Rugby league, you beautiful, twisting, turning, loop-the-looping, mad thing.
Even by the greatest game of all’s standards, last weekend was a new kind of wild.
Twenty-point comebacks from the Bulldogs and Titans marked the first time two teams have reeled in such big leads in one weekend since those statistics have been kept.
According to the NRL, the three successful 13-plus fightbacks at half-time by Canterbury, Souths and the Gold Coast marked just the third time more than one team has achieved that since 2003.
That’s just the half of it. St George Illawarra and Manly each pegged back 14-point deficits before going down, while the Cowboys twice surged from 12 points behind in their 30-all draw against Penrith.
In all, from six games, 114 “comeback points” were scored, while 29 were added by the leading sides.
With eight field goal attempts (two of them successful), Latrell Mitchell and Stephen Crichton masterclasses, trainers spraying footballs with water and Jaeman Salmon spraying Ricky Stuart, the games had it all.
Max King and the Bulldogs celebrate a try during their big comeback against the Raiders.Credit: Getty Images
Never far away from the discussion of outrageous momentum swings in the modern game though, are six-agains – one of rugby league’s most seismic rule changes.
The possession swings of each remarkable double-figure revival on the weekend were as obvious, and dramatic, as it gets.
Canterbury and the Gold Coast enjoyed significantly more time with the ball as they mowed down Canberra and Newcastle respectively, figures that aligned with each round 11 fightback, depending on how far back each team came from.
Coaches and fans point to the set restarts that allow attacking sides to roll on and measure offensive assaults in minutes rather than tackles.
The regular inference is that referees even up contests with six-again calls, which extend possession and speed up the game, with not enough time for the decisions to be properly analysed. It takes two seconds to find a coach who will say this off the record; significantly longer for someone to put their name to it, as Roy Masters and Ivan Cleary did on Friday.
However, of the 44 tries scored in the weekend’s six comeback games, 19 came shortly after a set restart or penalty: 10 for the side storming home and nine for the opposition either rattling up their lead, or clinging to it later.
It’s not a hugely disproportionate figure considering rugby league has always been a game of possession and field position – mounting both is how you mount points.
So far in 2025, Champion Data has recorded six set restarts awarded per game, compared to 5.5 last season.
“Multiple six-agains do allow teams to build momentum undoubtedly, and the way the game’s officiated can have a big impact,” Manly’s Anthony Seibold said.
“But teams chasing down big leads might be more prevalent than ever before because you’ll find teams asking, how can you break the pattern, how do you break that momentum?”
Latrell Mitchell is mobbed by his teammates on Friday night.Credit: Getty Images
The suggestion from one Sydney coach that the weekend of remarkable revivals is just an anomaly is backed up by the fact that only one other 13-plus half-time deficit has been overturned this year (Raiders v Dolphins in April).
On any given game day, you’ll find an NRL coach drilling into his side that momentum will swing against them, viciously and violently, at one point or another.
“The opposition will run downhill with the ref in their f—ing pocket,” as one put it.
But the contest will eventually swing back your way if you’re good enough. Or for Roosters coach Trent Robinson, creative enough.
“That was the wildest weekend that I’ve seen on the momentum swings,” he said on Monday, having enjoyed the view from his lounge while his team had the bye.
“It’s a credit to where the game’s got to. Defence wins premierships – [and] it still does in the NRL – but there has been this shift towards creativity without the help of field position.
“That’s what’s changed the momentum: teams are attacking really well in the middle of the field. Usually a 10-point lead, people knock it down and it stays that way.
“[Now] a 10-point lead can get obliterated in a couple of minutes … Teams are going to have to really learn how to control [momentum], how to reverse it a little bit more than we have in the past.”
Canterbury’s second and third tries against Canberra, Tom Dearden’s show-stopper to level up against Penrith and Manly’s 90-metre stunner against Cronulla all subscribe to the above.
Six-agains will never be too far from the equation, because one can lead to another, then a try, then another, and what may once have been a three-minute run of possession can double or triple before you know it.
The game swung back against Manly once they’d rallied to 14-all, except instead of six-agains, the Sea Eagles’ handling cruelled them on Sunday. Cronulla’s last three tries in 15 minutes were all preceded by a Manly mistake – maybe the only surefire way to kill off a rugby league comeback for good.
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