The NRL released the games for the 2025 NRL Season ahead last week with the usual excitement and fanfare, and to make sense of it all, and to provide evidence of your team having the worst/easiest draw 2025 NRL Draw Analysis.
Our 2025 NRL Draw Analysis has as many fields as we could cram into one report, and we offer up some thoughts on all.
People often say less is more. They are wrong, more is always more, and our 2025 NRL Draw Analysis delivers more than you could need or possibly want. As you’re about to find out.
2025 NRL DRAW ANALYSIS – OPPOSITION DIFFICULTY – ’24 FINISHING POSITION
The first stat people go to with the 2025 NRL Draw is which team has the easiest / hardest draw based on 2024 ladder position. As our overall figures shows, there’s not much in it over the whole season. Plus it is a little redundant as the draw tends to be split in half between top teams and bottom teams to ensure fairness. Plus towards the second half of the season it’s about how hard are the teams in 2025 not 2024.
Nevertheless, we have all the figures for difficulty based on ’24 ladder position, with some important cuts. Like first and last six rounds, an origin period summary, home and away look, plus a glance by round and more.
WINNERS – Canberra have the best overall 2024 difficulty rating and Souths Sydney the worst, but in reality there’s 2.2 average table positions between first and last. But still, good on Canberra. The Raiders also have the much easier draw for their home games too. Newcastle has the second easiest draw according to below and are well looked after in the last six rounds. The Knights play only two teams from the top eight in the first 11 rounds. Penrith have probably deserved it with their recent success, but they have a good run in June and July which will help during Origin time. Although they are also losers as they play the rest of the top five from last season by Round 5.
LOSERS – Souths begin their Wayne Bennett revival in 2025, but have to do it with the hardest draw, according to ’24 ladder, and it’s an average of 5.8 for the first six rounds which will test them out. That is balanced by the second easiest run in the last six rounds. Wests Tigers have the lowest average for any period which is during Origin, which unlike previous seasons may actually hurt them this season with recent recruiting. Just in case the Broncos are threatening to make a mark on the 2025 NRL competition, they will have to do it the hard way. They play Melbourne twice in the last five rounds, and have a woeful record against them.
2025 NRL DRAW ANALYSIS – OPPOSITION DIFFICULTY – H2H RECORDS FROM 1998 & LAST TEN SEASONS
Going further than 2024 season and its ladder, why not measure the difficulty by how each team goes against their opponent.
So we have taken the Head to Head record of each club against each other since 1998 and the last ten seasons and come up with a calculation.
E.g. Melbourne’s winning H2H % v Souths since 1998 is 83%, and which such a huge H2H advantage it is an easy game on paper for Melbourne. So we take the 83% from 100% leaving just 13%. We then turn that 13% into a score out of ten of 1.3.
So essentially, the better the H2H record, the easier the game, so the lower the difficulty score. As below.
It does weight towards teams that have great H2H records or have been very good in recent seasons. As it should.
WINNERS – Melbourne, Penrith and the Roosters. The most three recent winners of NRL titles feature strongly in the easiest draw. Canberra are probably the surprise, and it did cause us to go back and check the data. It probably helps they are one club with a respectable record v Melbourne. Brisbane’s historic success makes their draw look easy, much like their 2024 draw looked on paper before imploding last season.
LOSERS – Gold Coast’s woeful H2H record against most clubs hurts them, and the Wests Tigers terrible recent record does the same. Those two teams have a bad 2025 NRL Draw based on H2H no matter which way you look at it.
2025 NRL DRAW ANALYSIS – MATCH DETAILS
Here’s some bits and pieces on the 2025 NRL Draw analysis which are quite interesting. Home and Away runs that don’t involve Alf or caravans blowing up. Which days and time of day your team is playing. And the annual moan at Channel Nein’s bias to Sydney teams and lack of Warriors. More for us on Fox League we guess.
WINNERS – Not sure if they are real winners, but Roosters (20) and Broncos (19) have the most night games in 2025. Given the Broncos lost all their day games, it is a win to only have five day games for the fans. Newcastle have an incredible record on a Sunday in recent seasons and they end their season with six Sunday games out of seven rounds. Melbourne have lost one Thursday game in two years and finish the season with a bunch of them.
LOSERS – Souths opening the season with three straight away games appears tough, but given their home ground is a good train ride away from their base it shouldn’t too much of a worry. Wests Tigers are one of only two teams to finish their season with two away games. Manly have a run of four away games out of five in the middle. New Zealand are rejected yet again by Channel Nein, not quite catching onto the Warriors popularity. Just loading up with Sunday afternoons full of two underperforming Sydney clubs, mostly.
2025 NRL DRAW ANALYSIS – DISTANCE TRAVELLED
On the road again, some of these teams just can’t wait to get on the road again.
So some of these will inevitably have to travel further than others, but is it fair? Depends who you are talking to.
Note: that Las Vegas teams have been excluded. Same with home games too, unless the team sold a normal home games to elsewhere.
WINNERS – Sydney teams as ever, there are nine of them. The Dragons are winners early with their team as a whole travelling less than their former start halfback Ben Hunt has to as he finds a new club. Despite being in Queensland the Dolphins have a low travel total early in the season, but do get punished later. Cronulla have to travel less than 200km from July.
LOSERS – North Queensland and New Zealand battle it out for the most hard done by, like every year, but both also have the advantage of tiring visiting teams out when they arrive. Especially the Cowboys in those early hot months.
2025 NRL DRAW ANALYSIS – DAYS TURNAROUND
Most fans moan about their team’s turnaround stats for the season, so here are the definitive numbers.
WINNERS – The six clubs who don’t have a five day turnaround in 2025. Most of those clubs are in Sydney, which seems a bit unfair given they have to do the least travelling. At least the Warriors don’t have a five day turnaround. Canberra continue their favourable draw with the most > 7 Day turnarounds.
LOSERS – Broncos, Dolphins and Sharks have the most five day turnarounds. But two of those clubs do get a free home game because of Magic Round, so can’t complain too much. The Broncos have two in three rounds and end their season with one.
2025 NRL DRAW ANALYSIS – CHANNEL NEIN
Channel Nein loves Sydney on a Sunday and Brisbane at night.
We don’t love Channel Nein.
