Seibold’s DCE reality; huge call on Galvin’s Dogs: Every club’s ceiling ... and floor they must avoid
The NRL season is upon us, and the expectations are high. But how realistic are they?
Players are ‘fit as they’ve ever been’ or ‘training the house down’. Now, that pre-season training form has to be translated to game day with the first trial game under three weeks away.
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**Round 1
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Some teams, such as the Broncos, Panthers and Storm have every right to be confident of their chances of premiership glory of 2026. They have runs on the board in recent seasons, but most teams are still trying to figure things out.
Foxsports.com.au has provided an outlook of what we think each team’s ceiling and floor is when it comes to finishing position on the NRL ladder at the end of the regular season, or a best/worst case scenario if you will.
**BRISBANE BRONCOS
Ceiling: 1st
Floor: 4th-5th
They broke a 19-year drought in impressive fashion in 2025. Can they go on a bit of a run now and create another NRL dynasty?
They deserve to be favourites to hoist the Provan-Summons trophy two years running and will be hard to beat in 2026.
Brisbane have superstars all over the park and no one in the league can match Reece Walsh when he’s at his best.
Ezra Mam missed half the season in 2025 but will be on deck from Round 1. He proved late last season how valuable he is to this team.
Adam Reynolds is clearly on his last legs but they have the depth and talent to cover him if he has to miss any games.
It’s hard to fault the Broncos and they’ll likely be towards the head of the ladder again but there is the threat of a potential premiership hangover, and given there isn’t much between the top few teams, the Broncos are at some danger of falling out of the top four.
Remember, they dropped out of the eight entirely the year (2024) following their 2023 grand final appearance.
'He's in good shape for how old he is' | 10:50
**CANBERRA RAIDERS
Ceiling: 1st
Floor: 7th-8th
The feel good story of 2025 were the Raiders, who defied several wooden spoon predictions to end up as one of the more surprising minor premiers in recent NRL history.**
While they would be knocked out in straight sets, the Raiders proved the season wasn’t a fluke as they were desperately unlucky not to have beaten the subsequent premiers (Broncos) in a qualifying final.
There will be doubters again, especially since the Green Machine have lost star halfback Jamal Fogarty.
Fogarty is now a Sea Eagle and the Raiders will miss his centimetre perfect kicking game and elite organisational skills.
For that reason, Canberra will do extremely well to win back-to-back J.J Giltinan Shields as there are plenty of questions marks over Fogarty’s unproven replacement Ethan Sanders.
The expectations is they fall down the ladder a little, but this is a side that oozes plenty of class and X-factor, plus some of their best players are young guys who should only improve on last year’s magical run.
**CANTERBURY-BANKSTOWN BULLDOGS
Ceiling: 1st
Floor: 5th-6th
It’s an exciting time to be a Bulldogs fan.**
After a horrid run between 2017-2023, the Dogs have thrived under coach Cameron Ciraldo, finishing sixth in 2024 before improving to third in 2025.
After a promising season last year, the Dogs were bundled out in straight sets, but they shouldn’t have lost any admirers.
Lachlan Galvin was a controversial mid-season signing who no doubt makes this team better going forward, but it’s fair to say the Bulldogs were unable to find a position for him last year, or at least one where he felt totally comfortable in.
Given he joined a new system mid-season, that’s understandable, but with the benefit of last year and a full off-season under his belt, the young gun will be a force to be reckoned with in 2026.
This team is good enough to win the comp, that much is clear, so it would be a massive disappointment if they aren’t at least in the top four hunt the entire season.
**CRONULLA SHARKS
Ceiling: 3rd-4th
Floor: 7th-8th
At this stage, they lack the starpower to be considered leading premiership winning threats, but you have to give this side a stack of credit for how consistent they’ve been.**
Since 2015, they’ve made the top eight in ten of 11 seasons including the last four years, progressing to a prelim in 2024 and 2025.
This is a very settled line up who work so well with each other. They’ve been able to build strong combinations at key positions as there just hasn’t been much player turnover.
The season-ending injury to strike winger Ronaldo Mulitalo won’t help, but Sam Stonestreet or Mawene Hiroti will prove to be more than capable replacement options.
Given how genuine this team has been, there isn’t much separating their floor and ceiling.**
Finals looks inevitable, but it would be surprising if Cronulla win enough games to take top spot.**
**DOLPHINS
Ceiling: 4th-5th
Floor: 9th-10th
Heading into their fourth season, the Dolphins are still searching for that maiden finals berth.**
It looked like they would throughout the majority of last season, but they lost three straight games between Round 23-25 which thwarted their hopes.
The Dolphins have finished 10th and 9th in 2024 and 2025 respectively, needing just one more win to make the postseason in both years.
We expect the upward trend to continue, especially with a number of big guns set to return to the line up for the start of the season which include gun prop Tom Flegler, who has missed nearly two years of football and Herbie Farnworth.**
This is an extremely talented line up, led around by one of the game’s best halfbacks and quite simply, there aren’t many question marks around their roster.**
If they get some luck on the injury front, the Dolphins are definite top four contenders.**
**GOLD COAST TITANS
Ceiling: 7th-8th
Floor: 14th-15th
New coach Josh Hannay hasn’t been afraid to shake things up since arriving on the Gold Coast, making several roster tough roster calls.**
Brian Kelly, Alofiana Khan-Pereira and Reagan Campbell-Gillard have all been shown the door, which might make this team worse initially, but it’ll give Hannay the chance to blood some young, inexperienced talent.**
How Hannay can unlock a very talented Titans roster remains to be seen, but he has to find a way as the club are wasting outstanding forward Tino Fa’asuamaleaui.**
The Gold Coast skipper has threatened to leave for greener pastures if the Titans don’t improve up the ladder but has seemingly given Hannay a chance to turn things around in 2026.**
Given Hannay has Tino, AJ Brimson, Moe Fotuaika, Keano Kino and Jayden Campbell, the former Sharks and Maroons assistant has enough to work with to make a top eight run if all his players buy into what he’s selling.**
**MANLY SEA EAGLES
Ceiling: 7th-8th
Floor: 15th-16th
What is life post-DCE going to look like?**
Manly have nabbed a decent replacement in Jamal Fogarty, who had a better season than Cherry-Evans last year, so Sea Eagles fans should be happy with the acquisition as sad as it was to farewell a club legend.**
Any team with Tom Trbojevic is a dangerous matchup, while Tolu Koula is a headache for opposition backlines.**
Haumole Olakau’atu is one of the game’s best back rowers when he’s on but outside of the players listed, there are some holes in this roster.**
There’s a good chance that there will be some clubs who finished below the Sea Eagles improve sharply whereas we don’t see Manly raising the bar to that level in 2026.**
A best case scenario for Manly would be finishing in the bottom half of the top eight but we fear it might be some growing pains post-DCE and in turn a second straight missed postseason.**
**MELBOURNE STORM
Ceiling: 1st
Floor: 5th-6th
If there’s any team bursting to win another premiership, it’s the Storm.**
They’ve fallen at the final hurdle the past two seasons and during those two years, you can make a strong argument they’ve been the best team during the regular season.**
Was last year one of the Storm’s final chances to win it all with this roster? Probably not, but the concerns are valid.**
Ryan Papenhuyzen is no longer there although that gives livewire Sua Fa’alogo his first chance to spend a substantial amount of time at fullback.**
The loss of Nelson Asofa-Solomona will be hard to replace but he has been a detriment on this side at times as well, especially in the finals.**
The vacancy the Storm will struggle to replace is Eli Katoa, who will miss the season because of a head injury.**
With as spine of Harry Grant, Cam Munster, Jahrome Hughes and Fa’alogo, Melbourne will still be near the top of the table but they will need a couple of unhearalded forwards to step up this year alongside Stefano Utoikamanu, perhaps Josiah Pahulu or a Lazarus Vaalepu.**
**NEWCASTLE KNIGHTS
Ceiling: 8th-9th
Floor: 17th
Last season was a deadset horror show, particularly late in the year, so much so that the Knights will be trying to back a ten-game losing streak when they face the Cowboys in Las Vegas.**
A look at their best 17 and you’ll see that this is a decent enough side, especially with Kalyn Ponga back and Dylan Brown in the halves.**
Sandon Smith is another quality pickup and if Fletcher Sharpe can continue on his upward spiral, the Knights will cause opposition teams plenty of headaches with ball in hand.**
What may limit the Knights significantly is their forward pack. If there’s little go forward, the halves and backs can’t be at their best.**
While there is some emerging talent in the Knights pack, as a collective group, it looks to be one of the worst packs in the NRL.**
That will keep them from making too much noise but it is more than likely that they’ll improve at least a few spots on last year’s wooden spoon finish.**
**NQ COWBOYS
Ceiling: 5th-6th
Floor: 14th-15th
We’re going to play it safe with the Cowboys and set their ceiling and floor higher than most of the other teams.**
The Cowboys have been a wildly inconsistent conveyance over the past three to four seasons.**
Their best football stacks up against the top teams, but when they’re not on song, it can be ugly viewing.**
Brilliant in attack with players such as Scott Drinkwater, Tom Dearden and Jaxon Purdue, the knock on the Cowboys has been their lack of commitment to defence.**
If they can shore that area up, they can take it to any team in the NRL.**
Simply put, this is a team which should be making the eight, hence we’ve got them potentially finishing as high as 5th.**
However, this is a team that struggles to shake a form slump, so if they drop a few games early in the season, it could become ugly.**
**PARRAMATTA EELS
Ceiling: 5th-6th
Floor: 10th-11th
There’s a stack of hype around the Eels, and rightly so. There wasn’t a hotter non-finals team in the NRL at the end of last season.**
In fact, the Eels’ form was so impressive in the back-end of the year, that it’s fair to say that they could’ve made some noise in the finals.**
At the very least, they would have given a handful of the top eight teams some trouble, but it’s easy to talk in hypotheticals and that was last season.**
2026 is a new campaign, and there should be lofty goals for Parramatta.**
They have their long-term coach, experience across the park and an excellent spine including Mitch Moses, recruit Jonah Pezet and 2025 revelation Isaiah Iongi.**
Despite two straight seasons of missing the finals, Eels fans believe a top eight finish this year should be the expectation.**
There is some room for improvement though and there are several good teams they’ll have to leapfrog for the finals to become a reality.**
**PENRITH PANTHERS
Ceiling: 1st
Floor: 6th-7th
Penrith’s stunning run of four straight titles came to an end last year after being knocked out by the Broncos in a preliminary final classic.**
During that magical run, the Panthers have had to come use to watching star players depart the club due to salary cap pressures.**
This off-season, Penrith have only farewelled a handful of role players, but the crux of their best 17 remain, which is a massive boost given the player turnover they’ve endured in recent years.**
They have recruited well, bolstering their forward stocks and adding spine depth in Jack Cogger and Freddy Lussick.**
Not only with there be renewed hunger to get back to the top, this is a team better placed to win a comp than they were last season.**
Plus, it’s probably pretty unlikely that Ivan Cleary’s men will have to come from last midway through the season like they did after a sluggish start in 2025.**
**SOUTH SYDNEY RABBITOHS
Ceiling: 6th-7th
Floor: 13th-14th
Many good judges expect the Rabbitohs to be one of the big improvers in 2026.**
It’s understandable. They have a lot of class all over the park and injuries shot them to pieces last year.**
They could only manage nine wins in what was a tough year for their fans but there’s reason for belief.**
A Wayne Bennett-led side can’t be taken lightly, especially with a full strength line up expected to start the season.**
It can’t be underestimated how much of an impact the likes of Cam Murray and Campbell Graham will have on this team - two players who missed nearly all of last season.**
If the supercoach has this team firing on all cylinders, they will be finals bound, however there are still flaws, especially middle forward depth, the halves and the fact many of their key players are towards the end of their careers.**
**ST. GEORGE ILLAWARRA DRAGONS
Ceiling: 9th-10th
Floor: 17th
The Dragons have some nice pieces and can look forward to Keaon Koloamatangi arriving in 2027, but they are a couple of star players short from being a live threat this year.**
Dan Atkinson comes over from Cronulla and is set to play halfback, but it’s still a position of concern for the Red V.**
The Dragons lacked spark from the playmakers in 2025 and a halves combo of Atkinson and Kyle Flanagan leaves more questions than answers, especially when you consider all of the elite halfbacks or five-eighths in the comp.**
Shane Flanagan’s men will play tough, and won’t be an easy assignment for a lot of teams, but we fear the lack of firepower will be their downfall and they’ll finish near the bottom of the the ladder.**
**SYDNEY ROOSTERS
Ceiling: 1st
Floor: 5th-6th
We think the Roosters are one of five teams who have genuine claims of collecting this year’s minor premiership
