Almost every NRL club’s got one or more star signed to long-term deals. We’ve ranked every club based on the player they’re seemingly hedging their future on, and whether it’s the right move for success.
Let’s face it, rugby league is surging. The NRL is more popular and financially viable than ever, round one of 2024 is taking place in Las Vegas and permanent expansion into the US market is on the cards, as is a potential purchase of the UK Super League.
Rugby league’s increasing financial stability has given clubs enough security to think long-term about the construction of their rosters. While this isn’t the case right across the board, most NRL clubs have at least one, if not more, big-name players signed on long-term deals.
A team is only as good as its best player and these contracts are typically inked by sides with the hope of achieving the ultimate goal; a Premiership.
Having run our eye over the players each club has seemingly hedged their future on, we’ve asked a simple question; is this the right player to build around for success?
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Our 2024 NRL Commitment Rankings
Not every NRL club has a cornerstone player they can lean on, looking into the future. But it’s also not that black and white. Let’s start dissecting each club and whether they have ‘their guy’.
CATEGORIES:
- The Man
- Right Man for the Job
- Can’t Do it on his Own
- We Need to See More
- This Could Get Ugly
- It’s Complicated
- Relationship Counselling Required
The Man
Penrith Panthers and Nathan Cleary
Is there anything we can say about Nathan Cleary that hasn’t already been said? The rugby league world has been rightly eulogising about the Penrith halfback since the turn of the 2020s. He is, undoubtedly, the game’s greatest player and could guide any side into Premiership contention. He’s not called the Prince of Penrith for nothing.
Right Man for the Job
Cronulla Sharks and Nicho Hynes
Manly Sea Eagles and Tom Trbojevic
Melbourne Storm and Cameron Munster
Newcastle Knights and Kalyn Ponga
Parramatta Eels and Mitch Moses
All five of these sides feel like they’ve got the key ingredient in their Premiership recipe spot on. Cameron Munster has shown he can do it all himself. With him, anything is possible. Whether this be at Origin or club level, the pieces around him hardly matter. The mercurial has eyes on one thing and one thing only; success.
In Tom Trbojevic and Kalyn Ponga, Manly and Newcastle respectively boast probably the NRL’s two best fullbacks, on their day. Few can forget Trbojevic’s 2021 Dally M winning season, where he produced performances almost unlike we’ve seen in rugby league history. At his best, he is unstoppable. Fitness concerns have probably led many football fans to forget what he is capable of.
As for Ponga, the 2023 Dally M winner is one of the most exciting rugby league talents we’ve ever seen. If Newcastle are to do anything in the future, Ponga is the man to get them there.
One could argue fullbacks on their own don’t really win Premierships. That’s a fair case. However, these two feel like the exception, rather than the rule.
Mitchell Mose and Parramatta fit together like a foot and a sock. As they showed in 2022, they’re perfect for each other. 2023 was a lean year by their standards, that’s for sure, but Moses has all the hallmarks of a Premiership-winning halfback, he just needs to piece it together.
Of these five, Nicho Hynes and Cronulla have the most interesting relationship. They’re perfect for each other, but they seem to get stage fright. So far in his career on the Shire, the 2022 Dally M winner has proven he can be the next man to lead Cronulla to Premiership glory.
But, the one major caveat around this is an inability to match it with the top sides or progress deep into the finals, which have reared their ugly heads in both of his seasons at the Sharks. Nicho may not be a halfback in the traditional mould, like Nathan Cleary, who can kick opponents to death.
However, his game is so advanced that he’s able to grab any match by the neck and take charge. All he needs to do is prove he can match it with the big boys on the biggest stage. Once he does that, the world will be at his, and Cronulla’s, feet.
Can’t do it on his own
Brisbane Broncos and Ezra Mam
Canberra Raiders and Hudson Young
The Dolphins and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow
Gold Coast Titans and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui
North Queensland Cowboys and Tom Dearden
South Sydney Rabbitohs and Cameron Murray
There’s a theme to address here. Tino, Cameron Murray and Hudson Young are all representative-calibre forwards. They’re also men their respective clubs have trusted to spearhead their forward pack in the coming years.
Yet, as the adage goes; the forwards decide who wins, the backs decide by how much. Each of Murray, Tino and Young is talented enough to be the alpha of a Premiership-winning pack, but they can’t do it on their own. Spine strengthening from their respective clubs is required.
As for the spine players. We question whether Tom Dearden can go it alone as the Cowboys’ main man in a Premiership run. Is he a Michael Morgan or a Jonathan Thurston? Or is he a Chad Townsend? A perfect complimentary piece, the bass guitar, per se, as opposed to the electric guitar.
Those same arguments can be made for Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, an exceptional game-breaker who could form part of a Premiership-winning spine, and Ezra Mam, who, at such a young age, has shown he can do it on the biggest stage. But is he that guy? He might be. He might not be.
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We Need to See More
Sydney Roosters and Sam Walker
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and Matt Burton
Both Sam Walker and Matt Burton have shown their flashes of brilliance in their fledgling careers at their respective clubs. Sam Walker and Matt Burton have also frustrated the masses with their performances.
For every harbour bridge pass Walker throws or subtle skip outside his defender to put a teammate through a gap, there remains the lingering reminder Trent Robinson dropped him in round 7 of 2023, and that improvements can still be made.
When it comes to Matt Burton, for all his trademark, atmosphere-gracing bombs, damaging runs and chip kicks into space for Josh Addo-Carr, there is still a sense he’s yet to master the ability to take control of games, and seasons, to get the Bulldogs over the line.
Both men can be the best, if not one of the best, players in a Premiership-winning side. However, both Burton and Walker need to showcase their talents consistently at NRL level before the masses are convinced their clubs have made the right call.
This Could Get Ugly
New Zealand Warriors and Wayde Egan
Why have we chosen Wayde Egan over Roger Tuivasa-Sheck or Shaun Johnson? Good question. Allow us to explain.
RTS is one of the longest-contracted players at the Wahs. But he’s 30, nearly 31 and Johnson’s 34. Neither are spring chickens and any long-term Warriors planning needs to be done around someone who isn’t their two current stars.
Enter Wayde Egan. At 27, the hooker is entering his prime and showcased his array of talents in an injury-interrupted 2023 campaign. A fine dummy-half he is, but is Egan the profile of player a side hunting future Premierships builds around?
It’s Complicated
West Tigers and Jarome Luai
Jarome Luai and the Wests Tigers have the potential to sail happily into the sunset. The playmaker’s Penrith tenure will likely end in a fourth consecutive Premiership, such is the calibre of talent he is.
Internationally with Samoa at the 2022 Rugby League World Cup, Luai showed he’s capable of being the main man leading a side that isn’t Penrith around the park, and doing a good job at it. However, given Luai doesn’t move to the Tigers until 2025, it’s too early to tell if this pairing is anything more than a theoretical success.
Relationship Counselling Required
St George Illawarra Dragons and Moses Suli
Don’t worry, our faces screwed at this too. Moses Suli is indeed the Dragons’ longest-contracted player. In some ways, it’s understandably on brand for the Dragons to award a long-term deal to a centre who’s won one-third of the games he’s played for the club.
In others, it isn’t. To his credit, Suli seems to have cleaned his attitude up from the one that saw him sacked by two clubs in a month at the beginning of 2018.
However, when your future is seemingly hedged on the performances of a centre who, at his best is a destructive, game-breaking force and at his worst, an in-game passenger, your clubs needs a good hard look in the mirror.
Centres break games, but only a select few win Premierships. Moses Suli is more the former than the latter.
