{"id":436999,"date":"2026-01-25T18:23:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T18:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/436999\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T18:23:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T18:23:38","slug":"the-five-teams-who-could-win-the-2026-nrl-premiership-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/436999\/","title":{"rendered":"The FIVE teams who could win the 2026 NRL premiership &#8211; NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>The 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NRL<\/a> season is approaching, and it could well be one of the most wide-open campaigns in recent history.<\/p>\n<p>While arguments could be made for why plenty of teams are in the mix for the premiership, realistically, there are only a small handful likely to take out the Provan-Summons trophy on that first Sunday in October.<\/p>\n<p>The usual suspects &#8211; the teams who have dominated recent seasons &#8211; are all likely to be in the mix again, but there is also a smokey or two in the mix.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the teams that can win the premiership in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>1. Penrith Panthers<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers are undoubtedly going to be in the mix again.<\/p>\n<p>They had an awful start to 2025, sitting bottom of the ladder midway through the season after a couple of key off-season departures that they just couldn&#8217;t seem to get their head around.<\/p>\n<p>But class eventually shone through, and their rise to make the top eight was one of the great in-season recoveries of the modern era.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, the four-time premiers were cut short at the preliminary final stage against eventual premiers the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/brisbane-broncos\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brisbane Broncos<\/a>, but even that was a thriller.<\/p>\n<p>They head into 2026 with a relatively stable side, young guns with more runs on the board, and a system they know still works from the second half of 2025.<\/p>\n<p>It would be a stunner if Penrith weren&#8217;t there in the final weeks of the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>        &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n        &#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; &#13; The 2026 NRL season is approaching, and it could well be one of the most wide-open&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-436999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}