2026... Calibrate your expectations
Season 29 of Melbourne Storm rugby league
Well, we’re back for 2025… oops 2026. Let’s just run this back from last year…
A second straight grand final defeat wasn’t fun, but at least Australia won the Ashes twice.1
Season 28 was wrapped in a low-effort bow with these efforts that I belatedly and reluctantly hit post upon in February:
Summer news
Australia won the rugby league Ashes, Cameron Munster won the newly-minted Fulton-Reilly Award and the Harry Sunderland Medal. He was nominated for the IRL Golden Boot, but checks notes, that was won by Storm captain Harry Grant. Sure, okay.
Grant is the fifth Storm player to win the Golden Boot, following in the footsteps of Cameron Smith (2007, 2017), Billy Slater (2008), Greg Inglis (2009), and Cooper Cronk (2016). Although those four players did win the award when it was the “best player in the world,” rather than the “international rugby league player of the year.”
The negligence of the Tongan rugby league officials that saw Eli Katoa suffer a catastrophic series of concussive episodes during the Pacific Championships should never be forgiven. That he’s seemingly in reasonably good health during his year-long recovery is great to see. Hopefully this year off the field can be a positive for him and his ongoing wellbeing.
New Zealand (without Jahrome Hughes) won the final of the Pacific Championships 36–14 over Samoa.
Off the field, Shawn Blore had his day in court, receiving a six-month good behaviour bond for his role in a fight involving his brother from back in 2024. As foreshadowed as far back as July, Jonah Pezet ended his time with the Storm, signing a cuck contract with the Eels for 2026, before moving to the Broncos for 2027 through 2029. Will he become Special Agent Brodie Croft 2.0?
Ryan Papenhuyzen… retired? Huh. That’s a sentence no one expected, and yet here we are. The 2020 Churchill Medallist decided that he didn’t want to play footy anymore and fair enough when you consider his circumstances. Golf does seem like fun.
Nelson Asofa-Solomona ended his time with the Storm and then jumped into the ring to belt Jeremy Latimore.
Any NRL player can get it. I want to clean up the whole NRL division and then we can go from there.
Okay NAS. I Didn’t know that there was a NRL boxing division, perhaps that’s something else PVL can monetize and exploit. Although if NAS could convince a certain ex-resident of Rikers Island to face him in the ring, perhaps NAS could do the world a favour.
Harry Grant received a contract extension to the end of the 2028 season, as did Craig Bellamy:
The seven-time Dally M Coach of the Year will enter his 24th season as head coach this year and will equal Sir Alex Ferguson’s tenure at Manchester United should he not finish up until after the 2028 season.2 There was no mention of the clause that allowed him to opt out every year should he want to, so perhaps the annual media circus is done… maybe?
In signing news, Melbourne welcomed Jack Hetherington to play NSW Cup, Davvy Moale to look pretty and Manaia Waitere to fill in out wide. Hetherington and Waitere both received two-year contracts, while Moale is on a bridge contract before he joins Manly in 2027. Also joining the Storm is prodigal son Trent Toelau. The Victorian junior returning to Melbourne after floating around at Penrith for a few years. Waitere and Toelau suited up for the Māori All Stars (with Joe Chan) in their draw against the Indigenous All Stars in Hamilton.
In late breaking news, Storm have partnered with Mounties. Mounties have previously partnered with Canberra and Canterbury. Guess that running a NSW Cup team required some extra players. If only the club could stop referring to this season as the first time that there’s been a NSW Cup team called Melbourne Storm…
Rugby Legal
The Zac Lomax situation would be so much better for my ability to thoroughly enjoy rugby legal if it didn’t involve the Melbourne Storm. Rugby legal is great3 because everyone loses their minds and forgets that the law doesn’t care about feelings or whatever weird things sports fans think is right or fair.
I don’t care for Lomax the player, he probably would make the Storm better in 2026 should he have been available to sign, but the reputational cost to the club has been high in pursuing his services. Asking for the blowtorch to be applied from the NRL on Parramatta was conduct unbecoming from Justin Rodski and/or Matt Tripp. Why can’t you blokes just be normal? Parramatta’s intransigence4 has been bemusing at best. The Lomax situation won’t be decided before the season starts and at this stage, I’m finding it hard to raise any interest above an exasperated meh.
However there’s a logical leap here that from Mary over at Ladies who League that I can’t get behind:
Any compensation payment from Melbourne does not alleviate Parramatta’s salary cap position. It does not replace a marquee player within roster constraints. It does not restore stability to a squad preparing for a season. It doesn’t get us closer to getting a player that will help us winning a competition.
Lomax’s departure surely took out a fair chunk of their 2026/7/8 spend in their salary cap. Unless the Eels don’t want to admit that they paid overs to induce Lomax to break his contract with St Merge in 2024. With that spare change they already went and took up the one year of Brisbane Broncos future halfback Jonah Pezet.
Plus the “compensation” that Parramatta decided to take the moral high ground against is the equivalent of a nice little corporate sponsorship for a team that is accepting money from one of the worst corporate criminals in Australian history. Maybe they’re still huffing asbestos on O’Connor Street.
This though was amusing:
For too long, the club (Parramatta) has been perceived as one that can be pushed around, by players, by rivals, by the league hierarchy.
I’ve maintained that Parramatta will win a pyrrhic victory in the legal case that they initiated. A three-year non-compete clause should be found to be excessive by any competent judge. A likely outcome would be that Lomax shouldn’t be playing NRL in 2026 only, and Parramatta should be paying his costs and the costs of any other parties that have been dragged into this litigation. It would be amusing though if Parramatta have breached their NRL Participation Agreement by involving the NRL in any way into the litigation. There would have to be a clause in there somewhere to suggest that could be a possibility. It would only be extremely amusing to find them in breach and to kick them (and Souths) out. Sorry, I said the quiet part out loud again.
Preseason Challenge matches
For the second straight season, Melbourne went winless through the Pre-Season Challenge. Huh. Melbourne’s last trial win was in Fiji in early 2024.
In their first match against the Raiders at Queanbeyan, what was mostly a Storm NSW Cup team, going down 32–6. The team dressed as Melbourne5 only scoring when the Raiders were reduced to 12-men late in the second half.
In their second outing, more of the regular first grade players returned and there were glimpses of good things in the first half, but bad defence was the theme of the night at the Sunshine Coast. Melbourne going down 42–12 with much to ponder before the start of the season.
If only the Titans could have done enough offloads to steal the prizemoney as February premiers from Parramatta. Very disappointing.
Around the league
Brisbane lost the World Club Challenge, which is always funny. They also lost Payne Hakeem Haas from 2027 onwards. That probably means that they will likely finish in the top four this year before Jonah Pezet leads them out of the finals in 2027. Well we can only hope.
Penrith will obviously take advantage of the latest rule changes imposed on the competition by PVL and Abdo and probably win the minor premiership, Ivan Cleary might finally win the Dally M coach of the year award. Nathan Cleary will receive compensation for the imposition of having to defend himself at the NRL Judiciary. Again, it’s Penrith’s competition to lose until they do.
Canberra will regress to the mean in 2026 — they won’t win the same number of matches as last year and maybe Ricky Stuart might spontaneously combust at least twice on the sidelines. Canterbury, the other top four team from 2025 should be around that spot again if they don’t decide the blow things up halfway through the season again. I don’t know that they can improve this season, but they might be able to find enough wins.
Cronulla are this year’s weird one. They have talent, but no consistency. They have good coaching, but are fragile in big games. Meanwhile the Roosters will likely be better in 2026, but by how much seems to depend of the whims of Trent Robinson and whether he can get the best out of their latest halfback approaching retirement age. It worked for them last time, but let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.
Should they pull their heads out of their own arse, Parramatta could trouble the better teams more often in 2026. They might even attract some more fans to their roofless venue. The Red Fish might make the finals for the first time in club history, but that all depends on whether certain players can keep on the park and that their defence actually stops opponents from scoring more than four tries a week.
The Warriors will be mediocre again in 2026. Whether that keeps the fans happy remains to be seen. Maybe the whole expansion thing to New Zealand needs to happy to give the Warriors the wake-up call that they need to get their ducks lined up for a proper tilt at the premiership.
Souths, St Merge and Wests Tigers are mostly irrelevant concerns for winning the premiership and making a deep finals run. One of them could make the finals, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find each of these teams with a 40-50% win record come September.
Todd Payten will be sacked at some point in 2026. The Cowboys won’t be making the finals. Newcastle are in their next rebuild under a new coach, as are the Gold Coast who will run out a Queensland Cup level team most weeks. If Manly could finish bottom four and not sack Anthony Seibold, that would be fine by the rest of the league.
Predictions
Last year:
Top tier teams: Penrith, Melbourne;
Should go well: Canterbury, Manly;
Fighting for the top eight: Brisbane, Cronulla, Sydney, Warriors;
Mediocrity: Canberra, North Queensland, Dolphins, Newcastle;
There’s always next season: Parramatta, Wests Tigers, South Sydney, St. Merge, Gold Coast.
Hmm — got Manly and Canberra wrong, the rest looked somewhat okay I guess.6 As for 2026:
Top tier teams: Penrith, Brisbane;
Should go well: Canterbury, Cronulla;
Fighting for the top eight: Sydney, Parramatta, Canberra;
Mediocrity:7 Dolphins, Warriors;
Irrelevancy: St. Merge, Wests Tigers, South Sydney;
There’s always next season: North Queensland, Newcastle, Gold Coast, Manly.
But what of Melbourne Storm
Has the veil of negativity descended, or is it a morning fog? Perhaps a fun summer storm?
The departures of Ryan Papenzhuyzen, Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Jonah Pezet and Grant Anderson, coupled with the year-long absence of Eli Katoa will have this iteration of the Melbourne Storm looking a little different.
I will put it out there that Sua Fa’alogo at fullback experience is going to a rollercoaster. I’m not sold on him being the Storm custodian. His presence will be a pretty big change to the way that Melbourne defend and use that position in a Craig Bellamy system. Part of me expects that Hugo Peel will be in the number one jersey at some point in 2026. But leave it to Billy Slater to come up with the correct take:
He’s still got a lot to learn. He’s going to do some brilliant stuff this year, I’ve got no doubt we’re going to stand up an applaud some of the things Sua Fa’alogo does, but he’s also going to come up with some ‘learnings’ and some errors that he’s going to really benefit from.
There’s a lot of challenges Melbourne will face this year with all the players that have departed, off the back of two grand final losses, but I think the energy of Sua Fa’alogo will certainly help with that.
2026 does have a similar feel to seasons about a decade ago. There’s enough quality in the Melbourne squad to suggest that they should make the top eight and maybe even the top four. There’s going to be weeks though where they look decidedly average. Calibrate your expectations accordingly. I don’t think that the Storm can really expect to be making a third straight Grand Final. It’s just too hard. Asking my magic eight ball suggests that the Storm would be in the “fighting for the top eight” group above.
Programming note
Like last season there should be a couple of new posts here each Storm match week:
Some kind of preview including a feature each Thursday or Friday.
Match review post on Monday at the latest, maybe earlier depending on when the Storm were scheduled and when I’ve had a chance to watch the replay.
When I remember, I am on BlueSky in a limited capacity. If you need my instant reaction after a Storm match, the TL;dr of the review post is usually posted to Instagram immediately after the final whistle.
A second post will drop ahead of the round one match against Parramatta.8
I just remembered the two tests that lasted just two days… oh yeah the rugby league Ashes happened too.
He’ll surpass Kevin Sheedy’s tenure at Essendon during this stretch. Is he stubborn enough to stick with the Storm into his 70s? If so, he could match the NFL coaching tenures of Tom Landry and Curly Lambeau.
Regular reminder that Souths lost the final High Court appeal by News Ltd over their exclusion from the NRL.
Did I use this word just to use this Simpsons reference? Yes!
Captained by Trent Loiero! Trent Loiero… what a time to be alive.
Okay sure, the Knights were hot trash rather than mediocre too.
Also teams that require a geographic location to add to their moniker.
Another recycled sentence!