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The Titans a chance to make the finals, the Roosters to miss out? Season 2025 in the NRL is turning into the bizarro world.
Gold Coast improved to 2-1 with an impressive 30-12 triumph over the Roosters at Allianz Stadium on Friday while later in the night Brisbane turned the Dolphins’ poor start to the year into a terrible one with a 20-12 victory at Suncorp Stadium.
The Dolphins are winless after their first four starts and Kristian Woolf looks like he will become the latest coach to struggle while following in Wayne Bennett’s footsteps.
Brisbane are now 3-1 and off to a strong start under Michael Maguire apart from a hiccup in Canberra in Round 2 although second-rower Jordan Riki could be headed for a stint on the sidelines for a high shot on Dolphins winger Jack Bostock.
Maguire’s influence on Brisbane is already apparent.
They are not flamboyant like the champion Broncos sides of the past but that is not needed on a night like this one when the wet weather meant the best course of attack was to stick the ball under one wing and cart it forward with maximum velocity.
Jamayne Isaako is tackled. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
Gehamat Shibasaki proved the unlikely star in the eight-point win, scoring two tries to justify Maguire’s faith in him ahead of young gun Deine Mariner.
Shibasaki tallied a team-high 186 running metres and a couple of line breaks while making 17 runs in a fine all-round performance by the epitome of a journeyman.
The 27-year-old has bounced around the league after making his debut at the Broncos in 2018 with stints at Newcastle, North Queensland, South Sydney and Japanese rugby before winding his way back to his first port of call.
Brisbane have plenty of work on before they can be considered genuine title contenders alongside Melbourne and Penrith but judging by early returns, they are well and truly on track for a top-four tilt.
Woolf spent the off-season hosing down talk of a Wayne Bennett hoodoo.
And it appeared he was well set up to reverse the trend of coaches struggling after the record-breaking master has vacated the premises.
The Dolphins headed into 2025 with the strongest roster of their three seasons in the big league but four rounds into the season, they are propping up the bottom of the ladder after going down to Bennett’s Bunnies, Newcastle, the Wests Tigers and now the Broncos.
They haven’t been blown off the park in any of their defeats but a lack of attacking punch is hurting them.
Woolf needs to reconsider where his players are positioned.
It’s worth giving Herbie Farnworth a run at fullback with Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow reverting back to centre while Max Plath doesn’t have the size to make an impact on the left edge so why not shift Felise Kaufusi back to second row, bump Tom Gilbert up to prop and put Plath at lock where he can be his busy best.
Just a suggestion. But if the Dolphins keep ploughing ahead with their current strategy they will not only fail to make the leap into the playoffs but the wooden spoon could be an all too real possibility.
Gehamat Shibasaki celebrates with Reece Walsh and Jesse Arthars. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
With rain making attacking play difficult, Brisbane managed to cling onto the slippery Steeden better than their newfound rivals to claim two vital competition points.
Shibasaki opened the scoring in the 11th minute and when hooker Cory Paix scooted over a short time later, Redcliffe were on red alert.
They regained lost ground when Max Plath plunged over but Kotoni Staggs muscled his way to the stripe to make it 16-6 at the break.
Shibasaki’s second extended Brisbane’s buffer to 14 midway through the second half as rain teemed onto both teams.
Dolphins centre Jake Averillo turned on the jets for a long-range strike with five minutes left to send a few butterflies into Broncos’ stomachs but an eight-point gap was as close as they would get down the stretch.
Despite the slippery conditions both teams threw the ball around like it was a dry-weather pitch with one section of play featuring Brisbane’s back three spiralling passes from one side of the field to another on a kick return and the Dolphins doing similar at the other end despite the heavens being well and truly open.
Des Hasler’s first season on the Gold Coast didn’t amount to much.
But it appears his influence is having an impact on the Titans after they surged to their second win in three starts after a listless loss to the Bulldogs to kick off their campaign.
These Titans did something at Allianz Stadium that previous incarnations have failed to do – they stayed in the contest when the match was on the line for an extended period.
After being tied at 6-6 at half-time, the Roosters edged ahead via a Dominic Young try from a dubiously loopy cut-out pass from Victor Radley.
They were on the attack a short time later and usually when that happens to a Titans team, the floodgates open.
But this time around the match turned on the instinctive play of Jayden Campbell, who plucked a Sandon Smith out of the night sky to return the ball the length of the field.
A well-constructed try to Phil Sami put the visitors in front before Tino Fa’asuamaleaui used all his might to put fright right into the night as he powered past Roosters defenders to seal the win with eight minutes on the clock.
AJ Brimson blew the final scoreline out to an 18-point margin with a late strike but despite the end result looking comfortable, this was a gritty triumph – the kind of backs against the wall performances that playoff teams produce.
The Titans to make the finals? Well, stranger things have happened and if they maintain this kind of form, they are well and truly in the mix along with about 8-10 teams in that third tier of NRL playoff wannabes.
Hasler took a slight gamble in settling on Campbell to be his halfback this year alongside AJ Brimson even before Kieran Foran suffered a torn pec but the risk is being rewarded.
“He is building, which is good, but it’s up to us to keep giving him a good platform to build on,” he said.
“He came up with some big plays. Both boys (Campbell and Brimson) are very instinctive, so that’s always hard to defend.”
The Roosters matched it with the Titans in pretty much every category on Friday night except one – the oft-ridiculed metric of completion rate.
It’s the kind of stat that usually doesn’t really matter.
But when your team is completing at 57% and the other side is holding onto the pill 81% of the time, it will eventually prove the difference on the scoreboard.
The Roosters managed to make it to the end of their 42 sets on 24 occasions with pushed passes, loose carries and a general lack of care amounting to extra wrinkles on the Robinson forehead.
“If it was high 50 (completion rate), that’s not NRL standard,” Robinson said.
“Pressure is a big part of the way that the NRL is played and when you build none you won’t get those decision-making errors out of the opposition.”
It could get worse for the Tricolours with front-rower Spencer Leniu facing his second ban of the year after he was reported for high contact on Titans veteran Reagan Campbell-Gillard.
When the Roosters upset Penrith two weeks ago it was the boilover of the young season and signalled that Trent Robinson’s team was not going to live up to dire pre-season predictions.
But a month into the season that victory amounts to their only competition points thus far.
In Round 1 they were well and truly bucked by the Broncos but perhaps more concerningly they have blown two tight matches in successive weeks after going down to the Titans.
Just like last week in their loss to the Warriors on the road, the Roosters were able to stay in the arm wrestle for an hour but once they flinched, they were plucked.
You can see why they are interested in Daly Cherry-Evans to provide a calming influence when the game is on the line.
with AAP