NRL 2025: Los Angeles fires force change of plans for Cronulla Sharks’ Las Vegas preparations

The devastating fires ripping through southern California have forced the Cronulla Sharks to make late changes to their preparations for their NRL season opener in Las Vegas.

Devastating fires ripping through southern California have forced Cronulla to make a late change to their preparations for Las Vegas.

The Sharks were set to spend five nights in Los Angeles before meeting the remaining teams in Sin City ahead of the season opener, but that has been cut back to four as they struggled to locate a suitable training field for their main session of the week.

The squad will be out of danger in downtown LA at the historic Biltmore Hotel, but the catastrophic fires, which have now killed 27 people over the past few weeks, have complicated plans.

Cronulla are the only travelling NRL team to make a detour prior to landing in Vegas for the March 1 blockbuster, with Penrith, Canberra and the Warriors all heading directly to the city to prepare.

Sharks football manager Mark Noakes has been working around the clock to lock in a final itinerary.

The Sharks will take on the Panthers in Las Vegas. Picture: NRL Photos

“We were leaving here on Thursday the 20th, and we were going to do Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday night and then do our main session on Tuesday in LA and then fly (to Vegas), but because of what’s happened recently unfortunately with the fires and all the confusion over there, it was just easier, I couldn’t really facilitate a field for us,” he said.

“So we’re going to Vegas a day early on the Monday, and will do our main training session on the Tuesday in Vegas.”

In the lead up, the Sharks will train at the University of Southern California, which was unavailable for the squad’s main session, while backup plans with LA Galaxy couldn’t be confirmed until a week out from the trip.

The lobby of the Biltmore Hotel in LA.

The uncertainty of weather in the area meant the risk was too big to bank on.

They will now do their main session of the week at James Regional Sports Park, before facing Penrith in the round one blockbuster on Saturday night.

Panthers, Raiders and Warriors all arrive in town around February 20 and will stay at the sprawling Resort World Complex, while the Australian and English women’s teams have been booked into the Park MGM on the heart of the strip.

All teams have access to field training facilities booked by the NRL, and will do weights at the state of the art UFC gym.

The Sharks are the only team to do it differently.

Noakes said he looked hard at what the Roosters did to prepare ahead of last year’s event and tried to model their plans accordingly.

He visited the States in November on a reconnaissance mission, staying at the Biltmore and getting a feel for LA traffic and training grounds before joining staff from rival clubs on a tour of Allegiant Stadium and Las Vegas.

“It was amazing,” he said of the trip.

“(To go to LA), we wanted to give (the players) an experience, we didn’t want to be in Las Vegas for the whole time.

“The first few days will just be a bit of downtime and to have the experience of being in America, a lot of them haven’t been before.”