Forget the grand final, this is the hardest week in rugby league

September 21, 2026 — 5:22am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

Preliminary finals are to a grand final what a nervy, fumbling first date is to a comfy, content wedding anniversary. It’s edgy expectation versus partial fulfilment.

The penultimate weekend of a season, where four teams fight for the right to advance to the Big Dance, often has players and coaches nervous and uptight. They are aware that a tiny slip-up could end their season days short of what could have been a premiership.

Grand final teams tend to be more relaxed, some clubs simply secure at having already achieved their place in history.

“Players can lose their edge going from a prelim to the grand final,” says Storm coach Craig Bellamy. Even the most vigilant coach can’t counter the doorman whispering to grand final players before kick-off, “No matter what happens today boys, you have done the club proud.”

It follows that a defeat in the preliminary final can be more devastating than losing a grand final. Bellamy, coach of more preliminary and grand final teams than anyone over the past quarter-century, has been more gutted after losing preliminary finals than I have seen him after narrow defeats in deciders.

In 2011, after the Warriors won in Melbourne, he isolated himself from everyone, desperately desolate. His team had been expelled from the........

© Brisbane Times