I would probably wave last week away to the fact souths are absolute gunslingers in attack. The knights one baffled me a bit with 12 men for 67 minutes. The opening 3 tries were concerning but it seemed like we let them off the hook too many times with errors and gave them easy territory to attack.
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It wouldn’t surprise me if Luai has now played his last game for the Tigers.
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NSW Blues halfback Nathan Cleary has picked up the Brad Fittler Medal for the second time in his career, honouring his work in the sky blue as the state’s MVP for the 2026 State of Origin series.
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Nine Broncos’ exits confirmed in $3 million salary cap clean-out
The Broncos have confirmed nine players will depart Red Hill at season’s end, led by Souths-bound superstar prop Haas, retiring skipper Adam Reynolds and Perth Bears recruit Gehamat Shibasaki.
Forward Jaiyden Hunt is set to agree to terms with Canberra, Corey Jensen has medically retired, while grand-final winger Jesse Arthars will head to the UK for a stint with Catalans.
Completing the squad turnover, Grant Anderson will defect to the Warriors, while veteran utility Delouise Hoeter and journeyman back-rower Jack Gosiewski have not been offered deals for 2027.
A lot of mass restings for this weekend’s games, the Roosters dropping NINE players for the South Sydney game.
Which will put the Bunnies to get a home final (and would host Newcastle), leaving Cronulla to host North Qld, which might be moved to a bigger venue in Sydney.
The Sharks also resting four players for the Melbourne game given they are locked into 5th place regardless.
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I’m going to take an early guess on finals wk1 fixtures:
Fri 8PM: Rabbitohs vs Newcastle
Sat 4PM: Warriors vs Roosters/Dolphins
Sat 7:30PM: Sharks vs Cowboys
Sun 4PM: Panthers vs Dolphins/Roosters
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Last year it was
Fri 7.50pm 2 v 3 (2nd QF)
Sat 4.05pm 6 v 7 (2nd EF)
Sat 7.50pm 5 v 8 (1st EF)
Sun 4.05pm 1 v 4 (1st QF)
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Oh FFS. 
Though noting it won’t happen until Perth and PNG enter the comp.
Though I still think the idea of allowing a team that finishes in the bottom half of the comp (eg. 10th out of 19) doesn’t deserve the opportunity to play in the finals.
Perhaps once you get out to 20 teams, then the idea has a bit more merit. Or just have a 10 team finals series, which they’ll probably do anyway?
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Im coming around to the idea. Teams really need to finish in the top 6. You get a week off and the other 4 teams are going to find it virtually impossible to go much further. The 27 rounds of the season are really to get the top 6 out of 19 teams with 4 more as fill ins.
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This doesn’t seem to be the advantage it used to be… particularly now with some clubs resting players in the final round of the year. So if you can only finish 7th/8th or 9th/10th you can do that anyway.
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I’m pretty sure they have been talking about it for a while but yeah once the two new teams are in it will make a lot more sense.
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When the NRL gets to 20 teams they should reintroduce the top 10 from 1998.
That system has 4 games on the first weekend of finals including 3 v 6 and 4 v 5. Only 1 and 2 deserve a week off.
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Knowing PVL, he’ll make a top 10 and a bottom 10 finals series, the bottom 10 playing for the PVL Plate or V’Landys Vase or something stupid like that.
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The Broncos ended their disappointing 2026 season on a high, beating the Bulldogs 34-20 at Accor Stadium tonight. The two teams were level at 10-10 at half time but the Broncos scored four tries to two in the second half to secure victory.
Payne Haas (who is joining Souths next year) led his team onto the field before kickoff. He scored an early try before he was sin binned in the 14th minute for ruck infringement.
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