NRL Round 27 Conclusions: Scheduling chaos, old timers bow out – and who would take the Knights job?

The regular season is in the books, but the drama never stops in the NRL.

The Broncos and Roosters secured their spots in the top four and top eight respectively, and the Panthers sealed seventh – but just about everyone else had a bad weekend.

Melbourne were battered and lost Jahrome Hughes to injury. The Sharks beat the Dogs – that’s good – but lost Nicho Hynes to suspension (that’s bad).

Canterbury lost two outside backs, Marcelo Montoya and Bronson Xerri, to injury and are now two wins from six, one of which was against the Panthers’ reserves and the other against the Warriors, who are in even worse nick.

They were third midseason with double the number of wins as the team who were then in sixth, which is where the Wahs finished. Even the Raiders had a shocker, sending a reserve side to Redcliffe to cop a 60-point battering.

Famously, no team that has conceded more than 50 has ever won the Premiership, which does not bode well for Canberra.

Still, it’s a new competition next week, right? Before we get there, though, let’s look back for one last time.

A good week for…

The Roosters, who cruised into the finals with a dominant display over South Sydney.

This was never anything more than a banana skin, but from the moment Mark Nawaqanitawase crossed for the first early on, this was never in doubt.

Marky Mark was the headline act again with a hat trick, but the star of the show was James Tedesco, who grabbed four assists.

His march to the Dally M continues apace, and with a trip to Cronulla next week, you’d not back against them.

The Sharks put in one of their best showings of the year to down the Dogs on Saturday night, but they’ll have to be better again to defeat an Easts team that look increasingly ominous.

The winner of that faces the loser of the Raiders and Broncos – if that is the Roosters, watch out.

A bad week for…

Melbourne are the obvious candidates: they rolled out as good a side as they could muster on Thursday night and got pumped by the Broncos anyway.

Moreover, they lost Jahrome Hughes to a broken arm, Ryan Papenhuyzen to a concussion and Nelson Asofa-Solomona to an entirely avoidable suspension.

From the get-go, this was a shocker. They gave away penalties at both a drop out and a kick off, the sort of thing that you never, ever see a Storm side do. All the free stuff on which Craig Bellamy has built an empire evaporated.

Defensively it was poor, offensively it was incoherent and the discipline was miles off it.

The good news, such as it is, will be that Papenhuyzen should only miss a week, and Canterbury played sufficiently badly that it might not matter.

For what it’s worth, the Storm have led the betting all year for the Premiership. This was the weekend they slipped behind Canberra.

Standout…

Seen as we’ve hit the end of the regular season, let’s send off a few old-timers in style.

We got Daly Cherry-Evans, who rolled back the years in Manly’s 27-26 win over the Warriors by punting a long distance 40/20 to get his side on the board early, then slotting a wrong-footed field goal late on that ultimately proved the difference.

After a dramatic year on the Beaches, he leaves on a huge high – and with no contract (officially at least) signed for 2026, it could be that he retires in style.

His old partner in crime, Kieran Foran, also bowed out with a win as his Titans came back to defeat the Tigers in emotional fashion.

It was also a victory for Des Hasler, who almost certainly will not coach in the NRL again, but steadfastly refused to make it about anything other than his halfback.

Dessie won’t want to call it the end, and maybe it isn’t, but if it is, he might reflect on the serendipity of leaving the league on the same weekend as DCE and Foz, the players he coached more than any other.

A word, too, for Mark Nicholls. The GOAT was always an ironic nickname, as Nicholls epitomised the honest toiler, big-hearted battler archetype that every club needs and every fan loves.

His last game for the Dolphins ended with a try and, of course, they let him kick the goal too. You love to see it.

Washout…

Where the Titans rose to send Dessie off in style, Newcastle slumped to last place, leaving Adam O’Brien to pick up a wooden spoon on his way out.

The Knights were thrashed by Parramatta, losing 66-10 in ignominious fashion, bringing down the curtain on one of the worst years in the club’s history. It was the biggest defeat of AOB’s tenure.

They picked up multiple spoons in the mid-2010s, including just one win in 2016, but those were part of a long period of rebuilding following some of the worst salary cap mismanagement ever seen.

O’Brien’s side don’t have that excuse.

They were unlucky in losing both Kalyn Ponga and Fletcher Sharpe to injury, but they have also cycled through playmakers by choice for two years entirely of their own volition.

The sight of Tyson Frizell, as wholehearted a competitor as it gets, scrambling to chase Eels players with the game long gone shows the commitment that is there in some parts, but the lack of organisation and attacking flair is glaring.

The incoming coach has a huge job on their hands.

Everyone is talking about…

Scheduling. Well, Ricky Stuart has been talking about it a lot.

Sticky was angered by suggestions that his Raiders, who finished top of the ladder, would have just a six-day turnaround for their first finals game, with opponents Brisbane getting nine days to prepare.

The NRL had a bit of a conundrum around all of this

The top four clashes are traditionally on Friday and Saturday night, but they couldn’t put Canberra on Friday with a five-day turnaround.

They got a bonus as Collingwood upset Adelaide in the AFL, which freed up Friday for Melbourne to play without the biggest club in the rival code filling out the MCG next door.

They didn’t want to put the Warriors on Saturday, as a daytime kickoff in Australia clashes with an All Blacks match for the Kiwi audience and a nighttime start would be too late for New Zealand.

Ideally, it would have been Canberra on Saturday, Warriors on Sunday, but Ricky’s rant ensured that the Raiders got their way in the end.

But nobody mentions…

Defending, which has become completely optional of late.

Four of the eight games saw more than 60 points scored – include two 60+ scores for the Eels and Dolphins on Sunday – which backed up three the week before and two the week before that (with a 58 for good measure as well).

NRL HQ will likely look at this as a vindication of attacking footy, but it looks deeply unserious. 35% of the league averaged more than 25 points against and the Titans missed out on 30 by 0.04 points. That’s more than the Super League, which they’ll tell you is where defending goes to die.

Forward pass

It’s finals time, so the slate is clear.

Melbourne and Canterbury clash in a game that both sides will be happy that they don’t have to win, such is the state of the squads, while the Raiders host the Broncos on Sunday with both getting a second chance.

Saturday is where the action lies. It’s a rare occasion where the eighth and seventh-placed sides are both favourites, with the Panthers and Roosters heavily favoured to advance.

The Panthers will go to Auckland to face a badly out of form, injury-hit Warriors side who look well and truly cooked. Even if the Wahs get up, they’ll get absolutely flogged a week later, so for the good of the finals, Penrith have to win.

Saturday night sees the Sharks attempt to shed their reputation as finals chokers by defeating the Roosters.

You can expect a week of discourse about whether Shark Park is fit to host such a match – 12,000 capacity, bit dilapidated – and plenty suggesting that the game should be shifted to a bigger, newer stadium – conveniently the one that the Roosters play in every second week.

It’s a lot of nonsense, and if Easts wanted this game to be played at Moore Park they should have finished higher than Cronulla.

It won’t matter when the game starts. What will matter is the Sharks, and which version of them decides to show up. You know Easts will be there to play.