Some have the pieces – depth, returning players, momentum – to vault up the ladder. Others, even if still competitive, could slip simply because of attrition, draw difficulty or squad wear-and-tear.
Below are three clubs who look primed for a jump – and three who may find next year a tougher ask than many expect.
Riser: South Sydney Rabbitohs
A fully fit Latrell Mitchell immediately transforms Souths from a bottom-four side into at least a mid-table attack. In 2025 they were forced to cycle through fullbacks, makeshift centres and experimental spine combinations almost weekly, losing any semblance of structure.
Latrell’s presence isn’t just about metres or try involvements – it’s about how he shapes the entire field. When he’s healthy, Souths play with width, tempo, and their yardage sets shorten dramatically. When he isn’t, the Rabbitohs revert to sideways sets, panic kicks and red-zone waste. A durable Latrell is worth 6–10 competition points on his influence alone.
But the far more stabilising return is Cameron Murray. His absence in 2025 was more damaging than Latrell’s because it removed South Sydney’s midfield organiser, defensive thermostat and ball-playing link.
Without Murray, their middle fell apart: line speed died, defensive spacing collapsed and ruck penalties multiplied. Murray’s engine sets effort standards and his “middle distributor” role unlocks the left edge – and that becomes even more potent with David Fifita now parked there.
Bennett loves using one “non-negotiable” edge weapon, and Fifita becomes his 2026 hammer. With Murray tightening the ruck and Latrell straightening yardage, Fifita becomes a matchup problem every single week, no longer forced to create his own momentum in a dysfunctional spine.
Then there’s the coaching arc: Wayne Bennett’s second season historically produces his cleanest team identity. In year one, he removes ego, hierarchy, bad habits and excuse culture. In year two, he installs role clarity, repeatable yardage patterns, and a defensive accountability system. Souths looked like a team still detoxing in 2025.
What flew under the radar last year were the kids who suddenly had to grow up: Jye Gray, Tallis Duncan, Tyrone Munro (once reinstated). In 2025, they were understandably raw; in 2026 they become the plug-and-play depth that stops the collapse when Latrell or Murray miss a fortnight. Bennett’s great teams always have a Tier B that doesn’t crater, and Souths finally have one.
Projected Swing: 14th to 6th–8th
Riser: Newcastle Knights
After a horror 2025 season that ended in the wooden spoon, Newcastle arrive at 2026 with a very different vibe: a fresh coaching setup, serious reinvestment in spine talent, and a chance to reset the club’s foundations rather than patch them.
The arrival of Dylan Brown is the headline – his 10-year mega-deal represents arguably the boldest “fix” the Knights have attempted for years. That signing alone signals intent: this isn’t just a rebuild, but a bid to re-establish foundational structure in attack and ball-control.
Complimenting Brown is the recruitment of Sandon Smith, a playmaker from the Roosters expected to bring creativity, consistency and goal-kicking options – something Newcastle haven’t reliably had for seasons.
And then there’s Fletcher Sharpe, whose 2025 season was derailed by a serious kidney and spleen injury – but as of late 2025 he’s passed the major medical hurdles and is reportedly “ready to rip into 2026”.
On paper then, the spine – arguably Newcastle’s biggest long-term weak spot – looks significantly strengthened.
A fit Sharpe, Brown’s experience, Smith’s playmaking and a healthy, capable backline give the Knights a spine + back-three combination that can attack, control sets and create yardage.
Beyond the spine, Newcastle have restructured their broader roster. The club’s new-look coaching staff under Justin Holbrook – fresh from the off-season shake-up – have declared that 2026 will be a full rebuild, focusing on consistency, playing to strengths and restoring confidence.
Once a club that suffered from constant reshuffling of halves, forward rotation and positional chaos – a big factor behind their 2025 collapse – Newcastle now have the chance to build stable combinations across the park.
There’s also a psychological and practical advantage: after hitting rock bottom, the pressure of “must-win every week” eases.
That sort of reset can sometimes free players to play with less fear, more cohesion, and renewed commitment. If injury luck is kinder, and if the spine gels early, even a mid-table finish (somewhere between 9th–12th) feels like a realistic – and meaningful – turnaround.
In short: the 2026 Knights are far from a premiership threat. But they might be the most improved club on paper – and if the rebuild clicks, they could go from cellar dwellers to a solid, dangerous mid-table side.
Projected Swing: Wooden spoon → 9th–12th
Riser: Dolphins
If 2025 was the Dolphins learning how to compete, 2026 looks like the year they learn how to finish. They were already on the cusp – ninth, level on wins with finals contenders, and producing one of the most entertaining attacking profiles in the competition.
But where they felt stretched was in their middle rotation, particularly once Thomas Flegler and Tom Gilbert were both sidelined long-term. They didn’t just lose metres and intimidation – they lost shape, ruck control and second-phase organisation.
The most exciting growth area is in the spine and decision-making of Isaiya Katoa. His 2025 wasn’t perfect, but it did show the one thing you can’t coach: composure.
Where younger halves rush to force structure, Katoa increasingly learned when to play short, when to hold width, when to take a tackle and reset. Give him an actual dominant forward platform and his progression curve stops being theoretical and starts being wins.
Out wide, Herbie Farnworth has been everything advertised and arguably more – a two-way centre who defends above his weight, carries with intent, and turns half-chances into tries.
When Flegler and Gilbert return, Herbie stops being asked to take yardage sets like a prop and can go back to being what he is: a strike centre with elite timing. That’s before you factor in the gravitational pull of Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow.
When the Hammer is fit and roaming, defensive lines stop behaving normally – spacing widens, edges jump early, inside defenders over-slide – and all of that feeds into Katoa’s ability to pick his moment rather than chase the game.
Put it together and you get something simple but powerful: the Dolphins finally look like a team with a normal load on their stars. Flegler returns to lead, Gilbert anchors contact, Katoa grows into a conductor, Herbie gets ball early instead of yardage grind, Hammer gets clean grass, not chaos.
If 2025 was a narrow miss, 2026 has the profile of a season where they move from fun to frightening – a team that can score with anyone but now has the middle muscle to suffocate too.
Projected Swing: 9th → 4th–6th
Slider: Canberra Raiders
The Raiders reached the top of the mountain in 2025 – minor premiers for the first time in 35 years. But the way the season ended, and what they’ve lost since, strongly suggests 2026 won’t look like a repeat of the fairy tale.
The straight-sets finals exit was the first red flag. Canberra played with control and maturity for most of the regular season, but as soon as the tempo jumped in September, their structure wilted.
Their right-edge defence, reliable all year, was repeatedly targeted and conceded momentum in big moments. When finals football exposed their lack of a second gear, it confirmed that 2025 was more “peak execution” than “new normal”.
Then came the real destabiliser: Jamal Fogarty’s departure. He wasn’t just a halfback – he was the organiser, tempo controller and the only player in the squad who consistently understood when to play fast versus when to compress and kick long.
Without Fogarty, Canberra lose their tactical metronome. And instead of replacing him with a proven NRL No.7, they are staring at 2026 with a depth chart topped by kids who might become good – but aren’t yet:
- Ethan Sanders: high-IQ, impressive junior organiser, but hasn’t run an NRL pack through a full year.
- Coby Black: superb talent, brilliant at age-level, exceptional ceiling – but still an 18-year-old halfback being asked to replace a captain-level general.
Canberra could be starting 2026 with a literal rookie in the most fragile job in rugby league: managing yardage, kicking to corners, dictating short-side vs long-side usage, controlling ruck speed, and calming the team when momentum swings against them. That isn’t a talent question – that’s a psychological one. You can’t shortcut reps at halfback.
The Raiders still have the muscle memory that won them 2025: a disciplined pack, edge continuity, a hard-working defensive engine, and a coach in Ricky Stuart who can still create siege mentality better than anyone. But the difference between 1st and 6th isn’t effort – it’s polish.
Without Fogarty’s polish, Canberra risk becoming a team that wins field position but not moments.
Projected Swing: 1st → 7th–9th
Slider: Manly Sea Eagles
If there is a genuine collapse candidate in 2026, it is Manly. Not because they lack talent, but because they have reached the point where structural certainty, leadership stability and injury reliability are all sitting on the wrong side of probability.
The post-Daly Cherry-Evans identity vacuum is real. For more than a decade, DCE didn’t just organise sets – he defined how Manly played, how they closed halves, how they handled scoreboard pressure and how they reacted to momentum swings.
Jamal Fogarty is a competent organiser and a steady voice, but competence isn’t command. Fogarty can run shape; he cannot replace the 12-season psychological imprint of a halfback who could change tempo, field position and mentality with a single decision. Manly go from a side with a general to a side with a caretaker, and in tight games that distinction becomes fatal.
The forward losses – Aloiai, Sipley, Lodge, Tevaga – look tidy on a list but chaotic on the field. Manly didn’t just lose depth; they lost collision variety. Suddenly, there is no middle enforcer capable of resetting a defensive set after five straight tackle-wins by the opposition.
Suddenly, the bench isn’t a momentum threat but a survival unit. Across a 24-round season, that becomes death by drag. Second halves get longer. Line speed fades earlier. Penalty counts creep. Yardage becomes labour, not leverage.
And then there is Tom Trbojevic, the eternal hinge point. Every season begins with the same sentence: if Turbo stays fit. But the harsh 2026 framing must acknowledge the other half – when Turbo doesn’t.
Even if he avoids catastrophe, the pattern has been set: 2–4 week absences at multiple points, each one resetting combinations and destroying continuity. When he plays, Manly look like a finals chaser. When he doesn’t, they look like a yardage-by-committee unit hoping field position protects them.
Layer over the psychological bleed of Ruben Garrick’s confirmed 2027 departure. Like DCE’s exit before it, it is not the kind of change that detonates a squad, but it unsettles its emotional spine.
Players don’t collapse – they drift. The future becomes next year, not this one. The roster plays in planning mode, not urgency mode.
Leadership becomes distributed rather than definitive. Trbojevic is too important physically to also carry full cultural load.
Fogarty is too new to carry expectation. No pack forward steps into the role vacated by Aloiai and Lodge. It becomes a quiet team – not broken, just mute in critical phases.
In 2026, Manly don’t unravel. They erode. A club once defined by sharp edges and execution becomes one of soft margins and near-miss footy. They hang in contests but don’t seize them. They have moments, not matches.
And across an eight-month campaign, that is enough to drag them from 10th to the bottom four.
Projected Swing: 10th → 15th–17th
Slider: Melbourne Storm
Melbourne enter 2026 in a significantly changed state. The club has lost a cluster of key contributors – men whose game-impact and leadership helped carry them through previous seasons – which might leave the Storm weaker, slower and more vulnerable than many realise.
First, there’s the loss of the intimidating, physical engine in the pack: Nelson Asofa-Solomona has departed after a storied 215-game career with the Storm. The “wrecking-ball” forward and classic Storm middle-third presence isn’t easily replaced.
His departure strips the team of both collision power and a forward identity that underpinned many of their clutch forward sets and defensive stands.
Then comes the tragic absence of Eliesa Katoa – last season’s standout back-rower – who has been ruled out for the entire 2026 NRL season following a brain bleed sustained while representing Tonga and subsequent head-injury surgery. That’s a major hit: not just for go-forward and edge-running punch, but for balance across the pack, second-phase strength, and defensive grunt under heat.
On top of that, their back-three and spine have taken blows too. Ryan Papenhuyzen – once among the most dangerous fullbacks in the league – has walked away from his 2026 deal (effectively retiring from the Storm), leaving a gap in speed, counter-attack threat and broken-field potential.
And the club has lost several other peripheral contributors – including youngsters and depth edges like Jonah Pezet, Bronson Garlick and Grant Anderson – further thinning the cushion against attrition and fatigue.
Collectively, that’s not a handful of minor tweaks – it’s a wholesale reset of what powered their pack and spine for years. In a competition as cruel and close as the NRL, that kind of turnover doesn’t just make for vulnerability – it often leads to a slide.
But losses aren’t the only problem. Melbourne’s 2026 draw appears particularly brutal. With fresh threats reloaded at most clubs and forwards across the competition reinforced, the Storm will get no easy rides.
Without their usual forward grunt, their edge-running or middle-third strength – both compromised – they will be under constant pressure to grind for territory, defend longer sets, and create chances with limited strike power. Over 24 rounds, that’s exactly the kind of drain that eats at depth, stamina and consistency.
Finally, the psychological edge and organisational cohesion the Storm relied on may take a hit. Teams like Melbourne often survive lean patches because their identity is ingrained: the right effort, tackle count, discipline, and structure.
But when key players leave – the heavy centres, the strike backs, the hard-running edges – that identity becomes harder to maintain. Wavering confidence, inconsistent metres, and less go-forward means they’re more likely to lose tight games than beat them – and over a long season, tight games decide ladder positions.
Projected Swing: 2nd → 7th-10th
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