The 2019 NRL Finals Series determined the winner of the 2019 National Rugby League season. The series ran over four weeks in September and October 2019. It culminated with the

2019 NRL Grand Final The 2019 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the 2019 National Rugby League season and was played at Sydney's ANZ Stadium. The match was contested between defending premiers the Sydney Roosters and the Canberra R ...

at Sydney's

ANZ Stadium ANZ may refer to: People * Anz (musician), a British DJ and electronic musician Banks * ANZ (bank), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, the fourth-largest bank in Australia ** ANZ Bank New Zealand, the largest bank in New Zealand ** ...

on 6 October 2019, where the

Sydney Roosters The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional Rugby league, Rugby League Football Club based in the Eastern Suburbs (Sydney) and parts of inner Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) competition. The Roosters have won ...

defeated the

Canberra Raiders The Canberra Raiders are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the national capital city of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. They have competed in Australasia's elite rugby league competition, the National Rugby ...

14–8. The top eight teams from the

2019 NRL Season The 2019 NRL season was the 112th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 22nd season run by the National Rugby League. The Sydney Roosters became the first team to win back-to-back Premierships since the Brisbane Broncos in 1992 ...

qualified for the finals series, playing under the same format since 2012. The qualifying teams were

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

, Sydney, South Sydney, Canberra,

Parramatta Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...

, Manly Warringah, Cronulla-Sutherland and

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

Qualification

qualified for their 9th consecutive finals series. Sydney qualified for their 3rd consecutive final series. South Sydney qualified for their 2nd consecutive finals series. Canberra qualified for their first finals series since 2016.

qualified for their first finals series since 2017. Manly Warringah qualified for their first finals series since 2017. Cronulla-Sutherland qualified for their 5th consecutive series.

qualified for their 6th consecutive series.

Venues

Canberra's

GIO Stadium Canberra Stadium (GIO Stadium for commercial reasons) is a facility primarily used for rugby league and rugby union games, located adjacent to the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, the capital of Australia. It is the largest sports ven ...

hosted one match,

AAMI Park The Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, known as AAMI Park for sponsorship reasons, is an outdoor sports stadium on the site of Edwin Flack Field in the Sports and Entertainment Precinct in the Melbourne central business district. When complet ...

hosted two matches and Sydney hosted the remaining six matches, between

Bankwest Stadium Western Sydney Stadium, commercially known as Commonwealth Bank, CommBank Stadium, is a multi-purpose rectangular stadium in Parramatta, within the Greater Western Sydney region, approximately west of Sydney CBD. It replaced the demolished Pa ...

, Lottoland and the

Sydney Cricket Ground The Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) is a sports stadium in Sydney, Australia. It is used for Test, One Day International and Twenty20 cricket, as well as, Australian rules football and occasionally for rugby league, rugby union and association fo ...

Finals structure

The system used for the 2019 NRL finals series was a final eight system. In this format, the top four teams in the eight receive a "double chance" when they play in week-one qualifying finals, such that if a top-four team lose in the first week it still remained in the finals, playing a semi-final the next week against the winner of an elimination final. The bottom four of the eight will play knock-out games – only the winners survive and move on to the next week. Home-ground advantage goes to the team with the higher ladder position in the first two weeks, to the qualifying final winners in the third week. In the second week, the winners of the qualifying finals receive a bye to the third week. The losers of the qualifying final play the winners of the elimination finals in a semi-final. In the third week, the winners of the semi-finals from week two play the winners of the qualifying finals in the first week. The winners of those matches move on to the

grand final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Sy ...

Qualification

Venues

Finals structure

Bracket

Qualifying and elimination finals

2nd Qualifying final: Sydney v South Sydney

1st Qualifying final: Melbourne v Canberra

2nd Elimination final: Manly-Warringah v Cronulla-Sutherland

1st Elimination final: Parramatta v Brisbane

Semi-finals

2nd Semi-final: South Sydney v Manly-Warringah

1st Semi-final: Melbourne v Parramatta

Preliminary finals

1st Preliminary final: Canberra v South Sydney

2nd Preliminary final: Sydney v Melbourne

Grand Final

References