A bold gamble by Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett to banish his players for a week following this year's Origin series is on the verge of delivering the ultimate payoff - the club's first NRL premiership since 2000.

The Broncos head into Sunday's Telstra Stadium decider against Melbourne in the best shape they have been in for years after Bennett ordered his players to leave town for the week - with some heading to Thailand and others holidaying in North Queensland with their families.

Broncos strength coach Dan Baker, who came up with the idea, warned Bennett the break would come with a short-term cost but a long-term gain.

But he assured Bennett his players would be at their peak for the finals where the club has struggled for the past five seasons, Baker delivering his premiership blueprint at a staff meeting soon after Bennett returned from coaching Australia in last year's Tri-Nations series.

"He said to get a bye after the Origin series, which was the first time we've been able to do that, and give the whole team a fortnight off after playing Melbourne and to get them all out of Brisbane," Bennett recalled at the club's packed grand final breakfast on Wednesday.

"Anyone who turned up at training had to be fined or penalised.

"Dan said we'd have to pay a price because when the players came back, it would be like starting pre-season again.

"He said be prepared to ride that through for three or four weeks and if I was prepared to take the risk I'd have a fresh, fit team playing great football.

"Nothing else had worked so we took the gamble."

The calculated gamble, combined with Bennett's difficult decision to replace some close friends with a new fitness and coaching team headed by fitness expert Dean Benton, has already helped the Broncos bury their poor recent finals record.

Now it could land the club a sixth premiership.

"At the end of last year we had to make changes - nobody knew that better than I did," Bennett said.

Bennett accepted his training program had to be more scientific which is when Benton came into the picture.

Bennett made a similar move in the early 1990s hiring former Great Britain Olympic track coach Kelvin Giles who turned the players into fitter, faster and better athletes.

"Kelvin set the benchmark in all the codes about how to train and the Broncos were the leaders in that area," said Bennett.

"We needed to go again to another level of training and embrace a whole lot of things like sports medicine and sports science."

Benton arrived at the club with a tough reputation and stripped weight of all the players.

"He (Benton) worked them so hard mentally in the pre-season, he just about broke half of them because of his own high standards and his paranoia," said Bennett.

But Bennett said when Brisbane started the season after being mentally bashed up by Benton, they were anything but a football team.

"We were very, very dysfunctional," revealed Bennett.

"A lot of our top players were mentally exhausted.

"The Storm put 50 points on us in a trial game and when we played the Cowboys (first round) we were dead in the water."

Bennett realised then he had to rebuild the team and was candid with his players about what they had to do and the direction they needed to take to be a team again.

"They had to break themselves away from Dean because they were so paranoid about pleasing him," said Bennett.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP