{"id":927631,"date":"2026-10-14T08:40:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T08:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/927631\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T08:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T08:40:19","slug":"nrl-2026-nrl-hoping-to-introduce-a-wildcard-weekend-in-either-2027-or-2028-finals-expansion-to-top-10-how-would-it-work-news-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/927631\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: NRL hoping to introduce a Wildcard Weekend in either 2027 or 2028, finals expansion to top 10, how would it work, news, reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NRL is expected to introduce a wildcard weekend to the finals in either 2027 and 2028 following the success of the concept in the AFL this year.<\/p>\n

Clubs have been asked for feedback on the idea with CODE Sports <\/a>reporting that the concept will be introduced in the next two years.<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s a chance it could be as early as next year to coincide with an 18th team (Perth) joining the competition.<\/p>\n

The wildcard weekend would feature two games, 7th vs 10th and 8th vs 9th, to determine the last two spots in the top eight finals bracket.<\/p>\n

It was used in the NRL in 1998, after the merger of the ARL and Super League created a 20-team competition. The ninth-placed Bulldogs made it all the way to the Grand Final but lost to the minor premiers Brisbane.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a move that makes sense given the NRL are set to expand to 20 teams by the 2029 season.<\/p>\n

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While it\u2019s not guaranteed to be introduced in 2027, it\u2019s all but certain to be part of the fixture from 2028 onwards.<\/p>\n

The Chiefs will become the NRL\u2019s 19th club in 2028 while a second New Zealand team or a fifth Queensland team are the two favourites to win the 20th licence.<\/p>\n

The AFL, who have 18 teams, introduced wildcard finals this year with the 8th-placed Western Bulldogs and 10th-placed Carlton winning high-quality thrillers to book their place in the elimination finals.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s effectively an expansion to a 10-team finals series with the highest ranked wildcard winner becoming 7th in the current eight-team bracket, and the lowest ranked winner becoming 8th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NRL is expected to introduce a wildcard weekend to the finals in either 2027 and 2028 following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":927632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-927631","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\/927631","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=927631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/927632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}