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
1.
Brisbane Broncos (1999)
The decadeโs dominant team and emphatic winner of the inaugural NRL premiership the previous season, the Broncosโ reign was in tatters early in 1999. Wayne Bennettโs superstar-laced line-up lost their first five games โ including a club-record 48-6 defeat to Melbourne โ before opening their account in Round 6 against Souths.
But captain and linchpin Allan Langer announced his shock retirement a fortnight later after being hooked by Bennett during a draw against lowly North Queensland. With just three competition points after 10 rounds, Brisbane staged one of the great turnarounds, however, winning 11 straight games and ultimately scraping into eighth spot. The Broncos were disposed of by minor premiers Cronulla in the first airing of the McIntyre Finals System.
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’.