NRL Round 25 Predictions: Two Friday thrillers, Storm to edge a classic – and who can stop the Roosters?
It's Round 25 in the NRL, and things are heating up!
The rubber is well and truly on the road in the NRL, with every place up for debate.
We bid adieu to Manly last week, for whom only a miracle will now do to make the eight, but have a dead heat between the Roosters and Dolphins, a hot race for the top four and even a Minor Premiership in doubt, as well as other placings.
As a quirk of scheduling, we’ll get our two biggest games on one night – an excellent Friday to pull a sickie in the UK – so let’s start there.
Panthers v Raiders
The Mudgee Meeting. The Cudgegong Clasico. The War in the Wiradjuri Wineries.
Call it what you like, the Panthers v Raiders meeting in NSW’s Central West will turn the eyes of the rugby league world on Mudgee’s Glen Willow Oval.
It’s a quirk of scheduling that such a huge fixture is played at such a small venue, but all the better for the people of the rugby league mad town some 270 km west of Sydney, who get to witness a potentially season-defining clash.
Penrith, nominally the home team, arrive knowing that a win is needed to keep their top four hopes alive.
Last week’s defeat to Melbourne allowed Cronulla in ahead, and as the Sharks have the bye, they’ll get two more without playing and the Warriors face the Gold Coast, which is about as close to a gimme two points as you get in this competition.
Isaah Yeo is back, but the Raiders arrive at near-full strength off their own bye round, and will be looking to wrap up the Minor Premiership. If they lose and Melbourne win, the Storm would go top.
Tip: Panthers
Storm v Bulldogs
For those Melbourne boys, the task is simple. Win and they are at least second, if not first.
They’ll know the result from Mudgee when they start, but it won’t affect them. They have plenty of motivation as it is to slap down the upstart Bulldogs.
Canterbury travel south knowing that, if they fail to win, they’ll likely have to do so again in the first week of the finals. Win, however, and they’ll move back into spitting distance of a lucrative and highly advantageous home final in week one at a packed, partisan Homebush.
Last week they dropped their chips against the Roosters, going down meekly to a side that played with desperation. Now, the desperation is all theirs.
Winning means more to their season than it does to the Storm’s – so this would be a good point to act like it.
Tip: Storm
Manly v Dolphins
Before we get to the Roosters, we will see the Dolphins on Saturday afternoon in soggy Sydney.
It has been biblically raining in the Harbour City all week – in fact for several weeks – and plenty of that has hit the Northern Beaches, leaving the area around Brookvale Oval flooded and the ground itself incredibly boggy.
That might help the Sea Eagles, who need to win out from here and hope for a few other things to go their way, as currently Manly can’t score and the Dolphins do so at will. Nobody being able to attack would certainly help the hosts.
The onus is all on the Dolphins, who have to win to put pressure on Easts. If they want to feature in the finals for the first time ever, they need to be a top eight team here.
Manly are celebrating Daly Cherry-Evans’ 350th game – against his junior club no less – and, perhaps, will play with a little more freedom knowing that they’re pretty much out regardless. Derailing the Dolphins might make that feel a little better.
Tip: Dolphins
Parramatta v Roosters
The Roosters are the form team in the NRL at the moment, riding three straight wins over finals rivals in Manly, Redcliffe and Canterbury.
They go to Melbourne next week, so picking up two points here in the theoretically easier week against a Parra side with nothing to play for is paramount.
How much it matters will be dictated somewhat by the result at Brookvale the day before, but should the Phins lose and the Roosters win, it would almost seal the deal for Easts.
After two weekends of big scores, the differential that was over 150 points apart just three weeks ago could be wiped out in a weekend, essentially taking a competition point off the Dolphins in the process, too.
The Eels are well into rebuilding mode for 2026 and playing with their combinations a lot, but can attack the game knowing that it doesn’t matter.
Sometimes that makes for a dangerous opponent – but in others, it means one team needs to win and the other doesn’t. Invariably, the side that needs the victory tends to get it in rugby league.
Fundamentally, Easts are a better team and have the motivation. Their record against Parra is excellent – 11-4 in their last 15 – and they’re in form. It should be theirs for the taking.
Tip: Roosters
Titans v Warriors
Don’t be fooled: while this game is being held on the Gold Coast, it’s a Warriors home game in all but name.
They don’t call it the Maori Riviera for nothing: thousands of New Zealanders live on the Gold Coast and they tend to turn up when the Wahs come to town.
The Kiwi contingent will arrive with all the expectations in the world. Their side owe the Titans, having lost the reverse fixture just a few weeks ago, and drastically need to improve to stand a chance in the finals.
They’ll almost certainly make it, but the Warriors’ grasp on a top four spot is tenuous and they will feel the Panthers and Sharks breathing down their necks.
The Gold Coast, as ever, have nothing to play for.
They can attack with abandon – which they pretty much always do – but it’ll come down to how much they can be bothered to tackle. On the evidence of this year (and the one before, and the one before that, anon anon) that isn’t very much.
If the Wahs play half sensibly, they’ll win. Of late, that hasn’t been the case, however, so anything could happen.
Tip: Warriors
Everyone else
It’s the dampest of damp squibs to start the round as a battered Souths and Dragons meet in front of nobody on what should be a swimming pool of a pitch at Homebush.
The Bunnies are the NRL’s walking wounded, St George Illawarra lost three players to concussions last week and got nobody of note back. This match is exclusively one for the sickos.
The Broncos need to keep winning and will do so by playing the Knights, a team so bad that they lost to a Cowboys side last week who somehow made 23 errors and still scored 38 points.
Finally, in the most recent example of “Who picks these schedules?”, Channel 9 have selected the most midtable of meaningless clashes between the Tigers and Cowboys for their flagship Sunday footy.
Scratching around for a storyline, a Tigers win would be their 10th of the year, the best return for the long-beleaguered club since 2019 and a surefire sign that tables have turned.
North Queensland lost 66-18 to the Tigers at Leichhardt Oval in one of the wooden spoon years, then beat them 74-0 at home. Last year, this fixture finished 48-30 and 42-28 and earlier this year, 32-28, all to the Cowboys.
For those who like betting the overs, that means the last five meetings between the pair have averaged 73.2 points per game. Oh, and the rain is meant to have cleared up by Sunday, too.
Tip: Souths, Broncos, Tigers
