There's no debate - New Zealand must be granted the 20th NRL team
Canterbury must stop getting cute with Preston
Canterbury should retain Jacob Preston before November 1 turns a manageable negotiation into open warfare. The mail out of Belmore is that he wants to stay, loves the club and recognises it gave him the opportunity he seized with both hands, yet the opening offer was surprisingly low.
I understand the cap squeeze when Matt Burton and Stephen Crichton are each earning $1 million, but Preston has probably been Canterbury’s most consistent player through the uncertainty around the halves and defence. His combination with Locky Galvin on the right is becoming dangerous, too, and continuity like that is worth paying for.
I reckon the deal gets done, but Canterbury must substantially improve its offer. Otherwise Perth, PNG and Parramatta could enter the conversation, and loyalty becomes much harder to sell once rival clubs start attaching numbers to it.
PNG must buy forwards, not another billboard
The PNG Chiefs have assembled recognisable names, but the next phase must be about building a football team rather than collecting glossy brochures. Jarome Luai, Joseph Manu, Zac Lomax and Alex Johnston give the venture profile; now it needs forwards capable of making the whole thing function.
I reckon PNG’s interest in Talis Duncan may have prompted South Sydney to sharpen its offer, while the extraordinary November 1 back-row market provides plenty of possible targets. The harder question is who will embrace the lifestyle.
A younger, unattached player could view compound living and the financial upside as a short, lucrative sacrifice, while a family man may appreciate the deliberately created family environment. Both theories have merit. The certainty is that PNG cannot keep adding marquee backs while trying to complete a top-30 roster. The engine room now matters more than the red carpet.
The Warriors have killed the injury excuse
The Warriors are no longer a romantic nearly-team; they are a serious club because recruitment, retention and pathways are finally working together. Since Andrew Webster arrived, James Fisher-Harris, Mitch Barnett, Kurt Capewell and Aaron Clark have joined, while Australian players including Capewell, Tanah Boyd and Jackson Ford have wanted to stay.
More impressive is what happens when somebody goes down. Luke Metcalf and Barnett have been absent, Boyd tore his ACL, and the side has still rolled through weekly changes without reaching for the violin. Te Maire Martin has emerged as a genuine halfback, while the production line beneath the NRL side keeps supplying forwards and back-rowers.
That is why the Warriors can trouble Penrith, although I still expect the Panthers to be extremely strong. Dylan Edwards’ absence is significant against better opponents, and there should not be much between them.
Give New Zealand the 20th team
The argument that a second New Zealand side will cannibalise the Warriors is wrong. The Dolphins have not necessarily cannibalised Brisbane or North Queensland, and genuine competition creates more pathways, supporters and commercial weight rather than merely slicing the same pie thinner.
Rugby union remains ingrained in New Zealand culture, almost as a religion, so talk of rugby league overtaking it is premature. That does not mean the NRL should politely surrender the territory. A South Island side would build on the Warriors’ work and give the code another powerful foothold.
Yes, three new teams mean roughly another 90 players, which will dilute the immediate standard and force clubs to promote talent earlier. Perth may struggle and PNG remains an unknown quantity. Expansion is a 10-year project, not a sugar hit, but the 20th licence should go to New Zealand because that is where the hunger and upside meet.
Penrith’s empire is built in the boardroom
Penrith remain the competition’s benchmark because they value players better than everyone else, then refuse to panic when somebody leaves. Their recruitment committee is understood to contain 11 or 12 voices, with Ivan Cleary and Greg Alexander highly influential alongside coaches and recruitment staff, and the process drills into character, family, friendships, strengths and weaknesses.
The crucial part, though, is the price. Penrith set a valuation, refuse to budge and keep the pathways moving underneath it. That discipline has survived major departures and left them on target for five premierships in six seasons.
Brisbane show the opposite danger: an outstanding top 17 can still be undermined when players 17 to 30 lack quality. The Broncos have the strongest roster in the NRL but missed the finals this year. Talent wins matches; cap management keeps winning clubs alive.
Perth need Munster more than another safe signing
Morgan Smithies is a good signing and I think Junior Paulo will eventually follow, but Cameron Munster is the player Perth must pursue with genuine intent. An expansion club needs more than dependable professionals; it needs a face, a creative focal point and somebody capable of dragging a new team through ugly afternoons.
The Eels clearly believe he may leave and have started sounding out Moses Leota for the following season.
Munster is the bigger prize. Perth’s interest has never got off the tarmac, despite earlier conversations and possible renewed interest this year. Sharpen the pencil. A fullback can be found; the personality and football instincts Munster brings cannot be manufactured in a committee meeting.
The Titans finally have a direction
Gold Coast are improving, even if the scoreboard has not caught up. Zane Harrison has enormous potential, Jayden Campbell has been designated the five-eighth, and the repetitions in that combination are finally replacing years of shuffling players through fullback and the halves.
The Titans have scored 30 points only three times this year, so the attack remains a problem, but Oliver Pascoe’s rise from blue-collar work and a long Queensland Cup apprenticeship captures the new optimism. Josh Hannay wants to build around the local nursery, and the club must ensure Harrison never reaches November 1.
The Cowboys should still have enough experience and attacking strike to win at Cbus Super Stadium, but after an 82-point hammering by the Roosters, this is a character test rather than a routine assignment. Reuben Cotter, Jason Taumalolo, Coen Hess and Scott Drinkwater cannot disappear again.
The Red V have finally stopped drifting
The Dragons will collect the wooden spoon, but their recruitment and retention give supporters legitimate reason to look beyond it. Dean Young has his hands on the steering wheel, while Daniel Anderson deserves substantial credit for the decisions being made at the recruitment coalface.
On face value, the Dragons have recruited better than any club for next season, adding six or seven players while retaining a significant group. That is a sharp reversal from the early ridicule about a supposed dad’s army.
Parramatta deserve criticism for failing to match that urgency, while the Tigers remain trapped in another rebuild after planning around Jarome Luai and then losing that future. The Dragons are still at the bottom, but at least they have chosen a road out. Some clubs are still circling the roundabout.
Johnny Gibbs faces the fight that matters
Football arguments can wait when one of the game’s good men is fighting Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Johnny Gibbs, a former Manly and Australian player, receives his blood-work results after a difficult period.
He is an absolute champion and a very good man. I have no doubt he will punch his way through this fight, and everyone around rugby league is entitled to hope the next news is the right news.
