The 2025 NRL season is upon us. We analyse the winners and losers in the 2025 draw.
Winners and Losers in Draw Difficulty
This is based on where each team finished in the 2024 NRL season. The overall figures shows there’s not much in it over the whole season. It could be a little redundant as the draw tends to be split in half between top teams and bottom teams to ensure fairness. Towards the second half of the season it’s about how hard are the teams in 2025, not based on 2024 ladder positions.
Verdict: Canberra have the best overall 2024 difficulty rating and Souths Sydney the worst, but in reality there’s 2.2 average table positions between first and last.
The Raiders also have the much easier draw for their home games too.
Newcastle has the second easiest draw according to below and are well looked after in the last six rounds. The Knights play only two teams from the top eight in the first 11 rounds.
Penrith have probably deserved it with their recent success, but they have a good run in June and July which will help during Origin time. They are also losers as they play the rest of the top five from last season by round 5.
South Sydney begin their Wayne Bennett revival in 2025, but have to do it with the hardest draw.
According to last year’s ladder, it’s an average of 5.8 for the first six rounds which will test them out. That is balanced by the second easiest run in the last six rounds.
Wests Tigers have the lowest average for any period which is during Origin, which unlike previous seasons may actually hurt them this season with recent recruiting.
Just incase the Broncos are threatening to make a mark on the 2025 NRL competition, they will have to do it the hard way. They play Melbourne twice in the last five rounds, and have a woeful record against them.
Related: 2025 NRL Season Draw
Historical Difficulty Analysis
In this section, we’ve looked at the NRL head-to-head records dating back to 1998, and for the last ten seasons to calculate the draw difficulty.
Winners: Melbourne, Penrith and the Roosters.
The most three recent winners of NRL titles feature strongly in the easiest draw. Canberra are probably the surprise, helped by having a respectable record versus Melbourne. Brisbane’s historic success makes their draw look easy, much like their 2024 draw looked on paper before imploding last season.
Losers: Gold Coast’s woeful head-to-head record against most clubs hurts them, and the Wests Tigers terrible recent record does the same. Those two teams have a difficult 2025 NRL Draw based on head-to-head no matter which way you look at it.
2025 NRL Draw Features
Fixtures by Home and Away, Day and Night
Winners: Not sure if they are real winners, but the Roosters (20) and Broncos (19) have the most night games in 2025. Given the Broncos lost all their day games, it is a win to only have five day games for the fans.
Newcastle have an incredible record on a Sunday in recent seasons and they end their season with six Sunday games out of seven rounds. Melbourne have lost one Thursday game in two years and finish the season with a bunch of them.
Losers: South Sydney opening the season with three straight away games appears tough, but given their home ground is a good train ride away from their base it shouldn’t too much of a worry.
Wests Tigers are one of only two teams to finish their season with two away games.
Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles have a run of four away games out of five in the middle.
New Zealand Warriors are rejected yet again by Australian free-to-air, not quite catching onto the Warriors popularity. Just loading up with Sunday afternoons full of two underperforming Sydney clubs, mostly.
Fixtures by Days Turnaround
Winners: The six clubs who don’t have a five day turnaround in 2025. Most of those clubs are in Sydney which seems a bit unfair given they have to do the least travelling. At least the Warriors don’t have a five day turnaround. Canberra continue their favourable draw with the most greater than seven Day turnarounds.
Losers: Broncos, Dolphins and Sharks have the most five day turnarounds. But two of those clubs do get a free home game because of Magic Round, so can’t complain too much. The Broncos have two in three rounds and end their season with one.
Fixtures by Distance Travelled
Winners: Sydney teams as ever, there are nine of them.
The Dragons are winners early with their team as a whole travelling less. Despite being in Queensland the Dolphins have a low travel total early in the season, but do get punished later. Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks have to travel less than 200km from July.
Losers: North Queensland and New Zealand Warriors battle it out for the most hard done by, but both also have the advantage of tiring visiting teams out when they arrive. Especially the Cowboys in those early hot months.
Related: 2025 NRL: Jerseys Club-By-Club
