BY CURTIS WOODWARD

@woodward_curtis

Five teams from last season’s National Rugby league finals will play September footy again in 2019 if recent history is anything to go by.

Since the 2016 playoffs, five teams have gone through and played semi-finals the following year.

While the salary cap, on the surface, appears to have levelled the playing field, seemingly nothing will stop the heavyweights of the NRL from flexing their muscle at the pointy end of the season.

The Melbourne Storm, Cronulla, North Queensland, Brisbane and Canterbury qualified for the top 8 in 2015 and did the same in 2016.

Canberra, Penrith and Gold Coast battled it out in ’16 but fell over twelve months later. Craig Bellamy’s Purple Pride were there again in 2017 along with the Broncos, Sharks, Panthers and Cowboys.

And again in 2018, five teams hung on from ’17 to fight for the grand final – the Roosters, Storm, Sharks, Panthers and Broncos.

Of the past four finals series, three teams have played in all four including the Broncos under Wayne Bennett who was still pushed out of Red Hill by administration. The other sides – Sharks and Storm – won the title in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

Three more clubs have played in three (Roosters, Cowboys and Panthers).

Which leaves us to pull out the crystal ball for 2019.

Let’s look at the top 8 from last September.

It’s hard to see the Roosters or Storm, with all the class they have, fading that badly they’d miss the finals. Whether you like it or not, they’re this generation’s powerhouses.

The Sharks are still a team full of mongrel and experience. They’ve also obtained some fella from Auckland that goes by the name Shaun Johnson.

There’s three – locked.

Fourth lock goes to the Panthers.

Forget Phil Gould’s mythical ‘five year plan’ which has been reported on ad nauseam (did he actually say it?), Penrith will be a finals contender for as long as they want to be. Few organisations are run as well as the mountain men.

The fifth spot?

Who knows?

Honestly, there’s so many variables in an NRL season that it’s impossible to predict every piece of the puzzle.

Seriously, how bad are those pre-season prediction articles?

Funnily enough, it could be Wayne Bennett’s Rabbitohs or Anthony Seibold’s Broncos. Did we get that right?

St George Illawarra and the Warriors are there too but history suggests it’s hard for those teams to back up a “winning season”.

This leaves three teams to rise from the bottom 8.

Roosters! Roosters!

🐓🐓#NRLGF #NRL pic.twitter.com/cisIarZZC6

— NRL (@NRL) September 30, 2018

But when you look at the contenders, no teams’ standout more than the Raiders and Newcastle.

And for different reasons.

Everybody loves watching the Raiders play footy because they play the game the way coach Ricky Stuart did. Open, passionate, on the sleeve. The NRL may not like it because they don’t rate on free-to-air but who doesn’t want to see Canberra echo what their legendary sides of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s did?

The Knights have recruited strongly over the last two seasons.

Importantly, Mitchell Pearce and Kalyn Ponga have a monster pack to play behind in 2019. Can you say David Klemmer, Tim Glasby, Mitch Barnett, Lachlan Fitzgibbon, the Saifiti brothers, Herman Ese’ese and James Gavet?

"To all you @Cronulla_Sharks fans, you've waited 50 years for this" – @PaulGallen13#NRLGF pic.twitter.com/F32sMrdg4Q

— NRL (@NRL) October 2, 2016

The other dark horse is Michael Morgan – cough – North Queensland.

Nobody wants to be disrespectful to the great man Johnathan Thurston but so much pressure has been released now he has retired. It isn’t about him anymore. They can play footy, just like they did in 2017.

Forget the fact they’ve lost Ben Barba.

The Cowboys, in-form, are the flat-track equivalent in Townsville to Grahame Hick tonking armless pirates back over their heads down the Pacific Highway. If Morgan’s Cowboys get going, who knows?

The best part is, this article will mean nothing in a few months.

Rugby league has a funny way of putting all of us in our place.

Five teams stayed in the top 8 from 2015 to 2016.
Storm, Sharks, Cowboys, Broncos, Bulldogs.

Five teams stayed in the top 8 from 2016 to 2017.
Storm, Broncos, Sharks, Panthers, Cowboys.

Five teams stayed in the top 8 from 2017 to 2018.
Roosters, Storm, Sharks, Panthers, Broncos.

@woodward_curtis