{"id":851020,"date":"2026-08-11T04:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/851020\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T04:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:22:14","slug":"nrl-news-2026-peter-vlandys-3rd-v-4th-playoff-phil-gould-alternative-knockout-cup-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/851020\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Peter V\u2019landys 3rd v 4th playoff, Phil Gould alternative knockout Cup competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

NRL<\/a> boss Peter V\u2019landys<\/a>\u2032 idea for a third versus fourth playoff in grand final week<\/a> should be dead in the water if he\u2019s listening to the ex players who almost unanimously believe it to be an unworkable proposal.<\/p>\n

But the conversation should continue. As Phil Gould<\/a> said on Nine\u2019s 100% Footy, the \u201cthought bubble\u201d should act as a conversation starter.<\/p>\n

\"Broncos<\/p>\n

Broncos gun Reece Walsh won\u2019t play finals this year.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

Asking players who have just poured their hearts out to realise their grand final dream and fallen short to park their misery, leave their drinking shoes at home and carry on training for another week in the name of \u201centertainment\u201d is a form of sadism.<\/p>\n

Luke Keary<\/a> described it as \u201cthe worst idea ever in the game\u201d and that fairly accurately sums up the thoughts of the players. If you think a cash prize would change their mind you haven\u2019t got enough regard for how much winning a premiership means. When you get so close only to fall short, the pain can\u2019t be healed by a few pieces of silver. <\/p>\n

Players who go through preliminary final losses need time to decompress, to get away from footy, to heal. They are not the right people to be rolled out a week later in the name of entertainment.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean finding extra games to fill the vacuum in grand final week is a bad idea.<\/p>\n

Speaking on 100% Footy, Gould cast his mind back to the 1970s for the genesis of a proposal that could actually work.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou kids were too young but back in 1970\/71, it was only a top four (finals) competition back in those days, the next four teams played in a knockout competition called the Endeavour Cup down at Cronulla,\u201d Gould said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they actually used that competition to experiment with new rules for the following year, it\u2019s where the six tackle rule came from, in that particular competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gould\u2019s next point really hit on something. This year is the Rugby League World Cup<\/a> and some players will miss out on Kangaroos<\/a> jerseys because of how early their season finishes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not always a World Cup year but at the end of every season there are rep jerseys up for grabs and they are more often than not filled by players whose teams play finals.<\/p>\n

The likes of Ethan Strange, Mitchell Moses<\/a>, Pat Carrigan<\/a> and Reece Walsh<\/a> could potentially miss out this year because of their lack of footy. If they do, the World Cup suffers.<\/p>\n

What if there\u2019s a fix for both problems? What if you could give the stars who miss finals more footy so they don\u2019t lose out on rep jerseys and also address the issue V\u2019landys is trying to tackle by adding extra content when it starts to get thin in September and October?<\/p>\n

\"Australia<\/p>\n

Several Kangaroos incumbents will sit out September.\u00a0NRL Imagery<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s flesh out Gould\u2019s idea a tad. For argument\u2019s sake, let\u2019s start an end of season Cup competition next season, when 10 teams will miss out on finals. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a knockout and the winning club gets $500,000, plus $1 million for the players to share (trust us, this kind of money would be a drop in the ocean compared to how much revenue would be gained from the extra content).<\/p>\n

What could that look like? To make the visuals easier, we\u2019ll apply the current ladder.<\/p>\n

Week one<\/p>\n

Qualifier 1: 15. Titans v 18. (nominally Perth Bears)<\/p>\n

Qualifier 2: 16. Broncos v 17. Dragons<\/p>\n

Byes: 9. Bulldogs, 10. Sea Eagles, 11. Storm, 12. Raiders, 13. Eels, 14. Tigers<\/p>\n

Week two<\/p>\n

QF1: 11. Storm v 14. Tigers<\/p>\n

QF2: 12. Raiders v 13. Eels<\/p>\n

QF3: 9. Bulldogs v winner of Titans v Bears<\/p>\n

QF4: 10. Sea Eagles v winner of Broncos v Dragons<\/p>\n

Week three<\/p>\n

S\/F 1: Winner of QF1 v winner of QF2<\/p>\n

S\/F 2: Winner of QF3 v winner of QF4<\/p>\n

Week four<\/p>\n

Grand final: Winner of SF 1 v winner of SF 2<\/p>\n

This would ensure that on top of the NRL finals series, with the top eight teams playing for all the marbles, the other 10 teams could get as many as four extra games with a prize worth playing for on the line.<\/p>\n

Fans whose team are long out of contention for the premiership have another reason to stay engaged and the NRL and its broadcasters get extra content and the extra revenue that goes with it. <\/p>\n

\"Phil<\/p>\n

Phil Gould.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

\u201cI think football for teams who don\u2019t make the eight just might be the incentive where players will play on because they\u2019ve got rep football coming up, it keeps them in the picture,\u201d Gould said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it gives teams who have missed the eight something to look forward to, to make some cash and maybe blood some younger players and give them a run in first grade, or what have you. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat engages all the fans across the league – the fans who have missed out on the eight, what do they do during September? Right, so it keeps them involved as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NRL boss Peter V\u2019landys\u2032 idea for a third versus fourth playoff in grand final week should be dead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-851020","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\/851020","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=851020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}