The Brisbane Broncos have moved to remove reference to Gorden Tallis from the club’s headquarters as the feud between the legend and his old club deepens.
According to Code Sports, the Broncos have taken Tallis’ name off a conference room in the wake of his explosive criticism of the club and coach Michael Maguire.
Watch every game of every round of the Premiership Season LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.
Photos show the name ‘Gorden Tallis’ has been removed from the door of a meeting room and replaced by NRLW champion Ali Brigginshaw.
Broncos CEO Dave Donaghy emailed club employees on Friday to tell staff about the change, made ahead of Friday night’s game between Brisbane and the Melbourne Storm.
“Brisbane Broncos recognise the positive contributions and ongoing support of a number of club legends by way of naming various meeting rooms within the Clive Berghofer Centre,” Donaghy said.
“The naming of the Ali Brigginshaw meeting room recognises her outstanding contribution to the Broncos club since the inception of the NRLW program, including leading the Club to four NRLW Premierships.”
The change was made last week after internal discussions, with the club wanting to pay tribute to Brigginshaw’s achievements as the club’s first premiership-winning female captain.
Brigginshaw has won four NRLW premierships with the Broncos and has been the club’s captain since Brisbane joined the competition in 2018.
Code reported that sources have “had a gutful” of Tallis’ public criticism of the Broncos since his move into the media and “wanted to banish his identity” from the club’s $27 million high performance centre.
“He’s been against us for 20 years, and now he’s the shareholder of the Titans,” a club insider told Code.
“You would walk past his room everyday and no one wanted to use it.
“It’s the easiest decision ever to rename that room given what Ali has done for the club.”
Tallis won three premierships with the Broncos in 1997, 98 and 2000, becoming a club icon as one of the most imposing forwards in the game, also captaining Queensland and Australia.
Tallis is an outspoken supporter of Maguire’s predecessor Kevin Walters and on NRL 360 this week, he clashed with Courier Mail journalist Peter Badel after Tallis criticised Broncos halfback Adam Reynolds for flying to Sydney for media duties a day after sustaining a rib injury.
The Broncos got their season back on track with a gusty 18-14 win over the Melbourne Storm on Friday night, coming back from 14-0 down at halftime to claim their first win of the season.
Brisbane produced a far better defensive effort against the Storm, looking like the reigning premiers in the second half.
