{"id":463725,"date":"2026-02-07T04:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T04:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/463725\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T04:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T04:56:08","slug":"nrl-pre-season-begins-but-does-anyone-really-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/463725\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL Pre-Season begins, but does anyone really care?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rugby league is officially back.<\/p>\n

The first of 16 NRL Pre-Season Challenge matches gets underway today at Kogarah when the Bulldogs<\/a> take on the Cowboys<\/a> at 5:30 p.m.\u00a0followed by the Dragons<\/a> versus the Knights<\/a> at 7:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

Yet before the first tackle has even been made, genuine questions are being asked about the future of the Pre-Season Challenge given clubs\u2019 hesitance to play their biggest stars until the start of the NRL season proper.<\/p>\n

Put simply, is an organised pre-season tournament even relevant any more?<\/p>\n

MORE: NRL trials 2026: Fixtures, schedule, results and ladder for Pre-Season Challenge<\/a><\/p>\n

A quick look at the team lists for the season-opening matches is the perfect case in point and unlikely to fill fans, sponsors or broadcasters with excitement, particularly neutrals.<\/p>\n

Of the 105 players named by the four clubs for today\u2019s matches<\/a> less than 50 have ever graced the field in first-grade.<\/p>\n

With the vast majority of 2025 rep stars and key spine players cooling their heels on the sidelines, the biggest name on show this weekend will likely be 34-year-old Knights veteran Tyson Frizell.<\/p>\n

At the end of a hot and hard pre-season and with injuries never far away in the modern game, you can\u2019t blame the clubs.<\/p>\n

With little to gain and everything to lose there\u2019s little reason to expect NRL coaches to name more than the occasional star over the next three weekends with the bulk of game-time given to fringe and development players.<\/p>\n

Which begs the question, why bother?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rugby league is officially back. The first of 16 NRL Pre-Season Challenge matches gets underway today at Kogarah…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-463725","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\/463725","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=463725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}