Round 23 of the 2026 NRL season saw plenty of highlights and lowlights, headlined by the Dragons shocking the Sharks and the Dolphins winning the Battle of Brisbane.
DRAGONS SHOCK CRONULLA SHARKS
The St George Illawarra Dragons have produced the second biggest upset of the season – only behind their win against the Broncos – to claim their third victory of the season against the Cronulla Sharks.
Despite conceding a Sione Katoa try inside the first five minutes, the Dragons hit back with three of their own – Valentine Holmes, Hamish Stewart and Tyrell Sloan – before winger Setu Tu put the finishing touches on the win with a try in the final five minutes of the contest.
“Footy’s a simple game sometimes and it’s the kick in the ass we needed to be honest,” Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon said.
“If it’s more important to you, you do hard things. It’s a simple game, just work hard enough and things work out but we didn’t work hard enough and they ran harder and tackled harder and got the scoreboard in their favour.
“I felt like we smart-assed our way through today. They were very good but we were nowhere near competitive enough today.
“We talked about expectation during the week and expecting things to go well and every now and again you need a little shorten up and the beauty of rugby league is that it can find a way to do that for you.
“We were outplayed. We need to wake up to us and do something about it.”
DOLPHINS WIN BATTLE OF BRISBANE
The Dolphins have emerged victorious in the latest edition of the ‘Battle of Brisbane ‘, defeating the Brisbane Broncos at their home of Suncorp Stadium, adding more woes to the reigning premiers’ horror 2026 campaign.
Producing one of the greatest comebacks in NRL history, the Dolphins were down by 26 points at the 20th minute mark following an Ezra Mam double and tries to Deine Mariner and Xavier Willison but managed to score the final five tries of the match.
“It hurts, obviously,” Broncos coach Michael Maguire said.
“There’s still plenty of work that we need to do. We got through halfway of last year and we were probably having some similar challenges then we hit a streak and we went on to some pretty good places.”
After conceding seven tries and blowing a 24-point lead, Maguire said his team needed to work better defensively.
“That’s the will to work hard for each other, which they do, and if they’re willing to stick at it, you’ll find that. I’ve been a part of teams that have done that,” Maguire said.
“It’s not so much what’s going on and where we are on the ladder, it’s about what we can do to make sure that we can build something that’s strong over periods of time.
“Obviously I’m frustrated. You can’t let in that many tries to put yourselves in a position to be able to really contend.”
RICKY UNLOADS AS RAIDERS RULED OUT OF FINALS
The Canberra Raiders have become the latest team to be ruled out of the 2026 NRL Finals series, succumbing to a six-point loss (30-24) to the Newcastle Knights on Sunday afternoon in front of their home fans in the nation’s capital.
Although they looked promising for most of the match, they were unable to close the gap in the second half and allowed their opponents to score twice in the second 40 minutes through Dane Gagai and Dominic Young, gifting them the win.
Speaking post-match, Raiders coach Ricky Stuart was unimpressed with his side’s performance, especially with Corey Horsburgh, who cost them the game with a brain explosion which saw him sent to the sin-bin.
“We lost the start of the season because we were self-entitled and undisciplined and we lost the opportunity to still then continue and try to make the semis,” Stuart said.
“That’s exactly what I said to him after the game.
“It wasn’t everybody’s fault. There’s 16 other blokes there that made a lot of massive effort.
“There’s one shi* bloody decision choice (that) has cost us.”