At 59, Origin great Trevor Gillmeister has seen the legends and fleeting stars of rugby league come and go, so it takes something special to get him up off the edge of his seat.

Reece Walsh is that something special. The quicksilver matchwinner is that rare type who seems to have captured all generations of fan when it comes to the Brisbane Broncos.

We all see why. It’s those fast feet for nine tries and the exaggerated try celebrations when he dives over. It’s the obvious buzz he gets from the game that shows he’s enjoying it as much as a diehard 10-year Broncos member or a wide-eyed kid. It’s the 29 try assists and 40 linebreak assists of 2023 that make every player around him better.

He’s the fullback who can turn Sunday’s NRL grand final against the Penrith Panthers in Sydney on a weekend that could become one of the most historic in Queensland’s football history.

Should the Brisbane Lions stun Collingwood in Saturday’s AFL grand final at the MCG, they will complete the first leg of an unprecedented heist of footy’s peak trophies by Queensland sides.

An AFL-NRL premiership double in the same season has never been achieved by two Queensland teams.  Only twice this century have both those trophies escaped from their Melbourne (AFL) and Sydney (NRL) strongholds in the same season.

In 2012, the Melbourne Storm and Sydney Swans made off with the silverware. In 2006, the Broncos and West Coast Eagles left the trophy cabinets bare of baubles in the southern capitals.

League and AFL may compete for fans, sponsor dollars and the hearts of talented schoolkids every other week of the season in Brisbane but a curious change has happened in this rarest of dual grand final weeks.

Gillmeister is as devout a rugby league disciple as you will find yet he doesn’t see this weekend as an adversarial “us v them” scenario where the NRL has to come out on top of the AFL.

“At this stage of the season, there are a lot of people like me. You might have your preferred code but you’re supporting both Queensland teams,” Gillmeister said.  “There are people across the whole state behind the Brisbane Broncos and I’d like to see the Brisbane Lions win as well.”

So much for drumming up a code war. Success for Queensland against the southern giants is a greater calling.

As for Walsh, the Broncos may not have had a pin-up boy like him since the cherubic Allan Langer of the late 1980s. Every club signs off-season recruits. Few get a windfall like they have from “Reece Lightning”. He left the club as a teen when it was in a rut and he’s back where he knew he always belonged.

Schoolboys and girls want to play with Walsh’s speed and flair. They relate easily to his outspoken bursts because he still looks like he’s young enough to be a playground maverick with them at 21. The colour of his eyes and hot pink boots are part of his mesmerising aura as well.

Fathers admire his skill and how he’s rebounded from a tough period in his career. Mums see the flame of brilliance in his play, his rise from a rough upbringing and the young dad role he plays off the field.

Others have felt like they just needed to give him a little clip behind the ear at times to get him back on the rails. He is no saint with bursts of cocky behaviour or 2021’s drama when pre-Broncos partying got out of control.

“Old fellas like me kind of get off the edge of the seat when he gets the ball because you don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Gillmeister said.  “Reece Walsh is great for the game in general. He’s bums on seats.”

That’s not just a Broncos thing. Code boss Peter V’Landys has revealed plans to make Walsh the face of rugby league. We all know the pitfalls of such a spotlight. Strong mentors and a support group need to chime in to prevent this meteor flaming out too quickly but that’s a story for another day.

You couldn’t fit more bums on seats in Brisbane last weekend if you’d wanted to when the finals hit town. The Broncos filled Suncorp Stadium with over 52,000 fans. Less than 6km away, 36,012 fans were crammed inside the Gabba to watch the Lions beat Carlton.

Far fewer of those parochial Queensland voices will be screaming and disputing the calls of officials at the MCG or at Sydney’s Accor Stadium. It’s just as well then, that the Broncos have a record as road warriors in 2023 that measures up with any of the great sides of NRL history.

They have won 10 of 11 games on the road this season, one of the best reflections of a tight unit which can deal with the adversity of hostile rival crowds, flat afternoons where everyone’s biorhythms are down and transport issues.

Insiders say the youngsters in the side look forward to being on the road listening to larrikin Langer’s old tales. It’s remarkable that he is still so heavily involved as trainer and the guy entrusted with running messages to the players from coach Kevvie Walters. He is a true 14th man.

Walters has proved his mettle and fended off the critics. The dressing room is his habitat, not the boardroom, where failed predecessor Anthony Seibold was a superior spruiker.

“Kevvie has done a top job to get the Broncos out of a fairly tough period. He copped everybody’s two-bob’s worth along the way when they were losing and the critics were putting the boot in,” Gillmeister said.

“That’s life and sport in general. You have to be resilient. You also have to have rep players to win a grand final and the Broncos do now with guys like Pat Carrigan, Kotoni Staggs, Kurt Capewell and so on. You need unsung heroes too like Kobe Hetherington and Keenan Palasia.”

The Broncos and Lions are so different in the games they play but not so different in where they have come from and found motivation. Both clubs have lengthy premiership droughts to break.

The Broncos were busted wooden-spooners in 2020 when some of their most loyal fans fled their seats before full-time in the 59-0 debacle against the Sydney Roosters at Suncorp Stadium. They weren’t a team and certainly didn’t have the rudder that top buy Adam Reynolds has given them in 2023.

What Reynolds is doing at 33 is not so different to the experienced pilot that Wallabies coach Eddie Jones ignored by not picking Quade Cooper for the failed Rugby World Cup in France.

The Lions were in the wooden-spoon boat in 2017, dead last. Like all the Broncos who absorbed the pain of 2020, Lions talisman Dayne Zorko endured 2017. He was made captain the following year and has done as much as anyone to turn the Lions into a club with champion qualities again.

All are stronger for the possible highs of this weekend after experiencing the pits.

It might not seem relevant now but those endless Zoom calls that coach Chris Fagan made to keep in touch with his players in 2020 when COVID blew up the competition are very much a part of the tightness of the squad. He made 60-odd phone calls a week ranging from one minute to an hour to keep connections strong between players and coaching staff.

This successful era for the Lions with five finals seasons in a row won’t mean much without an AFL flag as the cherry on top. That’s the brutal reality of how historians will look at the Fagan period in a decade from now. Win and it will be seen as the club’s second golden era.

Fagan and his Lions went through the strangest of games in 2020 as the last team to play at the MCG before the 11-week COVID recess. They played in front of no one when everyone was trying to nut out the coronavirus protocols.

There was no crowd energy to feed off, players couldn’t go to the gym or go out to get a coffee pre-game. Routines were out the door. It was hard to adapt and the Lions didn’t.

Now, the Lions get to feed off the energy of 100,000 fans at the MCG. Adapting on the run is still a big part of the challenge. Do so and the flag may well be coming back to Brisbane for the first time since 2003.

JIM TUCKER has specialised in sport, the wider impacts and features for most of his 40 years writing in the media.