NRL Round 5 featured stirring breakthrough wins for previously winless Manly and North Queensland, renewing hopes of a finals push after most fans and critics had drawn a line through their names for 2021.
In the third edition ofย Zero Tackleโs Top 8, This Warriors Life's Will Evans counts down the best revivals horror starts during the NRL era.
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CHECK OUT WILL's OTHER TOP 8s: The best rugby league wing giants, Miraculous comebacks of the NRL era
2.
Sydney Roosters (2002)
The Roostersโ controversial axing of popular 2000 Grand Final coach Graham Murray appeared to backfire when the club won just one its first five games under rookie mentor Ricky Stuart.
But โStickyโsโ methods started to bear fruit by mid-April and the Roosters lost just four of their remaining 19 regular-season matches, establishing themselves as the NRLโs most ruthless, physical defensive outfit. The Brad Fittler-led Tricolours hit the finals in fourth spot on a five-match winning streak and kept their run going all the way to a 30-8 victory over the Warriors in the Grand Final.
Parramatta 2009 doesn’t even get a mention?!?!
5 wins from 18 rounds and go on to make a GF… that’ll do me!
I take your point – but this list was based purely on teams that lost a bunch of games at the start, going 0-3, 0-4, 0-5 etc.
The ’09 Eels won two of their first three so I didn’t consider them for this. Absolutely the greatest late-season charge since Souths’ Miracle of ’55 – in fact I put them at No.2 in the ‘Late-season Rallies’ top 10 in my book ‘The NRL Book of Lists’.