NRL’s shortest ever pre-season: How every club is impacted by end-of-year Tests

Welcome to the NRL’s shortest and most-disrupted pre-season ever with a who’s who of Test stars forced to enter 2025 on just seven weeks of preparation.

Welcome to the NRL’s shortest and most-disrupted pre-season ever with a who’s who of Test stars forced to enter 2025 on just seven weeks of preparation.

A gruelling Pacific Championships schedule, early NRL season start in Las Vegas and extended annual leave granted to players under the latest collective bargaining agreement mean up to a dozen players will enter the upcoming season on extremely limited preparation.

The Pacific Championships final is on November 10, six days after Australia’s cricketers start their home ODI campaign against Pakistan.

NRL players then get nine weeks of leave and return to their clubs in mid-January ahead of the season start in Las Vegas on March 1 featuring the Raiders, Warriors, Panthers and Sharks.

Twelve other teams start their season the next week, while one team has the bye in round one and won’t start their season until mid-March.

Assuming the Kangaroos make the final of the Pacific Championships, they have five players on seven-week pre-seasons in Dylan Edwards, Lindsay Smith, Isaah Yeo (Panthers), Hudson Young (Raiders) and Mitch Barnett (Warriors).

Dylan Edwards will have one of the most disrupted pre-season of all players. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

If the Kiwis make the final they have Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Marata Niukore, James Fisher-Harris (Warriors), Scott Sorensen, (Panthers), Joseph Tapine and Matthew Timoko (Raiders).

A stacked Tongan side is also heavily-backed to make the final which would reduce the following players to brief pre-seasons – Paul Alamoti, Soni Luke (Panthers), Sione Katoa and Addin Fonua-Blake (Sharks).

The previous shortest pre-season was in 2015 when Tests finished on November 15 and the NRL season started on March 3, but players had less leave under the previous collective bargaining agreement and therefore had more time to train in the lead up to their season-opener.

CLUBS MOST IMPACTED BY END-OF-SEASON TESTS

* The Panthers have 10 grand finalists taking part in end-of-season Tests. Although their actual toll is harder to work out given three of those are leaving the club in James Fisher-Harris (Warriors), Jarome Luai and Sunia Turuva (both Tigers). But they also have two key recruits taking part in Tests in Isaiah Papali’i and Blaize Talagi. Add in off-season injuries for Nathan Cleary (shoulder), Liam Martin (rib/shoulder), Brian To’o (knee) and Moses Letoa (shoulder), plus a trip to Vegas, and it’s going to be one tough pre-season for the four-time premiers.

* The Sydney Roosters have a total of 20 Test players across both NRLW and NRL. In terms of NRL, nine of those are regular NRL players. Note, Nat Butcher was ruled out of PM’s squad due to illness.

Harry Grant has a tight turnaround to 2025. Picture: AFP

* Storm have seven grand final players playing Tests in Harry Grant, Xavier Coates, Will Warbrick, Tui Kamikamica, Lazarus Vaalepu, Shawn Blore and Eliesa Katoa. Throw in off-season injuries to Cameron Munster (groin) and Jahrome Hughes (neck) and the Storm are sure to be undermanned well into the pre-season.

LEAST IMPACTED

* The Sharks have only two players in Tests squads in Addin Fonua-Blake and Sione Katoa, giving them a huge pre-season advantage over other top four NRL contenders. Ronaldo Mulitalo (knee), Briton Nikora (ankle) and Kayal Iro (hamstring) all withdrew for the Kiwis.

CLUB-BY-CLUB GUIDE