NRL News - November 1 Off Contract Stars + Wildcard Round

Speaking of rules, let's get straight into this, and you can cue the text board right now for the terms reward mediocrity.

What am I talking about? A lot of people do not like this.

I absolutely love it.

So the NRL considering wild card weekend as early as 2027.

We were talking about this in the radio version, uh, on SEN Network from 3:00 till 6:00 PM daylight savings time.

You can catch us Monday through to Friday, and I was getting hammered for wild card.

But folks, I don't make the rules.

I do support the wild card, but I don't make the rules.

Uh, so here is what's being proposed.

So the NRL is discussing the introduction of wild card weekend with clubs and broadcasters could f- fast-track the concept for the 2027 season.

So we could have it as early as next year.

NRL Commission Chairman Peter V'Landys has reportedly sought feedback from clubs ahead of the release of next year's draw.

So it's gaining momentum.

I am supportive of it for a number of reasons.

So as we discussed on SEN early today, um, for the reason that you can have the week off, you don't have to have those, uh, fabricated restings in the final round of the comp, which, as you know, they're a bit of a bludger.

We also get, Scopey, um, minimal, uh, dead rubbers as a result of that, so more games are in play to the deeper ends of the comp.

More fans are engaged, bigger crowds.

And when it comes to reward mediocrity, I will just say this.

It actually punishes mediocrity.

So with the proposed wild card round, you could expect that w- uh, teams one through to six, they get the week off.

Seven would have to play 10, eight would have to play nine.

I would challenge that if you're team seven and you can't beat team 10, then you are mediocre.

So we are not rewarding mediocrity.

We're, in fact, punishing it.

I think there's so many pros to it.