NSW Blues coach Brad Fittler has questioned whether appointing Origin counterpart Kevin Walters is a step in the right direction for the Broncos.
Walters is seen as the most likely man to succeed Anthony Seibold after Brisbane officially severed ties with their embattled coach on Wednesday.
Walters was ultimately pipped by Seibold for the Broncos job back in 2018, with the club coming to a handshake agreement with the Queensland coach to succeed Wayne Bennett before controversially snubbing him.
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The strong backing for Walters amongst the Broncos' old boys brigade is believed to see him handed the reins of the struggling club next season.
Currently coaching Queensland, where he has won two in four series at the helm, Walters has no experience as a head coach at NRL level other than serving as assistant to Bennett at the Broncos and Craig Bellamy at the Storm in the past.
While his 39.7% win-loss percentage during a brief coaching stint with Catalans in the Super League leaves much to be desired.
Doubts have been laid over whether Walters' success at Origin level would translate to an NRL head coaching job, particularly given the scale of the task at hand at Red Hill with the Broncos at dire straits.
And with comments that could further ignite the flame going into this year's end-of-season Origin series, Fittler is the latest man to question Walters' suitability for the Broncos role.
"Picking a coach, captain or team, it's not about favourites," Fittler told Wide World of Sports' Freddy and the Eighth.
"Kevin Walters might be good coach and passionate Queenslander, but is he necessarily the best man for the job? I know Paul Green's name has been touted, there's other people I'm sure who have been circulated as well.
"I'm not quite sure of what their idea is. I'm not saying Kevvie would do a bad job, but you've got to push that all aside and say, 'Who's the best person in this situation right now?'
"There's some big decisions to go ahead, It's not the time to be picking favourites. It's the time to sit down and make some calls."
Green has been mentioned alongside Walters in the race to take over from Seibold, the premiership-winning coach thought to have his eyes on the Broncos job when he unexpectedly parted ways with the Cowboys earlier this year.
Having lead North Queensland to a premiership in his second season as head coach, ironically breaking Brisbane's heart in one of the greatest NRL grand finals in 2015, Green is seen as the man with the strongest credentials currently vying for the Broncos job.
However, Andrew Johns believes Brisbane shouldn't be distracted by premiership success and instead focus on acquiring a coach that is most equipped to fix the predicament at the club.
"They need someone to get in there and clean it all up. Maybe educate some of the players about the basic fundamentals of the game," he told Freddy and the Eighth.
"They need to start with their defence. Some of their defence this year and the structure has been all over the shop. Something happened during COVID-19, I don't know what it was.
"Other clubs came out strong, the Broncos came out of it awful. Some of their individuals didn't look fit, whether they trained at all.
"They were 2-0, they definitely looked like a top-eight and top-four team."
