The NRL is doing pretty well lately. Last week’s annual report contained numbers any code would crow about. Record revenue, record TV viewership, record crowds, a booming women’s game, an eight-figure surplus, an international game that’s starting to look half-decent. No wonder Peter V’landys felt good enough to make more of his trademark digs at union and the AFL.
Even if V’landys’ simping for Donald Trump to show up at the season launch in Vegas pays off and he says or does something consistent with his being Donald Trump, it’s hard to see how the NRL in 2025 can screw up this golden era. The game is faster and more telegenic than ever. There’s only one wrinkle: even in this glittering new age, the game is threatening to become predictable.
Since 2021, the NRL has been asking one question: “Who can beat the Panthers?” Every year, the answer has been the same: no one. Penrith have now won four premierships in a row. They’ve seemingly overcome the NRL’s built-in anti-dynasty safeguards like the salary cap, and could well fulfil Phil Gould’s prediction in 2023 that they will win five or six in a row.
Comparisons between the Panthers and the Parramatta Eels of the early ‘80s are over. Comparisons with the St George Dragons side that won 11 (eleven) in a row in the ‘50s and ‘60s are less than useful – back then rugby league didn’t have four-point tries, five-tackle sets or the 10-metre offside rule. Two AFL clubs have won three-peats this century – Hawthorn in 2013-14-15 and the Brisbane Lions in 2001-02-03. Collingwood managed to win four in a row during the Great Depression.
To understand the sheer rarity of what the Panthers have done (or are still doing), we have to look further afield. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, the best quarterback-coach partnership in NFL history, never won more than two consecutive Super Bowls. The Kansas City Chiefs, led by a generational talent in Patrick Mahomes, won two in a row before spectacularly blowing their chance to win three. Steph Curry in his prime took the Golden State Warriors to three non-consecutive NBA championships between 2015 and 2018. Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant’s Lakers won a three-peat from 2000 to 2002. The almighty ‘90s-era Chicago Bulls won two, and probably would have stitched together eight championships in a row if it weren’t for Michael Jordan’s two-year stint in minor-league baseball.
The nearest contemporary team in a major professional sporting league with a record roughly like the Panthers is Manchester City, the all-conquering, all-hated Goliath of the Premier League. The comparison isn’t really fair to the Panthers – they don’t have Gulf monarchy petro-dollars, for one. Most of their players are homegrown, for another. Even if the salary cap didn’t exist, it’s hard to imagine they’d be forking out more than AU$2.1bn for their roster, as Man City are. Nor do they have allegations of rampant financial wrongdoing against them.
Whatever the reasons for it, Man City’s dominance over the last 13 years has been undeniable. For everyone besides diehard City fans, the numbing predictability of their supremacy has also been tortuous.
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The NRL is not there yet. But the gap between the top of the comp and everyone else is now very wide. With the core of Penrith’s squad signed until at least 2027, it doesn’t show many signs of closing. While they’ve lost James Fisher-Harris and Jarome Luai, they’ve shrugged off big losses before.
Besides the Storm and maybe the Roosters, there are very few teams that have a realistic chance of challenging for the premiership. With two more teams due to enter the comp by 2028, the NRL’s pool of players is only going to get stretched thinner. And the Panthers’ production line of young homegrown talent is still without equal.
The NRL’s greatest strength is that it can still tell compelling stories. Watching the Warriors go on a dream run in 2023, or the Bulldogs finally make the finals last year, was enormous – not only for fans of both teams, but for the code’s wider fanbase.
But sports leagues live and die on their competitiveness. If the Panthers juggernaut keeps on rolling, sooner or later it’s going to get harder to keep casual and potential fans interested. Though they’d never admit it, V’landys and co must be quietly hoping that 2025 is the year someone – anyone – finally ends the Panthers’ dream run.
