Corey Parker: What a perfect off-season looks like at your NRL club, as every team reboots for 2025
The slate is wiped clean and all NRL fans can dare to dream again. COREY PARKER breaks down every team’s ideal off-season, with big questions over a stack of star players.
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While memories of season 2024 are still fresh, for better or worse, the slate is clean again as every NRL club looks to next year.
How can your team make it a bigger, better season? What needs to go right in pre-season to give them every chance of success in 2025?
Here are my thoughts on what constitutes the perfect off-season for each club.
Wests Tigers
After four straight premierships at Penrith, Jarome Luai arrives at the club to reunite with his hooker for two of those titles, Api Koroisau, and to partner a bright young halves prospect in Lachie Galvin. If those guys click decently through pre-season, perhaps there’s some light at the end of the tunnel.
Though Jarome’s arrival at the Tigers will be delayed by Samoa’s tour of England, he’ll no doubt give the club a boost of class, confidence and energy. He’ll have a fair say in what goes on with that team from the outset – but make no mistake, he’s going to have his work cut out. Moving to the Tigers will really test his leadership credentials.
If this is to be a great off-season, the Tigers finally have to come to grips with what is required to succeed in the NRL. Benji Marshall has to find the non-negotiables that have been missing from the place for so long and hammer them home. Things that sound simple, like hard work, sacrifice and dedication. After so long in the doldrums, the Tigers need to live and breathe those things, on and off the field. Again, Jarome’s experience of success can help, but there just needs to be a conscious shift in how they do everything at that club, or they’ll just find themselves in the same situation.
Honestly, I don’t expect much from the Tigers again next season, but fans have some reason to hope that it won’t be more of the utter doom and gloom that three consecutive wooden spoons have imposed. Getting Jarome there is great, but he’s gone from a club that has entrenched standards of success to one hasn’t been where it needs to be for a long time. Here’s hoping that finally changes.
Rabbitohs
A full pre-season under Wayne Bennett and his unrivalled man-management is the ideal start for getting South Sydney back on track for success. By all reports, Wayne has already made it pretty well known what he requires from the team when they return, given such a talented roster dropped to second-last this year amid the exit of coach Jason Demetriou.
There’s just no way that this squad belongs in 16th place. If the players buy into Wayne’s vision for the team from the outset, then there’s no reason they won’t soar right back up the ladder.
The fate of the Rabbitohs has always seemed to depend on their cohesiveness and bonds within the squad. Wayne will bring that back and make sure everyone is working hard. Latrell Mitchell and Cody Walker, if they’re happy, having fun and giving 100 per cent, can put themselves back in the spotlight for all the right reasons and lead this team back to the NRL’s pointy end.
Eels
Making the big call to move Clint Gutherson out of fullback, to introduce more speed via Isaiah Iongi, was the right decision for mine, even though I’ve always loved Gutho’s competitiveness. If it’s now best that he switches clubs rather than stick around in a lesser role, then so be it. When you finish close to last, change is inevitable unless you want a repeat, and new leadership is coming from both the playing group and the coach.
Players can get comfortable and complacent with the same coach for too long, so it was probably the right time for Parramatta to split with Brad Arthur. Jason Ryles can coach, there’s no two ways about that. Yet to put pressure on him to turn around this club within 10 rounds, in his first head coaching appointment, is too much. The saviour narrative gets a fair workout at the Eels, after nearly 40 years without a premiership, and they’ll want to keep that quiet.
This pre-season needs to bring a change to their style of play. That’s already begun via the Gutho decision and the call to release Reagan Campbell-Gillard, with an eye to more mobility and leg speed through the middle. With international halves Mitchell Moses and Dylan Brown running the show, the Eels still have some big players to build around. Yet defensive attitude is a big one too: having played in a grand final just two years ago, they were this season’s second-worst defensive team, with their 716 points against trailing only the Tigers.
I expect Parramatta to climb the ladder next season, though by how much is up to them. They’ve certainly got too many talented players to be stuck near the bottom. Having identified what needed changing then making the tough decisions, now it’s time to make the best of a fresh start.
Titans
I’ve been saying this for a number of years and hopefully this is the pre-season where it finally happens: the Titans need to find a genuine toughness about them. I think we saw that at different points in Des Hasler’s first season, but it must become a non-negotiable and it has to be led by the senior players when they’re slogging it out over summer. The arrival of Campbell-Gillard will help with that, on top of having Tino Fa’asuamaleaui back from injury.
Gold Coast show in glimpses that they can compete with the best teams, but then they aren’t tough enough to stay in the grind. Their training standards, starting with pre-season, need to reach an elite level that breeds ingrained toughness. I’d be ramping up the gruelling situations for long periods of time heading into 2025, so that dealing with pain and fatigue becomes muscle memory, and the let-downs during games are a thing of the past.
Look at that pack. Tino, RCG, Mo Fotuaika, David Fifita and Beau Fermor, plus Isaac Liu and Joe Stimson if they can rediscover some past form. It’s a great pack, with some wonderful outside backs alongside, so they should be much higher on the ladder than what they are.
One thing that the club needs to make a clear call on sooner rather than later: Ben Hunt. They need to ask themselves, ‘Where are we going with the halfback spot?’ If it’s again not Benny this season but he’s signed for 2026, then you’re finding a stop-gap for this year. And by the time he arrives for 2026, he’ll be almost 36 years old and right near the end of his career. Ben’s a great player but that makes for a very short-sighted move, so perhaps it’s time to move on; either put the time and effort into a young half, or identify another signing target.
Warriors
The Warriors have the players and the coach to make a resurgence into the top eight. The 2023 campaign was all ‘Up the Wahs’ and their emotional run to the prelim finals gave rugby league a massive lift in New Zealand. This season didn’t live up to expectations, so you start by looking at what was done differently from one year to the next and revert to what was successful last year.
The simple version of what went wrong this season: consistency. It just wasn’t up to the standard that was set last year. I don’t see it as a huge problem to fix, but they’ll want to start by resetting the standards on all their important little efforts in pre-season.
James Fisher-Harris is a big arrival, albeit covering a major loss in Addin Fonua-Blake. JFH’s leadership Monday-Friday will help just as much as his performances on the field, and they added another senior head last season in Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, somewhat easing the exit of Shaun Johnson. On top of Tohu Harris, Mitch Barnett is now an Origin and Test player, Kurt Capewell offers plenty of experience, so leadership isn’t a problem. They need those guys to hold everyone accountable, starting over summer.
The halves picture is interesting with Johnson gone, but there are strong options. Chanel Harris-Tavita is a very good and diligent half; he can do a job steering around the team and is defensively strong. Luke Metcalf is earmarked as a long-term NRL playmaker and has shown that he can become that, while Te Maire Martin is also in the mix. If they can land on the preferred combination early and give it plenty of time to gel, then there’s still ample class alongside them, starting with Wayde Egan at hooker and Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad at fullback.
Broncos
One word: accountability. That’s what is needed at Brisbane this pre-season and throughout 2025. That will come in all shapes and forms, right from day one under new coach Michael Maguire. He will demand that each player holds themselves to high standards and makes themselves accountable to their teammates. Once there’s genuine accountability in a team, it doesn’t matter if you’re a rookie or a Test player – everyone, every day, is charged with upholding winning values. Those who don’t need to be pulled up and told it’s not good enough.
Don’t think you’re bigger than the team. Don’t think you’re better than anyone else. Be accountable for every training session and every single thing you do during the week, and then be accountable for your performances all season. Simple in theory but hard in practice – yet it’s the only way to win. Clubs like Penrith and Melbourne have mastered it, while others have struggled to follow.
Talent is not an issue at Brisbane. Yet this season, players were not genuinely held accountable and the result was 12th place on the ladder and the exit of Kevin Walters as coach. I have no doubt that Madge won’t have the same problem; he’ll be at the forefront of driving high standards, which has brought him success with teams at every level of rugby league. If the players get on board, they’ll bounce back into the top four next season.
As with all clubs, the senior players are key. At strong clubs, you get a player like Reece Walsh come into the team and he’s immediately exposed to senior players who live and breathe elite values. Then there’s just no scope for problems. You may get a young player with a bit of bravado, who wants to dance outside the lines and see what they can get away with, but ultimately they fall into step. At clubs with poor leadership and no accountability, you instead get problems. Once the Broncos find that genuine accountability, they’ll be a far better football side and premiership contenders once more.
Dragons
The Red V are still are work in progress. We saw at the back end of this season that they were thereabouts as a finals side, yet ultimately were brought undone by inconsistency. Have they got the team to make the top eight next season? Just. I thought they did a good job this season with the players at their disposal, before just letting it slip.
Shane Flanagan is a good coach, as a premiership in 2016 tells you. He gets the most out of his players and I’ve got no doubt that with another year, and another pre-season, under their belt with Flanno that they’ll be a more consistent side. We’ve spoken about accountability – Flanno is big on that with his players.
Zac Lomax is a big loss, yet they’ve been able to grab experienced players like Damien Cook and Val Holmes. I expect them to be hunting for a top-eight spot.
Given that they don’t have rock stars right across the park, the Dragons need to focus on becoming a rock-solid team, particularly in defence; for which they rated just 13th this season. They need players 1-17 all delivering a seven or eight out of 10 game every week. More talented sides can get away with three or four guys playing 5/10 and some superstars producing 9/10, but the Dragons don’t have that luxury. Getting the confidence to turn up and perform every weekend only comes when you’ve done the preparation in pre-season. If you train every day at no lower than 7/10, then that translates to games and the Dragons will be up for it when they need to be.
Dolphins
Building depth is the big focus for the Dolphins, both in pre-season and from here on under new head coach Kristian Woolf. We’ve seen the club’s DNA form in the initial two seasons under Wayne Bennett, having a decent crack in season one before steady improvement in season two. Now comes the hard slog of building into a club with prospects for long-term success.
The Dolphins’ 1-17 is pretty strong, but then their depth starts to fall away. Kristian has brought in his brother – Ben, formerly an assistant coach with the Dragons – to look after players 18-35, up-skilling them and trying to lift the overall standard of the playing squad. The NRL team can only benefit from that.
The Dolphins have some very good players: Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, Herbie Farnworth, Jake Averillo, Isaiya Katoa, Jeremy Marshall-King and Max Plath, while Daniel Saifiti and Kulikefu Finefeuiaki are coming to the club, and Tom Gilbert returns from an ACL. Everyone in the game has their fingers crossed that Tom Flegler can return from his serious shoulder problems. They went mighty close to the top-eight this year and if the depth is improved, I expect them to play finals next season.
While Wayne has been a notoriously tough act to follow, I expect Kristian to really make a go of his first NRL head coaching appointment. Between the UK Super League and the Tongan Test team, he’s got a stack of runs on the board. I’ve been under Woolfy as a player and he blends real care for his players with a stern approach to the task at hand. He know exactly where he’s going and what he wants his football teams to achieve. Wayne is in the phase of his career where a lot of his coaching is man-management, so Kristian has already been doing a lot of the heavy lifting for the Dolphins on game style and other nitty-gritty parts of the job. He’ll change a few things now that he’s the clear No.1 man, but it won’t be a big shift from what they’ve already been doing together. I think it will be a seamless transition.
Raiders
For a young team, simply being a year older and having another pre-season under their belts will be a big plus. Guys like Kaeo Weekes and Xavier Savage now know what it’s like to play first grade and compete with the best players in our game every weekend. They’ll be much better for that experience. Matt Timoko was probably a bit down on the form that we saw last year, but he’s certainly a talent, as is Sebastian Kris.
The key role for them to get sorted ASAP is hooker. It’s been an issue ever since Josh Hodgson left. They’ve got a great bunch of forwards, led by Joe Tapine, Josh Papalii and Hudson Young, while Elliott Whitehead moves on. I’d just love to see that pack be used more effectively, which typically is a primary function of the No.9. Some more creativity there would really alleviate the pressure on halves Ethan Strange and Jamal Fogarty, and in future Ethan Sanders.
Sanders looks a genuine NRL half, though you can’t expect him to set the world on fire next year. He’s a work in progress and they’ll want to manage his development. It’s safe to say that Strange will be a star, and Fogarty can keep providing decent service at halfback for now.
The Raiders are a gritty, tough footy side, but I’d like to see more creativity and execution, particularly out of the No.9. Having still not answered that question within their own squad, it feels like the time to go to market and sign somebody. And for now, do you stick with Tom Starling and hope to get more from him? Or is he best off the bench? Is there someone in the wings? The Raiders have had limited ability to ask questions of opposition defences, which obviously needs to change.
Knights
Newcastle must find a path where the team is structured to maximise Kalyn Ponga’s brilliance, yet without being a one-man band. What that looks like … your guess is as good as mine, because they’ve tried many different options. It just seems that while the Knights can be brilliant with Kalyn in peak form, they are no good without him.
Jack Cogger, Phoenix Crossland and Jayden Brailey all need to lift in that spine. Brailey looked a decent signing for the Knights, yet has copped some injuries and never gone much beyond toiling for them. He needs to start evolving his game over pre-season and provide more to that team next year, especially with Matt Arthur now waiting in the wings.
A bit like Canberra, there’s plenty to like about how Newcastle approach a game, yet at times they’re just beaten with class and execution. If Kalyn doesn’t provide those things on any given day for Newcastle, where else does it come from?
Bradman Best is now a genuine star for mine – classy finisher, rolls the sleeves up with yardage carries, fast, strong, and creates plenty of headaches - yet it’s hard to dictate a game from centre. The Knights must find a way to pose more questions in attack outside of Kalyn Ponga.
Sea Eagles
The way Manly bowed out of the finals was indicative of how their season went. At different points they were absolutely outstanding, yet lapses always followed.
Manly’s success hinges on their forward pack; Taniela Paseka, Josh Aloiai, Matt Lodge if he’s still there, Lachlan Croker doing what he does. Haumole Olakau’atu is absolutely devastating on his day, with scope to still gain greater consistency. I love what Jake Trbojevic brings to his team but for top dollar, he needs to find a bit more; it needs some thought over pre-season. He’s a great defender but I don’t think he’s worried anyone carrying the ball for some time now.
Reuben Garrick will keep fine-tuning ahead of a second season in the centres, while Lehi Hopoate can build for his rise to stardom. Tom Trbojevic remains a superstar if he can stay fit, and Jason Saab is one of the NRL’s fastest men. They’ve got plenty of the right types of players, with Daly Cherry-Evans and Luke Brooks aiming up for their second season together in the halves. Again, it goes back to the forwards, and whether that pack can give them the foundation to play from.
Bulldogs
I still think the Dogs are short in one or two areas of their roster. They’re short a big man in the middle, as we saw in their semi-final exit when the Manly forwards outmuscled them. Being a fairly young side with long-term upside, jagging an up-and-coming blue-chip prop would be ideal. That needs to be front of mind for their football department over the off-season.
The Bulldogs were defensively outstanding this year. Defence is all about attitude and desire, on top of a cohesive system, and the Dogs brought all of that in spades under Cameron Ciraldo. And they’re not without talent: Reed Mahoney, Matt Burton, Stephen Crichton, Viliame Kikau and Bronson Xerri. Toby Sexton now gets a tick as the halfback for mine. He played consistently this season and complements Burton well, so you’d hope they’re humming along after a decent pre-season as the settled pairing.
The Dogs can still compete with the better sides with these shortcomings, as this year proved. Elite defence will take you a long way. I expect them to be thereabouts again, but whether they currently have the cattle to take the next step is a question mark.
Cowboys
North Queensland put together what felt like the perfect pre-season leading into 2022, when they went on to be the NRL’s second-best defensive team (trailing only Penrith) and hosted a preliminary final. Standards were set, values were ingrained through hard work, and they duly finished third on the ladder.
They were thereabouts this year, finishing fifth, yet ranked only ninth for defence. This pre-season needs to be about putting in the hard yards and earning their stripes again as a consistent football side. They need to live and breathe those elite standards again. If they do, maybe next season they win a game like that final against Cronulla. If they have the majority of their guys playing to seven, eight out of 10 every weekend, they should be a top-four side.
The Cowboys’ best footy is very good. They have strike all over the park through the likes of Scott Drinkwater and Jeremiah Nanai, and I like Tom Dearden and Jake Clifford as a halves pairing if they stay healthy. There’s Origin players and internationals through the forward pack, and while Val Holmes is gone, Jackson Purdue was terrific this year and Zac Laybutt returns from a knee injury. Getting those young guys dialled in will be key for the Cowboys over pre-season.
Sharks
The big question, which ideally Cronulla get on top of in pre-season rather than it dragging into a new campaign: what is Nicho Hynes going to do after that conclusion to 2024? Having your $1 million star outshone when the going gets tough by his $300,000 halves partner in Brayden Trindall … it’s a headache.
Nicho needs to go back and find whatever it is that makes him happy and playing his best football. He’s obviously a confidence player, who plays well when he feels good about himself. But there was a lot of noise around Nicho at the end of those season and I think that affects the playing group as well. When your marquee player is struggling for form and the noise ramps up, you can’t escape it. You start to question where the team is going, whether openly or internally.
This Cronulla side is hard to put a finger on in general but one thing is for sure: Addin Fonua-Blake is an enormous addition for them. When the Sharks have come up against a side that’s been able to nullify their back five, which does plenty of their heavy lifting, they don’t seem able to compete. In this year’s final against Penrith, the Panthers weren’t great at all to be honest, yet still beat Cronulla 26-6 off the back of a strong kicking game that hard them starting sets on the back foot.
The Sharks have some good forwards, but having someone like Fonua-Blake – great strength and power, big motor, an offload and pass – will offer a much-needed point of difference. Whether he’s a leadership figure for Cronulla, time will tell, but you can’t fault what he does on the field; he’s an absolutely elite prop and a smart footballer.
One other to watch: Blayke Brailey, who I think can offer more than just passing and tackling out of hooker. If there’s more creativity from No.9 discovered over the off-season, on top of AFB being added, that’s a huge plus for the Sharks.
Roosters
For a club that’s been so successful and so powerful in the past decade-plus, the Roosters find themselves at a very interesting juncture. To an extent, they’re in a rebuilding phase, which is not a term you ever normally associate with that club. They lose more than 1000 games in NRL experience with their departees, and just look at the calibre of player: Luke Keary, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Joey Manu, Joseph Suaalii and Sitili Tupouniua. Tack on the ACL injuries to Sam Walker and Brandon Smith, and it’s a very delicate situation. The Roosters couldn’t get the job done this year with those players, so it’s hard to be optimistic when you take them out of the side.
I honestly don’t know what to expect from the 2025 Roosters, I really don’t. Experience would tell you that they’ll still be thereabouts and compete – but will they, this time? It will be a really interesting opening eight weeks, given they’ll still be without Walker and Smith.
The best case for this off-season? That there’s no more injuries, first and foremost, and that they find some guys to step up and fill the holes that have suddenly appeared.
Sandon Smith has been in the Roosters system for a while, though he’s still developing. One upside of this pre-season would be putting plenty of reps into him and nudging him closer to being the genuine article as an NRL playmaker. Yet Walker would probably attest to the fact that it’s easier to develop as a playmaker when you’ve got superstars around you, and there’s now decidedly less of those players in this Roosters squad. Triple premiership-winning coach Trent Robinson will be leaning on all of his experience in the next few months.
Panthers
Honestly, why can’t they win five in a row? Winning four consecutive premierships is unbelievable, yet even after years of player losses due to salary cap pressure, the Panthers’ roster looks in great health.
Jarome Luai and James Fisher-Harris are huge losses, absolutely. Yet Lindsay Smith is now a Test prop, so he slides straight into the starting front-row, while Isaiah Papalii arrives as an international back-rower who Penrith will be confident of returning to peak form. Blaize Talagi arrives from Parramatta as a replacement for Luai with massive upside; while Brad Schneider is still on the books as a back-up if Talagi needs more time to develop. Sunia Turuva departs on the wing, yet Casey McLean is already a New Zealand rep as his replacement.
Mate … it’s bloody unfair how well stocked the Panthers are! They’ll be thereabouts again as premiership contenders, with the only real question being: how badly do they want to win again, after playing five straight grand finals and winning the past four? They’ve managed three title defences, when so recently even one proved too tough for most teams. They’ll at least be top-four again and Ivan Cleary will be closely monitoring his players’ mindset.
An easy thing to forget is how much the remaining players have improved from 2020 to now; I’d have happily given Isaah Yeo the Clive Churchill Medal this year, despite Liam Martin being a deserving winner, while Cleary already has two and Edwards one. They’re all still there and only getting better.
The only thing I can see stopping them is long-term or season-ending injuries to their key players. With other stars stripped away over the years, they’ll struggle like any side if Isaah Yeo, Nathan Cleary or Dylan Edwards are missing – but apart from that, there’s nothing to suggest that this glorious run is over yet. Surely they can’t win it again … but just as surely, you can’t say they won’t.
Storm
Winning the minor premiership with just three losses, before losing the grand final; it was a painful end to a magnificent year for Melbourne and there’s only upside ahead as they reconvene for pre-season. You just look at classic Storm success stories like Eli Katoa, who transformed into a Dally M Second Rower of the Year. He’ll only keep getting better, as will Shawn Blore after a great first season at the club as the other edge back-rower. The Storm know nothing but success.
The exciting one for this pre-season is obviously Stefano Utoikamanu. When the Storm are so well-known for turning modest talents into excellent first-graders, you can only imagine what they might do with a young prop who’s already played State of Origin. We’ve already seen enough from Stefano to be confident that he has what it takes, yet he’s just been up and down with his form at a struggling club like Wests Tigers. Craig Bellamy won’t let that happen. No chance, starting with Stefano’s introduction to the infamous ‘I Don’t Quit’ rookie camp. There’s only one way to train and play at the Storm, and that’s with 100% commitment at all times, which almost invariably makes Melbourne’s recruits into better players. Look at Josh King and Trent Loiero. And we’ve spoken about accountability – look at big Nelson Asofa-Solomona, who still gets dropped from the side as an $800,000 forward when he doesn’t meet club standards.
Because Stefano is young, wants to win and wants to be the best, I can only see him thriving at the Storm. Add him on to their existing strengths, which to be honest is almost the entire line-up, and the Storm will absolutely be near the top of the ladder again. No one does pre-season like Melbourne and the foundations will be meticulously laid in coming months.
Lazarus Vaalepu is another exciting front-row prospect who got a brief taste of the grand final, and there’s Joe Chan. There are legitimate question marks over Christian Welch’s form and future at the club, having been a Queensland Origin prop not that long ago, but there are plenty of strong options around him - as is always the Storm way.
Originally published as Corey Parker: What a perfect off-season looks like at your NRL club, as every team reboots for 2025
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