Out-of-form centre Steve Michaels has paid the price for Brisbane's woeful defensive slump, dumped for the NRL clash with Cronulla on Monday.

Broncos coach Ivan Henjak on Tuesday relegated Michaels to the Burleigh Bears and replaced him with young prospect Alex Glenn for the Suncorp Stadium match as he seeks to arrest his team's alarming slide from the top eight.

"Steve is going to have to go back to the Queensland Cup and rediscover some of his confidence," said Henjak, who is set to field a very young backline against the Sharks.

"He has to get back to enjoying his footy, he's struggling with that at the moment.

"The pressure of the NRL is probably not the best place for him to rediscover that at the moment."

A host of former Broncos players turned up at training on Tuesday to show their support for the club which has taken a hammering in the media after dropping six of their past seven games and conceding more than 300 points.

Among the former stars who trained alongside the players at Red Hill were one-time try scoring genius Steve Renouf, winger Michael Hancock, hooker Kerrod Walters, specialist utility players Darren Smith and John Plath, club stalwart Chris Johns and former hardmen Gavin Allen, Alan Cann.

Their appearance at training and for a lunch with the players was arranged well before the club suffered it's most embarrassing defeat at the weekend when flogged 56-0 by Canberra.

Coach Ivan Henjak joked he could use a few of the past champions to help the club out of its latest hole after watching Smith, Renouf and Hancock show off some of the skills which once thrilled Brisbane fans.

Henjak has adopted an honest and open attitude about the club's position and the criticism it is copping from irate fans.

"It's never easy and it's not enjoyable having to handle all that," he said.

"But it's part of the job and we've got to get on with it.

"It's not fun, I'm not going to lie about that and it's certainly not enjoyable.

"But we can fix it by winning and putting in a good performance.

"We don't have much defence (against the criticism) at the moment.

"We're going ordinary and every little thing or rumour going around seems to be about us and we're just going to have to wear it."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP