The NRL draw has dropped for 2024, with fans immediately studying the schedule to work out the big winners and losers.
While any cynic can tell you that the draw means very little, the truth is that it can massively sway a team’s chances of finishing in the top four, finals or missing out entirely.
Just ask Parramatta. After facing multiple teams off the bye last year, they get it again, with five teams due for a rest before they face the Eels.
They also get three five-day turnarounds, the joint most in the comp, and will play teams who made the finals in 2023 a total of 13 times – joint most as well, with Souths and the Titans – with a horror run to end the year in which they take on the Storm, Warriors, Panthers, Roosters and Broncos back to back.
At the other end of the scale are the Sharks. After facing a much weaker schedule two years running, they are lucky again with just nine games against teams that made the eight, two short turnarounds and getting the Broncos in Origin.
Des Hasler’s Titans will have to hit the ground running with a soft start that sees them challenge only one 2023 Finals team in the first two months – though that will include a showdown with former club Manly in Round 7.
It’s a tough ride home with the Gold Coast’s final bye in Round 17 and a nightmare finish that includes trips to Penrith and Newcastle to round out the year. If they’re going to make the post-season, one suspects they’ll need to be in by then.
The Panthers’ attempt at a four-peat will be helped by getting their byes in the heart of Origin, when they have traditionally had multiple players out, and by a tough start that sees them face Melbourne and Brisbane in the first three weeks.
Their main challengers, the Broncos, will feel like they’ve hit the Vegas jackpot. Though their start is hard with trips to Melbourne and Penrith, they get a run of home fixtures in May that includes three in a row either side of the bye, as Manly take their Magiic Round game north, then another one of seven consecutive Queensland games on the run to Finals.
All in all, between the end of Origin and the finals, the Bronx leave their home state just once, to play Newcastle.
More to come