COACH’S CORNER: Is the NRL’s 2026 try fest betraying rugby league’s values?

According to many metrics, the NRL is flying.

Viewing figures and crowd figures are apparently up on their equivalents in 2025.

It's very hard to criticise the games rulers if these are true. We all want to see the game growing.

That should be the end of the argument, should it not?

Well, this would be a very short and boring article if it was.

And there are some real-life outcomes and fall-outs from what we are seeing unfold.

There is no doubting, the game has changed. It's faster and, as a consequence, there are more points being scored in games, and they're coming thick and fast.

There were 464 points scored in the NRL in Round 6. That's 58 points a game, or, with an average margin of 16 points per game (despite 2 games being decided by 4 points or less), a 37-21 scoreline in each game, on average.

The average total points per game for all rounds so far in 2026 is a little lower at about 47.4 points.

In 2019, before the ‘six-again' era, there were 8,093 total points scored in 201 games at an average of 40.3 points per game.

Ten years earlier, we only saw a total of 7,766 points scored at an average of 38.6 in each of the 201 games.

So, we know which way this is going.

More tries. More opportunities for exciting highlights. More opportunities for breaks for advertisements on free-to-air TV, or adverts anywhere in and around the try. The “Harvey Norman Replay” for example!

This will benefit the NRL hierarchy when it comes to TV rights negotiations.

Also, viewing habits are changing all around the sporting world and the NRL seem to be in tune with it.

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If someone does watch a game live, sports consumption is now more and more what's termed in the business a ‘multi-screen experience'. The consumer is now more likely to also use social media or follow statistics, highlights, and commentary on phones and tablets while watching the game.

But what is also emerging, is that viewers, particularly younger audiences, prefer streaming services which offer convenience and flexibility over traditional TV, causing a decline in linear, scheduled viewing.

People might be too busy to watch live, or go to a game, and as a result, we are seeing an increase in views of highlights packages, either on a streaming service or on a YouTube channel. Streaming platforms and social media also offer personalized content and advertising, reflecting a shift toward a tailored user experience.

What this all means for the NRL is, when the game is played at 8pm on a Friday night, viewers might be there in person or have it on a TV screen, but that is only part of the experience. How many of you watch a game but also follow your social media feed for live comments, analysis or even highlights, for example?

Secondly, we don't have the same pressure to watch a game live anymore. We can watch it when we want, and how we want. I am a personal fan of the four-minute highlight packages on YouTube that the NRL and Channel Nine provide if I have missed a game.

So that deals with us, the viewer. Or does it?

I always love consuming the first eight rounds of the NRL. A great time to analyse the runners and riders before the Origin break causes disruption to rosters.

Yet, despite my desire to watch as much NRL as I could this last weekend, I consumed one and a half matches. I watched (with my phone handy) the Dragons v Sea Eagles game, but turned off the Broncos and Cowboys after ten minutes. I watched the first half of Raiders and Souths, but turned that off at half-time and actually decided not to watch the rest on Saturday, and I was too busy to watch Sunday.
I am a rusted-on rugby league person. Rugby league is my life. My living. My one true love if you like!

But this type of game just doesn't do it for me. And I am a consumer, just like you.

I turned it off because I am not enjoying it as much. And I am definitely not alone. And it's also not just a generational thing. It's a taste thing.

I asked my Rugby League Coach Facebook crowd of over 30,000 followers, “who is enjoying the points fest?”.

Of course, my Facebook crowd are what you would consider a niche, who like a certain type of thing. And Facebook is the ‘older' of the social media platforms.

I would say that roughly 66% of my crowd don't like it, and 33% of it do. So, considering it is a niche, I don't think it's hard to envisage a different crowd getting the reverse score, and bear in mind crowds and viewing figures are up, I have come up with the arbitrary projection that about 25-45% of normal fans are unhappy with the current vogue.

And that's a significant figure. Just because someone has been around for a while doesn't mean their thoughts aren't important.

The comments on the post that sum up that thought included “I would have preferred a 16-12 sort of game”, “there's nothing more satisfying than knowing your team won from defensive grit”, “the issue for me is whether the game is balanced” and “hate it, won't watch it.”

For the record, none of the above were writing comments from a nursing home. In fact, several have young families.

They are of the belief that rugby league always had the balance right between attack and defence, between scoring and not scoring.
A balance unlike sports such as AFL, basketball, and T20 cricket that are heavily swayed towards the scorer, not the defender, or the bowler.

Or unlike Soccer, where the scoring moment might not happen at all!

But look how big the round ball sport is around the world! Simple rules, simple to understand.

Can we say the same in the NRL in the era of disruptors, questionable obstruction decisions, hip- drops and head high confusion?
And all this article has done is focus on the consumer. But what about the participant? The players?

We have enough injuries and suspensions in the NRL now that we have wiped the equivalent of four 19-man squads out of the competition by round six. In England, on the same mission to speed things up, the injury count has now gone over 100, and clubs are loaning their extra troops to other clubs in the same competition to keep them afloat.

On-field, with the extra allowance for more ‘six-again' calls and the sports' focus on a quick play-the ball, defences are, very often, struggling to get to marker or back the ten metres before the ball is played, when an opposition team is getting a roll on.

Tired and short on time, they are putting their limbs in the wrong places, or making the wrong type of challenge or tackle, leading to injuries either to the tackler or the tackled. That also leads to suspensions for perpetrators.

Players have had to shred in the off-season to try and keep up, so they did more work before the season started, and, when it did start, they're doing even more work than they used to when the games unfold.

Defences are absolutely shattered. It's getting harder and harder for teams to maintain structures.

So, the tries we are seeing, are they worth what they should be?

The Cowboys scored a couple of tries early against the Broncos where they literally could have walked the ball over the line. Both sides kicked to opposition wings and fullbacks who only just back to somewhere resembling a correct defensive position, or didn't get there at all. The attacking team were able to easily beat them to their own kick.

Canberra's Kaeo Weekes scored a try against the Rabbitohs that in so many other eras, would probably be classed as one of the greatest solo tries ever scored on a rugby league field. But an analysis of the defence he was up against in that moment would give the old master coach Wayne Bennett nightmares.

Souths scored 34 points in that match but still lost.

To know for sure how much the game has changed, Wayne Bennett coached teams have very rarely lacked defensive toughness in the last four decades.

Craig Bellamy coached teams have never gone through some of the things the Storm are going through this year.

The Titans scored a half-century away to the Eels, and the Tigers are joint top with Panthers.

Two premiership-winning coaches find themselves in the bottom three places, and only four places above Dragons coach Shane Flanagan in the cellar and two places above Raiders coach Ricky Stuart is serial winner, Storm coach Bellamy.

Some are obviously celebrating this changing of the landscape, but I fear there are far too many that aren't.

Get the balance right and the game can be bigger than ever.

Lee Addison is a former club coach at Sea Eagles and Panthers and the founder of rugbyleaguecoach.com.au. He is a Coach Mentor and his programmes for coaches and clubs can be found HERE.