Round 4 upsets prove competition wide open

Round 4 presented an opportunity for the competitions top contenders a chance to consolidate their position on the ladder. Instead, upsets gave three clubs a massive boost and destroyed tipsters rounds.

The New Zealand Warriors, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and Melbourne Storm all went in as favourites, all came away empty handed. A Luai-less Tigers fought back across the ditch, under-strength Newcastle Knights outfit beat Canterbury and the North Queensland Cowboys ran down Melbourne in Townsville after a stunning late surge.

For three clubs with top-four ambitions, it was a rough day at the office. For everyone else, it was a reminder that this season is far from written.

Tigers stun the Warriors in Auckland

The Warriors were three from three, sitting atop the ladder and preparing to equal their best-ever start to a season. The Tigers were missing Jarome Luai with a knee injury and hadn't won at Go Media Stadium since 2016. None of that mattered. Down 10-0, Benji Marshall's side rallied strongly to open up the Warriors' defence and finished with six tries to three, posting a 32-14 upset.

Marshall called it "probably the most resilient performance I've seen from the team for a long time," while Warriors coach Andrew Webster was blunt about what went wrong. "We're very frustrated. We missed the mark tonight... we know what we've got to work on," he said. The loss denied the Warriors a shot at their equal-best start to an NRL season in their history.

Knights expose Bulldogs again

Newcastle arrived without key names and still led 16-0 at halftime, controlling the game from the jump despite losing a forward to the sin bin inside ten minutes. When Canterbury made their push after the break, it lasted about six minutes before Dominic Young put the result to bed with two tries in nine minutes, finishing with a hat-trick. Hooker Phoenix Crossland played 40 of his 77 minutes with a broken nose. Jacob Saifiti spent the first half bending Canterbury's defensive line back and laying the platform for everything that followed.

Holbrook was unambiguous about what the win meant. "We needed everyone to play great, and they all stuck their hand up," he said. "We had to save some tries, which we did a few times. Canterbury don't give you much, so we knew we were going to have to take our chances today, and we were good enough to do that." When asked if it was Newcastle's best win of the year, he was equally direct. "I think so. Round one was really important for us... but to have a few games now and have a couple of key guys missing, to come here and beat the Bulldogs, definitely." The Knights are now 3-1 and sitting fourth. The Bulldogs slip to 2-2 and the questions are no longer theoretical.

Storm let another one go - and Payten gets a lifeline

After conceding a 14-0 lead against Brisbane last week, Melbourne did it again. The Cowboys scored three tries in eight minutes to overturn a 24-14 deficit and win 28-24, inflicting back-to-back losses on a Storm side that hadn't lost consecutive games since the start of the 2025 season.

For Todd Payten, the result meant something beyond three competition points. The Cowboys coach has operated under genuine scrutiny heading into 2026, with questions mounting about whether he had the playing group with him. "Everyone's held their nerve in the building - the playing group - it was disappointing to lose in Vegas, the second week in Sydney that's not us, but I've seen enough and watched enough to know what a good footy team looks like and we didn't deviate and we won't," he said. On the comeback itself, Payten was clear about where credit belonged. "Yeah, 10 points down with 10 minutes to go, we grabbed momentum and held it - I've got to give it to our game drivers, how calm and connected they were in those moments in particular." A side that has checked out doesn't do that.

What it means

Four rounds in, Penrith sit unbeaten on top. Below them, the ladder is genuinely scrambled. Newcastle are 3-1 despite missing elite talent. The Tigers are 3-1 under Marshall and playing with a belief that wasn't there a year ago. North Queensland have steadied after a shaky start. Meanwhile Canterbury and Melbourne - two clubs many had circled as top-four certainties - are both sitting at 2-2 with real concerns around their ability to close games out. Nobody has run away with this competition yet, and this weekend did nothing to change that.

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