The Real NRL Champion for 2018 is Already Decided

There are six teams left in the NRL finals - by the way, my Week 2 Finals tips are the Sharks and the Rabbitohs - but the holders of the NRL championship belt bowed out last week...

[You can revisit the championship belt concept HERE, and it's history HERE.]

When we last left off, the Gold Coast Titans were the unlikely champions, having beating Cronulla twice in 2017. They then followed their championship victory by losing all their remaining matches in 2017. This setup an enticing list of potential title matches in 2018:

• Round 3, Sun 25 March, vs Dragons at Clive Berghofer Stadium, Toowoomba. 4pm (Ch9)
• Round 4, Sun 1 April, vs Broncos at Suncorp Stadium (Lang Park) - 630pm
• Round 6, Sun 15 April, vs Panthers at Panthers Stadium, 2pm
• Round 12, Sat 26 May, vs Roosters at Central Coast Stadium, 3pm
• Round 15, Sat 16 Jun, vs Bulldogs at Belmore Park, 3pm
• Round 16, Sun 1st July, vs Tigers at Leichhardt Oval, 2pm
• Round 21, Sat 4th Aug, vs Eels at Cbus Super (Robina) Stadium, 530pm

In reality, the first game was all that was required to knock the Titans off their pedestal, with the Dragons smashing them 54-8 in Toowoomba, at Racist Stadium.

There are only four matches with bigger margins than this in the history of the NRL championship belt, and the others all saw the champion win, so this is the biggest margin for a title change ever. 

The St. George-ILLAWARRA Dragons third title reign - 15th if you count pre-merger, which I definitely do not - looked like it could be a long one. However, the usual pattern of the Dragons performing poorly in the second half of the season - colloquially known amongst NRL fans as choking - meant the reign ended in Round 21. I was at the ground as the Warriors won 18-12, having earned the right to challenge with a 20-12 victory back in Round 7.

The way the NRL draw was laid out meant there were only two possible ways the Warriors could lose the title in 2018.

1. Lose to the Panthers in round 24, then lose to them again in the finals. But the Warriors won in R24, meaning the finals loss was not a title match, but that loss does possibly set up a title match when Warriors and Panthers next play.
2. Finish in the top four. Then they could potentially lose in the first round of the finals, but play (and lose) to the same team again in the Grand Final. The Warriors did not finish top four, so there was never a chance of this unlikely scenario eventuating.

And so, going into 2019 the Warriors are the Real NRL Champions, and their first challenger will either be Penrith (as outlined above) or Canterbury (who beat them in Round 23).