The NRL has entered a Darwinian phase – the survival of the fittest in a race to the premiership following a season where injuries have cut a brutal swath.
Players unavailable through injury have been the major factor in a reordering at the top of the competition.
Last year’s top four will miss the eight-team finals for the first time in 34 years, assuming the Bulldogs stay in ninth position. (The 1991 semi finalists Penrith, Manly, Norths and Canberra all missed the 1992 five-team semis.)
An indication of the volatility of the season comes from rugby league statistician and historian David Middleton, who points out that no team to have suffered defeat like the Cowboys’ loss to the Roosters (70 points) and the Dolphins’ to the Sharks (66 points) has qualified for the finals.
Injuries have also been a cause of such long-standing records being established, eclipsed or threatened.
Securing a top-four berth has never been so crucial, given the week’s rest that comes from winning the first semi-final. If only one team is left at full strength at the end of the playoffs, the premiership may well be the easiest to have been won.
NRL boss Peter V’landys is a renowned numbers man.
Earlier this season, when the expanded “six again” rule was cited as a reason for a spate of injuries, the NRL countered with data to show the injury count was marginally down on the previous year.
However, that other genius, Albert Einstein (who chalked it on a blackboard), reminds us: “Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted, counts.”
The NRL tallies injuries in terms of weeks that players are sidelined. If a player takes the field with an injury, it doesn’t count.
Tallying the number of pain-killing needles administered per club would be a better record.
Games missed by Penrith co-captain Isaah Yeo as a result of his pectoral injury will count, but the games he plays with the injury won’t.
Last year’s premiers, Brisbane, were leaders in games missed through injury, and second last on the premiership ladder, while runners-up Melbourne were 11th.
The Storm’s Xavier Coates and Eli Katoa were directly involved in a third of Melbourne tries scored in 2025, yet they will not play this year.
In a round 22 loss to the Bulldogs, the Storm fielded 29 per cent of their salary cap (including four players from the grand final).
Penrith, Brisbane and Melbourne approach injuries differently.
Panthers coach Ivan Cleary stands his representative players down from club matches during the Origin period if he believes that work load and travel threaten may lead them to miss more games.
Melbourne’s Craig Bellamy leaves the rest/play decision to the player. Captain Harry Grant admits that he should have played one less NRL match during the Origin period but compromised by opting to sit on the bench for the first 20 minutes of a match against the Rabbitohs. He pulled a hamstring just before half-time in the two-point loss.
Brisbane’s Michael Maguire is perceived to be a hard task master, suggesting his players may be inclined to elect to play while carrying injuries. Broncos forward Payne Haas, when announcing he was joining the Rabbitohs, indicated he expected coach Wayne Bennett to extend his career.
Essentially, the story of the season is this: a shallow talent pool has been further drained by an injury crisis arising from fatigue caused by rule changes designed to produce a low stoppage game for which broadcasters ultimately paid a record price.
Consider the records broken, all to do with playing against under-strength and fatigued opposition.
The Roosters defeated the Cowboys 82-12, scoring the most points since Canterbury were flogged when entering the competition in 1935. Sam Walker’s 36 points that night equalled a record for points scored by an individual.
Cowboys coach Todd Payten was asked post-match if he would make changes.
“It is my best team,” he said.
The Broncos will join Western Suburbs – winners of the 1952 title and the 1953 wooden spoon – in an ignominious group of lowest falling premiers.
More records are set to tumble when three new teams enter the NRL over the next three years.
When the Rugby League Players’ Association and senior NRL players met with V’landys in April to protest against the fatigue-induced blowouts and injuries associated with the expanded six-again rule, he produced myriad statistics justifying the stance.
Ironically, in an NRL era where every statistic is counted, the principal culprit in the players’ grievance against fatigue – six-agains – are unaccountable. Only referees know precisely why they are called.
TV ratings and attendance figures suggest that fans love tries, comebacks and blowouts.
But fan gain is at the expense of player pain.
The NRL is considering compounding the problem by adding a playoff for third position on the eve of the grand final.
V’landys appears unperturbed by the attrition on players, saying that they will be rewarded with “massive amounts of prizemoney”.
Of the teams expected to contest the grand final, the Panthers are the most experienced; the Roosters have the most depth and the Warriors would be the NRL’s preferred premiers, having never won the title and with a second New Zealand team in the running to join the league.
However, injuries and the random nature of six-again calls pose a major challenge for the coaches. They will have begun their semi-final scenario planning, training replacements for key positional swaps.
After all, as Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one most adaptable to change.”
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Roy Masters is a Sports Columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
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