NRL Round 1 Review: Tricky Trindall, Middle Defence & Sea Eagles Show Their Hand

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NRL Film Room - Round 1 Highlights

Quick Hits

The Feature Reel: Try of the Week

Take your pick involving Braydon Tindall this week…

This one stood out for me given the fine example of halves play from start to finish.

First, Trindall is there pushing up in support as Blayke Brailey threatens to make a line break. As Brailey is reeled in, Trindall is quickly able to idenfity the next opportunity in front of him.

You can see him direct - with two fingers - his backrower and centre to run leads either side of the two man.

It’s the perfect play given the situation. With the Sharks running downhill behind a quick play-the-ball, Keano Kini is forced into A and Beau Fermor struggles for linespeed from B given the amount of distance he has had to travel in between tackles.

It’s crucial that Trindall’s backrower holds width to keep the three-man from shrinking. Briton Nikora is standing on the scrum line as Brailey is tackled, but by the time the ball finds Trindall, Nikora has moved ten metres wider.

That lack of linespeed keeps Kini up in the line longer than he’d want to be. Then able to bounce outside Fermor, Trindall is presented with a huge gap to kick through with Nikora holding the three-man wide.

Just needing the bounce, Nikora continues on his line to score an excellent Sharks try on a day they made everything look so easy in attack.

Round 1 NRL Notes

Storm v Eels

• Utoikamanu Is Underrated At This Point: Between his time at the Tigers, the overblown expectations on arrival at the Storm and low-stat-output performances in State of Origin, the perception around Stefano Utoikamanu is largely negative - underwhelming, at best. He’s not considered an elite prop by most, but the right people in representative football keep selecting him, and he made it more obvious why on Thursday night.

  He ran all over the Parramatta Eels with his carries particualrly noteworthy in the buildup to tries. His job in this Storm side isn’t always to pile up run metres and get them up the field. Rather, his carry and play-the-ball’s are the catalyst to Melbourne’s electric attack that takes advantage of a cue in the defensive line better than most.

  Harry Grant ended up as the best player on the field, but Utoikamanu’s work helped to elevate him.

• The 6-man Bench: Coaches are still learning how to best use the six-man bench, and Jason Ryles’ use in this one appeared to miss the mark. Giving in to the temptaion of installing Joash Papalii at fullback while Isaiah Iongi completed his HIA, that 15 minutes of security cost Parramatta their only genuine prop on the bench, and left them with a rotation of Papalii, Talyn De Silva, Matt Doorey and Dylan Walker - not the ideal quartet. It comes after Shane Flanagan did similar in Las Vegas.

  The popular conversation has been around how these new-look benches could win games, but, while it’s not why Parramatta lost this one, mismanagement of the rotation will cost a team two points at some stage.

• Eels Defence Through The Middle: There are a lot of reasons for Parramatta to have struggled through the middle in this one: They defended 10 minutes a man down early in the game, faced a rampaging Storm pack, and did so with only two forwards on the bench in the end. But the defence through the middle will be where they put their focus throughout the week after the Storm cruised up the field all too easily for the majority of the match.

Sharks v Titans

• Titans Middle Defence: It couldn’t have been any worse for Josh Hannay to start his tenure as head coach of the Gold Coast Titans. They lost the physical battle from the start, and never looked like clawing it back.

  You’d hope after a break at halftime - spray from the coach or not - that the Titans would display some resilience. However, the Sharks generated momentum from the kickoff and ended the set one metre from the Titans line, and scored inside three minutes after oranges.

  The Sharks consistently poked thier nose through the line, found their front, and generated a quick play-the-ball. Gold Coast’s defence couldn’t keep up. I’m always asking if it’s ‘something or nothing’ at this time of the NRL season. We don’t know the answer yet, but will have a much better idea about the Titans pack after the early exchanges of their Round 2 clash against the Dolphins.

• Titans Attack: Perhaps the fatigue from their struggles in defence can explain a lot of their issues with the ball, but the Titans appeared to run out of ideas quickly.

  With three full sets attacking the Sharks line at one point, the Titans offered little outside of two grubbers - both early in the count. Shortly after being turned away, AJ Brimson resorted to a chip kick to nobody on 3rd tackle which ended up out on the full. The early grubbers didn’t stop in the second half, either.

  It’s new-look team, without their first-choice halfback, and under a new coach so teething issues are expected. However, finding points has rarely been an issue for the Titans in the past, regardless of their form and ladder position.

Sea Eagles v Raiders

• It’s Officialy A Worry: Apply all of the “it’s Round 1” prefacing you need here, but three penalties and four set restarts in the first nine minutes of this game - along with the 2021 feel to a few of the other games already this season - is a concern. Despite coming out of arguably the best NRL season in a decade in 2025, the worst rule ever introduced to the game back in 2020 was given greater influence for 2026. While it turned into a contest in the end, the number of games that could get out of hand in the coming weeks is something to keep an eye on.

• Sea Eagles Show Their Hand In Attack: It took less than five minutes for the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles to announce exacly how they plan on playing with the ball this season. Shifting on a yardage set - in the rain - from the kickoff before earning a penalty, they went coast to coast twice in the space of one extended set for Tom Trbojevic to open the scoring.
  

  

  
  Manly’s best football has been when playing this expansive style that is particularly notable out of yardage. It appears as though it’s here to stay despite the departure of Daly Cherry-Evans.

• Ricky’s Resilience: The Canberra Raiders copped a rough whistle and made it tough on themselves early, but in what has been a common trend under Ricky Stuart in recent years, the they showed enough reslience to stop the bleeding in the first half to give themselves a chance in the second. Not many teams in the NRL could comeback from what they dealt with across the opening quarter to win in Golden Point.

Player Spotlight

There is a bit of “it’s only the Titans” about it, as it looked too easy at times. Still, to turn up in Round 1 and put together this sort of attacking output is massively encouraging for the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks.

Often unfairly, a lot of the burden of the Sharks attack has been put on Nicho Hynes given his price tag and jersey number. However, Trindall is the more natural first receiver which can put Hynes into his dominant role on the second layer, reacting to cues and playing on the front foot.

While it could have been a case of who had the hot hand on the day, Trindall taking the lead on Saturday may yet be a sign of things to come in 2026.

The Pipeline - Jack Cole, Penrith Panthers

Looking beyond the bright lights of the NRL to the lower grades, one player caught my eye this week.

The North Sydney Bears led the Penrith Panthers 16-8 with only three minutes to play on Saturday afternoon. Even as Toby Crosby scored to make it 16-14 with 90 seconds left, the Panthers still had 95 metres to travel.

However, presented with an opportunity to kick for touch on the back of a penalty, the Panthers found themselves with a set inside the Bears 10-metre line to win it.

Enter: Jack Cole.

A late inclusion to the side on the day, the Bears will have still had ‘no show and go’s' on the tip sheet before the game. Cole is a regular runner of the ball and consistently threatens the line in good ball. With one Bears player missing the jump and offering Cole an always-dangerous triangle in the defensive line, Cole took advantage to score the winner with the final play of the game.

Member Mailbag

The blaming of 6 again expansion for the round 1 results is showing how tunnel visioned fans can be. They weren't the key influencer for results this week as opposed to 2020/2021. People hate the rule so it's to blame for everything.

I tend to agree. I personally don’t like that they made the change and am definetly concerned about the impact it could have on the competition this season, but just like it’s too early to make any sweeping judgements about players and teams, we’re three or four weeks away from a serious conversation about the expanded six again influence. We’ve seen more early-season crackdowns that last no more than month than I care to remember. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the numbers come down as soon as Round 2.

Rugbaloig added on BlueSky: “refs still appear to be paid by the count of set restarts.”