HERE'S what Corey Parker was trying to say on Friday night: we might be the most unsuccessful team in the history of the Brisbane Broncos, but that doesn't make us the worst.

Wayne Bennett may be long gone from Red Hill but he knows how his successor Ivan Henjak feels this weekend. Bennett coached the first Australian side to lose a series to anyone in 27 years.

Henjak was reminded on Friday morning that if his young, Darren Lockyer-less, side lost to Canberra, they would not only miss the finals for the first time in 19 years but they would be the worst team in the club's history.

After the 18-16 defeat, stand-in captain Corey Parker probably wanted to name the previous teams he thought were worse. Cause he was part of them.

"It's external influences like the media that highlight the fact you're not going to be there,'' Parker said.

"I've been played in the finals in my time at the Broncos where we've limped into the eight and been smacked by 40 in the first round of the finals. It doesn't get spoken about because you made the finals.

"Certainly this year's pain can be next year's gain.''

I know from experience that headlines such as "worst ever" rarely come from a story a reporter just punches out and puts in to be subbed. Usually - especially these days - someone thinks of the headline first and they work backwards from there.

But the journalist whose byline was on it still got short shrift from Henjak after Friday night's loss at Suncorp Stadium. As a hack, you've just got to cop that.

As a coach, so does Ivan. Professional sports are all about results and, in most people's minds, worst results = worst team.

But Henjak is also to be admired.

When Brisbane won just two from their first eight games this season, they were written off. Yet the youth that he blooded so successfully bloomed so brilliantly that with 15 minutes left in the regular season they were still an outside chance of making the finals.

One of the worst things about professional sports is the expediency, the pressure to succeed immediately. For a second-year coach like Henjak, that pressure must be almost unbearable.

But he held his nerve, kept picking players greener than any Raiders jumper, and until Lockyer was injured, they were being spoken about not just as finals contenders but premiership threats.

Next year, they add Greg Inglis.

The Broncos averaged more than 35,000 at home this year for the first time in 15 years. They are our sport's shining light globally and that does not change because of Friday night's result.

The Brisbane Courier-Mail was 100 per cent entitled to say this year's team is the worst ever. It is an eminently supportable and justifiable statement with which it is difficult to take issue.

But here's Bennett's side that lost the 2005 Tri-Nations:  Anthony Minichiello, Matt King, Mark Gasnier, Matt Cooper, Brent Tate, Trent Barrett, Craig Gower, Ben Kennedy, Craig Fitzgibbon, Luke O'Donnell, Petero Civoniceva, Danny Buderus (c), Jason Ryles. Interchange: Steve Price, Willie Mason, Craig Wing, Mark O'Meley.

Get out your history books, go back to the 1978 defeat to France, and see if you can find a worse Australian side than that.

I reckon you might.