Within moments of Keano Kini chipping, chasing and shunting the reigning premiers into a fifth straight loss on Saturday night, the question pinged in from the rugby league ether via the group chat.
“Has an entire top four missed the finals the following season?″
No. Never. Not once since 1908.
And even with the Storm, Broncos, Raiders and Bulldogs sitting between positions 11 and 15 on the NRL ladder (with the Titans in between) after mostly miserable starts to 2026, odds-on, this won’t be the year either.
The NRL’s bewildering insistence on awarding two points for a bye makes a liar of the ladder.
Take those two-point gifts away for a true mid-season snapshot, and Melbourne rank behind the eighth-placed Rabbitohs, not by four competition points, but only on for and against.
Through set restarts, injuries and hubris though, history could well be matched, if not made, by the falling heavyweights.
The drop-off of 2004 premiers Canterbury, the runner-up Roosters and fourth-placed Panthers in 2005 is the only time three of the previous year’s top four have been missing come September.
On form and the first 13 rounds of 2026, it will be Mad Mondays and post-mortems for the Broncos, Raiders and Bulldogs when the finals kick off.
Melbourne’s signs of life after seven straight losses, and Brisbane’s revival from a nigh-identical plight 12 months ago, offer hope yet. So too, columns like this, which beg to be shot down by the rugby league universe.
Like the Storm, Canterbury struggled most with the manufactured game speed and fatigue of endless six agains to start the season.
Where the cowbell signalling another crack at the defence has made running dummy halves king, the Bulldogs don’t have one.
And where the game’s livewires have come to life with the ruck opening up like Sydney Heads, weight of possession can kill off a team and a contest like never before.
Composed, game-managing halves (see Nathan Cleary, Tannah Boyd until his ACL ruptured, Jamal Fogarty and Isaiya Katoa) to control and kick a team around the paddock are proving just as critical.
The Bulldogs have Lachlan Galvin and Matt Burton awkwardly lumped with that remit when neither is built for it, with Galvin under relentless pressure each week despite being Canterbury’s most consistent player this year.
Bulldogs chairman Adam Driussi acknowledged in a letter to members “that the [rule] changes have arguably not suited our style of play or the shape of our roster” last week, while general manager Phil Gould’s recent meetings with potential recruits Luke Metcalf, Sam Verrills and Connor Watson point to something being done about it.
With roster holes of their own and a similar game prioritising defence when the NRL wants attack and speed, Melbourne had slumped in similar fashion.
Losing Eli Katoa, Tui Kamikamica, Nelson Asofa-Solomona and, to a lesser extent, back-rowers Ativalu Lisati and Shawn Blore, exposed the Storm’s depth issues up front and on the edges.
Melbourne have weathered an injury toll trumped only by poor old Parramatta to win four of their past five and now have three byes up their sleeve to make a post-Origin run.
Injuries to key personnel have hit all the incumbent top four: be it Canterbury’s Jacob Preston, Viliame Kikau, Jacob Kiraz and Stephen Crichton playing through pain; Canberra going without Josh Papali’i and Simi Sasagi; or Brisbane losing Payne Haas, Reece Walsh, Pat Carrigan, Jordan Riki and Deine Mariner at various stages.
The Broncos and Raiders have the talent and game to catch fire like no one else in the competition. It’s precisely why, once Brisbane could pair Walsh’s brilliance with defensive grit, that they ended a 19-year premiership drought last season.
But without a grinding game as a backbone, like Penrith and the Warriors, the magic can quickly swing to madness. The title-holders have just lost to teams running 17th and 16th in consecutive weeks.
Defensive lapses appear as disinterest, and for the Broncos, the heat and hype of being reigning premiers and the NRL’s biggest club can raze Red Hill and turf out a favourite son like Kevin Walters 12 months after a grand final run.
While Canberra struggle for consistency and cohesion among their young playmakers, the Broncos are stuck in the same mire as AFL and crosstown counterparts the Lions (eighth after 13 games): every bit the titleholders still stuck at Mount Everest base camp, sucking back emergency oxygen, having just got back from the summit.
The salary cap rarely works as truly intended, with the last eight premierships shared between three perennial powerhouses. But the NRL-era landscape does occasionally shake itself into a new order. The Tigers’ 2005 title came between the early-2000s dominance of the Broncos, Roosters and Bulldogs.
South Sydney, North Queensland and Cronulla (2014-16) claimed premierships as the Storm rebuilt and the Roosters recalibrated.
The top four drop-off from last year might point to the same given the emergence of the Dolphins, Warriors and Manly this season with squads that are on the up and up.
Except of course, way out in front once more, after missing the top four for the first time in five years – sit Penrith.
