With kick-off of the 2025 NRL Season just weeks away, we thought it would be the perfect time to have a look at what every team has been up to this off-season and put together our Jerseys Megastore predictions for what the 2025 NRL Ladder will look like when the final whistle blows on Sunday night in Round 27 and take a very early stab at who will battle it out in this year's Grand Final!
As for who will be taking out first position, and the illustrious minor premiership in 2025, this was perhaps the easiest team to try and place. It’s tough to go past the Melbourne Storm when discussing who will be the team to beat, especially considering they go into the new season with a fit spine, and a fire in their belly to redeem themselves after a heart-shattering Grand Final loss in 2024.
Hot on their tails this year will be the boys from the shire, in the Cronulla Sharks. Coach Craig Fitzgibbon has been building this side for a few years now, and having finally broken their finals hoodoo, the team is ready to fire on all cylinders and finish in the top 2 this year.
Coming in third in 2025, will be the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. With Tom Amone and Sitili Toupouniua adding size to the determination of the Bulldogs pack, and the full squad having another year under the systems of Coach Ciraldo, the Dogs look set on track to improve on last year's heroics.
Rounding out the top four in 2025, will be one of the major improvers for the year in the Brisbane Broncos. The Broncs have arguably the most talented squad in the competition, but lacked discipline in 2024. The old-school, hard knocks style of coaching that Michael Maguire brings to the table could be just what the doctor ordered.
We expect a slight slip from the four-peat premiers in 2025, with Penrith Panthers being our pick for fifth place this year. They have lost some major players (as they seem to every year), but the loss of Jarome Luai could really be the stinger. Nathan Cleary has battled injuries throughout his career, and missed extended periods of time. Not having Luai to fall back on in the halves, may really hurt the Panthers in 2025.
In sixth place, we’ve got the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles, perhaps the hardest team to place in 2025. If they can keep a full-strength team on the park for the majority of the season, they could easily be a top 4 contender. However, if injuries are to plague the Sea Eagles, their lack of depth could see them miss finals altogether. Only time will tell how long Daly Cherry-Evans can keep dominating, and how long Tommy Turbo will stay on the park!
Another major improver for 2025, we’ve got the South Sydney Rabbitohs coming in seventh place this year! Another squad chock full of natural talent, under the guidance of a returning Wayne Bennett. It’s very hard to see this side not excelling in 2025, the only thing keeping them from pushing them deeper into the season will be the lack of experience at halfback and hooker!
Rounding out the top eight in 2025, will be the Canberra Raiders. Ricky Stuart should have been a contender for coach of the year in 2024 with what he managed to accomplish with such a young squad, that was missing their halfback for most of the year. Now another year further developed, this side is ready to put their mark on the NRL. Their biggest hurdle is going to come early with a tough battle every week in the first eight rounds of the season. If they can pick up a few wins early, then they will be set to sink their teeth into the back end of the year.
Fresh off surviving the Spoon Bowl in 2024, and just missing out on finals in 2025 to finish ninth will be the Parramatta Eels. The Eels will no doubt be improvers on last season, however by how much is hard to tell under an unproven Jason Ryles. Mitchell Moses is another halfback who's proven to be injury-prone in the years gone by, and the Eels will need to quickly reduce their reliance on him if they are to challenge for the top eight with Dylan Brown having never put his stamp on the side the way Luai had at Penrith.
Coming in tenth will be the Gold Coast Titans. The youth and inexperience of the Titans back line will be the weak link for them this year, however, they have one of the competition's best forward packs protecting them. 2025 will be a year for continued development, with the primary goal needing to be consistency under Coach Hasler, in order to really push for the top eight in 2026.
In 2025, they’ll finally break the streak! Coming in eleventh place we have the Wests Tigers. There is no doubt they have a tremendously improved squad on years gone by, and their attacking power will be dangerous. What will let the Tigers down in 2025 though is their defence. Last year, they conceded more points than anyone else, and nothing has changed in their coaching staff to indicate their defensive structures will improve or change at all. Raw talent will get them far enough to beat the bottom sides, but they will struggle against the top eight sides as they learn the hard way that in the modern game, coaching beats talent.
The New Zealand Warriors are our pick for twelfth place this year. The substitution of James Fisher-Harris for Addin Fonua-Blake is unlikely to make major improvements on the squad; and with a new halves pairing following the retirement of Shaun Johnson, we’re just not sold on the Warriors improving in 2025 with the rest of the pack.
One of the biggest slippers in 2025, to finish in thirteenth position will be the Sydney Roosters. There is some serious talent leaving the squad from last season, and missing their half-back and hooker for the first half of the season through injury will be a killer. We think the Roosters will mount somewhat of a comeback in the latter half of the year, but it will ultimately depend on how big of a hill they have to climb when Sam Walker and Brandon Smith come back.
Another slipper in the new season will be the Newcastle Knights ultimately finishing fourteenth. The fact of the matter seems to be if teams can shut down Kalyn Ponga, you shut down the Knights. A slow start to the season, as Newcastle continues to struggle to settle on a halves pairing will see the club finally part ways with Coach Adam O’Brien around round ten. Sometimes you need to go backward before you can go forwards.
The biggest fall from grace in 2025 will be the North Queensland Cowboys, as they finish fifteenth. The loss of Kyle Feldt and Valentine Holmes will represent just too many points walking away from the club. As good as Tom Dearden is, we can’t see him carrying this side the way some of the greats of the game can.
Coming in second last, and battling it out for the wooden spoon will be the St George Illawarra Dragons. Without the guidance of Ben Hunt, it’s very hard to see Kyle Flannagan developing any further, and despite picking up the best goal kicker in the league, it’s hard to see where points are going to come from for the Dragons. They’ve bought aging players, who will show fleeting moments of greatness but are ultimately just there to buy time for the Dragon’s premiership-winning SG Ball team to be ready for first grade.
The Bennett curse will continue to run riot in the NRL, as the Dolphins take out the seventeenth position in 2025. The combination of some squad losses, and not picking up anyone of note for the new season will make for an embattled year after struggling to make finals in their first two seasons. A new coach and a tricky draw will make for a year to forget.
After 27 weeks of hard-fought competition, and and even harder-fought finals series, who will make the 2025 NRL Grand Final? Well at Jerseys Megastore, we’re backing the Melbourne Storm to take on the Brisbane Broncos. The two best spines in the comp will go head to head in a match for the ages at ANZ Stadium, with the Storm walking away as eventual premiers.
1. Melbourne Storm
2. Cronulla Sharks
3. Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
4. Brisbane Broncos
5. Penrith Panthers
6. Manly Sea Eagles
7. South Sydney Rabbitohs
8. Canberra Raiders
9. Parramatta Eels
10. Gold Coast Titans
11. Wests Tigers
12. New Zealand Warriors
13. Sydney Roosters
14. Newcastle Knights
15. North Queensland Cowboys
16. St George Illawarra Dragons
17. Dolphins
Well there you have it! There are our predictions for the 2025 NRL Ladder, and the eventual Grand Final contestants. What do you think? Let us know your thoughts. New officially licensed NRL stock is coming in every week, so make sure you head into Jersey’s Megastore both in store and online to get your latest 2025 supporter merch!! Jerseys Megastore, for all things footy!
