2025 NRL Love/Hate

All the things that are making me tick ahead of the 2025 NRL season.

We made it team.

While the summer of sport is always a blast for me, the absence of a certain 199cm all-rounder from the Australian cricket team has left me longing for something green that gives me intoxicating highs and nauseating lows as a fan. Luckily, the Canberra Raiders and rugby league is back on my TV screen and like many, I am ready and raring to go for another season.

To help with the wait (and to give me a break from designing old video game covers), I’ve put together a list of a bunch of things that I am loving heading into this season, alongside a few things I’m a lot less keen on. Don’t worry, it won’t be anything like Dean Ritchie’s infamous list of hates, which predominantly focused on players celebrating and generally enjoying playing football. This one more so focuses on a bunch of trivial things and coaching decisions that have me scratching my head on the seasons eve. Enjoy!

LOVE

The first month of the season

Fans of every team are brimming with hope, there’s new players wearing new jerseys, maybe 9 or Fox League have a new score graphic, the early evening games start in the daylight (and an hour early in Brisbane), there’s very little contract, Origin or off-field talk, it’s just pure, ethical rugby league.

Jarome Luai on the Tigers

One of the most polarising players in the league leaves a premiership four-peat to try and resurrect a team on a wooden spoon three-peat, how can it not be entertaining? I find it hard to say I like Jarome Luai a lot of the time, but I love the personality he brings to the game and I cannot wait to see how he goes carrying the weight of a beaten down franchise on his shoulders. I’ll be backing him to kill it, but either way it’s going to be must-watch TV.

Reece Walsh v Kalyn Ponga

I just said that early season rugby league is better without Origin talk, but it’s my Substack and I can pick and choose when I want to be hypocritical. This battle between two of the best players in the game for the Queensland #1 jersey is going to be box office. Red hot selection shoot-outs like this happen so rarely north of the border, with key spine positions so often picking themselves. Having two genuine superstars, who create so much discussion on their own accord, vying for the one spot… cinema. Honourable mention: Luai, Cleary & Moses into 2.

Heritage Jerseys are so back

It feels like the best four or five jerseys every year at the moment are heritage jerseys. From the Broncos diamonds and Warriors OGs last year to the Eels and Dogs throwbacks already launched this year, it’s so good seeing teams revisit some of their best ever aesthetics, even if it is only for a couple of games. Next year can we please get some clubs to commit to these jerseys and sponsor integration full time?

The NRL weirdly nailing Vegas

There is no greater tradition in rugby league than the code shooting itself in the foot whenever an exciting opportunity for growth arises, so it’s an incredible surprise that the NRL have nailed the Vegas experience. One of the main takeaways from the inaugural event was the amount of English fans who made the journey, so I love using it as a way to mix the NRL, Super League and International Game into one event. Yes, a lot of the Vegas merchandise the teams roll out is tacky, and this PVL video is, um, better left unsaid… but it’s cool to see the game broadening it's horizons and taking shots at new markets.

The Raiders living in bottom four predictions… again

There’s no place like home. The Raiders have not finished below 10th since 2014. They’ve not ‘won’ a wooden spoon since 1982. They were miserable for large parts of 2024 and finished 9th. Every year they find themselves in these predictions and every year they prove them wrong. See you here next year.

Movement for player surnames on jerseys

Heartbreaking: The worst person you know just made a great point. The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs have kickstarted the process of putting player surnames on jerseys, something that has felt overdue for many years. While I don’t think it will come to fruition this year, it’s exciting to finally see this getting some traction.

The Magic Round Shake-Up

While Magic Round continues to be the greatest weekend of the year, the Broncos v Sea Eagles match up had become increasingly stale and was in desperate need of a shake up. The Broncos game should always be the peak of the weekend as a neutral and in the last few seasons the atmosphere has felt flat despite a packed house and Broncos wins. Moving their game to the prime-time Sunday afternoon slot and pitting them against the four time reigning premiers already has me kicking my feet and giggling (Sunday single day tickets sold out in early January).

The Pre-Season Challenge

I can already feel people screaming at me, so hear me out… Pretending the pre-season matters? Incredibly dumb. Incentivising teams to offload more to try and win a meaningless trophy? Comical. BUT… Now having pre-season fixtures broadcast in HD on TV is so, so much better than when us perverts had to watch dodgy streams from rural areas on club websites that made the production value on a Sheffield Shield stream look like a Denis Villeneuve film. Yes, the commentators pretending the score matters is cringe and the Raiders playing at GIO on a Thursday was utter woke nonsense, but for me the positives of the viewing experience far outweigh the negatives.

HATE

Easy rule changes that still haven’t been made

Why are we still giving seven tackle sets when a player knocks the ball on while trying to score? Why are we still letting games be ruined by an early injury to an outside back when a fresh 18th man sits there unable to be used? Fix it Peter!

Sneaky contract clauses

I’m all for players maximising their options and earning as much as they can in their short careers, but it sucks for fans when you think a player has re-signed for your club long term only to find out later that they can get-out every year or two. Titans fan(s) shouldn’t have to be up at night wondering if they’re going to lose David Fifita every six months.

Eels Full Yellow Strip

I’ve tried to like it… I promise I have! I know some people love it and for them, I’m truly happy. Me? I really, really hate it!

The Titans Spine

So many players I love, all shoehorned into weird spots that don’t suit their natural game. AJ Brimson has never looked as comfortable in the halves, I’m having a hard time picturing Jayden Campbell as a genuine halfback and Kieran Foran as a Mr-Fix-It utility at 35 feels strange. That’s all without mentioning former Wallabies fly-half Carter Gordon, who has a mysterious back injury and seems to be on the outside looking in regardless. I like so many players on this Titans roster but seeing it all together just doesn’t look right. Hopefully I’m wrong.

The Knights halves merry-go-round

Last year the Knights tried Tyson Gamble, Jackson Hastings, Jack Cogger, Will Pryce and Phoenix Crossland in the halves, all of whom are still on the roster and none of which were able to nail the job. Despite this mess, they were still able to play the finals!

Now Fletcher Sharpe is reportedly leading the race to start the year at five-eighth, a player that I like but a move that feels like another hit and hope from Adam O’Brien. Surely they can’t go another year with so much disruption?

Fugly Sponsors

I briefly mentioned it earlier but the state of some of the sponsor integration on jerseys this season is bloody dire. Between Pepper Money and The Lottery Office, we might be looking at some of the worst sponsor aesthetics we’ve seen since WOW Sight and Sound brought kids around Brisbane to tears in the late 2000s.

WOW: I mean seriously!

Only three premiers since 2017

Experts say that fans love dynasties, so maybe I’m in the minority, but seeing the Storm, Panthers and Roosters play in the biggest games of the season (and the Tigers anchored at the bottom) almost every year for the past decade has become tiresome. This season looks as bleak as ever in regard to contenders outside of Penrith and Melbourne, so here’s hoping someone (anyone) can finally rock the boat.