The 2018 NRL season was the 111th season of professional
rugby league in Australia and the 21st season run by the
National Rugby League. The main competition, known as the 2018 Telstra Premiership due to sponsorship from Telstra, featured 16 teams playing 25 weekly rounds of matches from March until September, resulting in the top eight teams playing a series of finals matches to determine which two teams reached the
2018 NRL Grand Final
The 2018 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the 2018 National Rugby League season and was played on Sunday September 30 at Sydney's ANZ Stadium. The match was contested between minor premiers the Sydney Roosters ...
.
Teams
The lineup of teams remained unchanged for the 12th consecutive year.
Pre-season
The 2018 pre-season featured the
2018 World Club Challenge
The 2018 World Club Challenge (also known as the 2018 Downer World Club Challenge was the 26th staging of the World Club Challenge. It took place on 16 February 2018, and featured Super League champions Leeds Rhinos, and NRL winners Melbourne ...
match with the
NRL premiers Melbourne Storm defeating the
Super League champions Leeds Rhinos.
Regular season
With the
City vs. Country representative game having been scrapped, the NRL scheduled 6 games to take place in regional areas of New South Wales and Queensland as a replacement:
Tamworth,
Bathurst &
Mudgee, and
Toowoomba,
Gladstone &
Cairns
Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...
.
The overall structure of the season's draw was also revised. The second game of the
2018 State of Origin series
The 2018 State of Origin series was the 37th annual best-of-three series between the Queensland and New South Wales rugby league teams. Before this series, Queensland had won 21 times, NSW 13 times, with two series drawn. The 2018 series was won ...
was played as a stand-alone fixture on a Sunday to avoid conflict with the regular season. Due to this the competition was shortened to 25 rounds and each team got 1 bye as opposed to 2 in previous years.
Bold – Opposition's Home game
X – Bye
* – Golden point game
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
† Match decided in extra time.
Chart
Grand final
Player statistics and records
*
Jamayne Isaako
Jamayne Isaako (born 5 June 1996) is a New Zealand professional rugby league footballer who plays as a er and for the Dolphins in the NRL.
He previously played for the Brisbane Broncos and the Gold Coast Titans in the National Rugby League. ...
broke the record for the most points scored in a rookie season with 239, which was set by
Mick Cronin Michael or Mick Cronin may refer to:
Sports
*Mick Cronin (hurler) (1902–1982), Irish hurler
*Mick Cronin (footballer) (1911–1979), Australian rules football player, umpire and television commentator
* Mick Cronin (rugby league) (born 1951), Aus ...
in 1977 who scored 225 points.
*
Gavin Cooper became the first forward in the 111 year history of the NRL to score a try in nine consecutive games, beating the previous record of eight set by
Frank Burge in 1918.
*
Cameron Smith became the first hooker in NRL history to score 200 points in a season.
The following statistics are as of the conclusion of Round 25.
Top 5 point scorers
Top 5 try scorers
Top 5 goal scorers
Top 5 tacklers
2018 Transfers
Players
Source:
Coaches
References
{{National Rugby League seasons