Cowboys before joining Storm, Ativalu Listai left Auckland to play school footy in Queensland and then had a stint with Panthers, Alec MacDonald was playing footy in Queensland before being scouted by Storm.

Sharks and Panthers had four Kiwi-NRL players in their teams for finals losses. Of those eight players, none were recruited by either team from Aotearoa as youngsters. Raiders had five Kiwi-NRL players in their last finals game with Matthew Timoko (Ellerslie) and Ata Mariota (Manurewa) recruited directly from New Zealand. Then there are the Roosters who had Whyte, Wong and Ioelu in their team who lost their last finals game.

Many NRL teams do well to recruit Kiwi-NRL juniors from other NRL pipelines and then brew them into NRL players. Karapani, Sasagi and Tapine are easy examples of this as well as Sitili Tupouniua (Marist) who was recruited by Roosters from Auckland and worked his way through that pipeline before moving to Bulldogs where he was the only Kiwi-NRL junior in their top-tier NRL group.

The only comparison for the Broncos investment in Aotearoa talent right now is Roosters. They also had three players from New Zealand who they recruited and developed in their last finals game, but they didn't win a Grand Final like Broncos. Riki and Mariner played all 80 minutes of the Grand Final, while Willison got through his regular middle/edge mahi to play 40+ minutes in back to back finals game.

Consider that the best example of Kiwi-NRL recruitment and development in Australia this year. Broncos are only going deeper into this well for the future with Marley Igasan (Otumoetai), Kylem Vunipola (Kia Ora) and Antonio Verhoeven (Cobden-Kohinoor) notable youngsters from Aotearoa in the Broncos system at the end of 2025.

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