The 2015 NRL season was the 108th season of professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

in Australia and the 18th season of the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

in Australia and New Zealand. The season started in

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

with the annual Auckland Nines, which was followed by the Rugby League All Stars Match, returning after a one-year hiatus, and the World Club Series.

North Queensland Cowboys The North Queensland Cowboys is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Townsville, the largest city in North Queensland. They compete in Australia's premier rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL). Sinc ...

won their first premiership in only the second Grand Final to be decided in extra time and their second ever grand final.

Season launch and advertising

The season launched with a gala event at the Queens Wharf, Auckland on 29 January attended by a selection of the code's stars including

Shaun Johnson Shaun Ly Johnson (born 9 September 1990) is a New Zealand former professional rugby league footballer who last played as a for the New Zealand Warriors in the National Rugby League and New Zealand national rugby league team, New Zealand at in ...

and

Greg Inglis Gregory Paul Inglis (born 15 January 1987), also known by the nickname of "G.I.", is a retired Indigenous Australian professional rugby league footballer, who regularly played as a centre, fullback, five-eighth and wing. From 2011 to 2019, Ing ...

. It was the first time the event had been held outside Australia. The NRL and their longstanding ad agency MJW Haukuhodo used, for the second year running,

Robbie Williams Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, launching a solo career in 1996. His debut studio album, ''Life thru a Lens'', was re ...

' " Let Me Entertain You" as the commercial soundtrack. The launch commercial takes members and supporters on a journey from the outback plains of Western Queensland to an inner city boot camp in Sydney and features more than fifty NRL club members and fans in a range of scenarios that include a rendition of a

Haka Haka (, ; singular ''haka'', in both Māori language, Māori and New Zealand English) are a variety of ceremonial dances in Māori culture. A performance art, hakas are often performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the f ...

on a Sydney train and a focus on

' trademark Goanna post-

try celebration In rugby football, a try celebration is the practice of celebrating the scoring of a try. The celebration may be performed by the tryscorer (most notably), his or her teammates, the manager or coaching staff and/or the supporters of the team. Wh ...

. The second Sunday afternoon match began at 4:10pm instead of the traditional 3:10pm. This change was to allow the

Nine Network Nine Network (stylised 9Network, and commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of the five main free-to-air television ...

to show the match live into New South Wales and Queensland, and use it as a lead-in to their respective 6:00 pm news bulletins.

Teams

The lineup of teams remained unchanged for the 9th consecutive year. The NRL's salary cap for the clubs' top 25 players will be $A6.3M for 2015.

Pre-season

The 2015 pre-season featured the second Auckland Nines tournament, held over a weekend at Auckland's

Eden Park Eden Park is a sports venue in Auckland, New Zealand. It is located three kilometres southwest of the Auckland CBD, on the boundary between the suburbs of Mount Eden and Kingsland. The main stadium has a nominal capacity of 50,000, and is s ...

in which the

South Sydney Rabbitohs The South Sydney District Rugby League Football Club, also known as the South Sydney Rabbitohs, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Maroubra, New South Wales, Maroubra that competes in the Nat ...

defeated the

Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are an Australian professional rugby league club based in the Sutherland Shire of Southern Sydney, Southern Sydney, New South Wales. Cronulla compete in the National Rugby League (NRL), Australasia's premier rugb ...

in the final. This tournament took place on the last weekend of January, and the

All Stars match The Rugby League All Stars Match of the National Rugby League is an annual rugby league football match between the specially-formed Indigenous All Stars and an All Stars team, both of whose members are made available for selection public vote. ...

was played on Friday 13 February at Cbus Super Stadium in Robina.NRL Nines to kick off 2015 season in January
''Sydney Morning Herald'', 6 May 2014 The 2015 World Club Series took place in England with 2014 premiers the

taking on Super League champions St. Helens in the showpiece match, which South Sydney won.

Regular season

Bold – Opposition's Home game
X – Bye
Opponent for round listed above margin

Ladder

Ladder progression

*Numbers highlighted in green indicate that the team finished the round inside the top 8. *Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the team finished first on the ladder in that round. *Numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished last place on the ladder in that round. *Underlined numbers indicate that the team had a bye during that round.

Finals series

A new record was set for overall attendance in Week 1 of the Finals with a combined total of 131,794. † Match decided in

golden point The golden point, a sudden death overtime system, is used to resolve drawn matches in a number of sports. The term is borrowed from soccer's now-defunct golden goal. Rugby league Australia The golden point is used to determine a winner (where a ...

extra time.

Chart

Grand final

Regular season player statistics

The following statistics are of the conclusion of Round 26. Top 5 point scorers Top 5 try scorers Top 5 goal scorers Top 5 tacklers