Show us the money: NRL objectives laid bare by ground allocations

September 7, 2026 — 11:57am

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The NRL’s decision to take Cronulla’s semi-final from Woolooware to Moore Park is nakedly about dollars: the league itself collects the gate takings from finals matches.

The terrible state of Shark Park is used as an excuse, but the move is solely about selling more tickets.

Many Sharks fans, and their administration, are upset at losing what should be a home-ground advantage as a reward for finishing in fifth place; and with the Cowboys visiting, the Sydney Football (Allianz) Stadium is only likely to house a few more spectators than Shark Park would have done.

The Sharks aren’t alone, though, in playing away from home this weekend.

Souths lose their regular home-ground advantage of the Olympic Stadium to play Newcastle at Moore Park, and Penrith remain temporary tenants at Parramatta while their new home ground is still being constructed.

Only the Warriors get to play on their home ground at Mount Smart Stadium, and they are set to be shifted to the larger, unfamiliar Eden Park for later finals.

It all adds up to sensible short-term bean-counting by the NRL, but they might spare us the rhetoric of putting fans first.

“We want to look after all the Cronulla supporters,” Peter V’landys said.

“We don’t want any of them to miss out and this way none of them will miss out.”

(This was days after V’landys had threatened to take semi-finals away from Moore Park and back to suburban grounds while leveraging a new agreement with Venues NSW.)

Fans first? With respect, I suggest fans want to see their club win, and the extra few thousand Sharks supporters who can fit into Allianz Stadium would prefer to sit at home and watch a victory on TV than get on a bus or train into the city to see a defeat. It’s a long ride home.

Praise be the gladiators heading for the exit door

Each year, the honour roll of retiring and departing NRL players gives fans a chance to thank them for their service, and the punishment they have put their bodies through to keep us entertained.

The bone-crunching and brain-damaging collisions, the limitless exhaustion of training and playing, the months of boring rehab from injuries: I know they choose it and love it, but they sacrifice as much as they give for those fleeting years of glory.

The adulation and status are also counterweighted by the ever-increasing online abuse from fickle spectators and appalling mistreatment from us reptiles in the media.

So their lap of honour is well deserved.

It’s interesting, however, to see how many NRL players, at least 20, are going to the twilit world of European rugby league.

They’re not just retirees clipping a well-earned ticket on the way out, such as Damien Cook, Daly Cherry-Evans, Cameron McInnes and Dylan Walker.

This year the veterans are outnumbered by younger players in their prime like Tyrell Sloan, Jesse Arthars, Tyson Gamble and Emre Guler.

At a time when a prime concern in the expanding NRL is the shallowing of the talent pool, it’s curious that almost a full roster’s worth of players are being let go.

Maybe they’re just not good enough; maybe the northern hemisphere offers are too good; or maybe some NRL clubs are miscalculating.

In particular, Dragon Sloan’s late-season form, concluding with an audacious match-winning two-point field goal against Parramatta on Sunday, is raising the question of whether clubs’ reserves are really so deep that they can wave off so many first-graders.

The day Walker wowed me at the driving range

A brief farewell note on Dylan Walker, a premiership-winning representative centre who turned into a high-value utility playmaker across a four-club journey.

Once I was at a golf driving range and some over-muscled NRL players were battling with their games, thrashing helplessly at that infuriating little pill.

Walker teed up a ball and took out his putter. Bare-footed, wearing board shorts, he skipped up, danced forward like a cricketer, and smacked the ball dead straight, in the air, further than any putt in the history of putting.

He repeated the party trick several times, had a laugh and strolled off. His teammates gawped like they’d just seen Elvis. Some people have more sporting talent than they know what to do with.

Let’s hope for some September surprises

Last year, a pretty good NRL season was lit up by a memorable, highlights-filled month of playoffs.

This year we can hope for the same, but the forecasts for this weekend are unusually one-sided, with Penrith, the Warriors, Cronulla and Souths all at extremely short odds, even with the loss of home-ground advantages.

Predictability hasn’t hurt audience numbers in the short term, but it eats away over time.

Followers of the Panthers and Warriors, who would like that monotony to continue through to the grand final, might disagree, but this lop-sided season could do with a few big September surprises.

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Malcolm Knox is a journalist, author and columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.AdvertisementAdvertisement