We are now under a month until the trials kick off.
With the new season comes new excitement, new expectations and for some, the same old pressure!
It's not really fair to say someone is under pressure, given that the 2025 season is still months from officially kicking off. That said, the rugby league world is not always fair.
A host of coaches enter 2025 under pressure, for all sorts of reasons.
Be it pressure to improve based on a host of new signings, pressure to hold onto a role, or pressure to take that next step, every single NRL coach feels it ... except Craig Bellamy and Ivan Cleary.
Below are the top five coaches under pressure heading into 2025:
Honourable Mention: Trent Robinson: He won't make the official list due to his tenure at the club, but the Roosters have lost literal millions of dollars of superstar talent. No Cleary, JWH, Manu or Suaalii means that the Premiership-winning coach will need to oversee a big roster sweep for '25. If they start slowly, or miss Finals, recent success will soon be forgotten.
Let me be straight up here in saying that Craig Fitzgibbon is under no pressure, at all, when it comes to holding onto his job.
The pressure here comes in the form of great expectation. Addin Fonua-Blake is being touted as the final piece of the puzzle for the Sharks to launch a genuine title tilt.
The club won their first Final under Fitzgibbon in 2024 but fell to the Panthers.
They were clearly the NRL's fourth-best side last year. AFB's arrival and the fact the Roosters and Panthers have shed stars means the Sharks are expected to go one better this season.
With names such as Sam Stonestreet, Liam Ison and Jesse Colquhoun (post-injury recovery) absolutely demanding NRL selection, Fitzgibbon is going to need to make some huge decisions this year.
The Sharks are in a title window and expectations are high.
Cronulla are a famously fickle fan base (coughs) and are expecting big things in 2025. That brings pressure, albeit pressure that most coaches would do anything to be under.
The Bunnies were terrible in 2024. The fact they missed the Finals still doesn't seem real to me, given the talent they have on the books.
Fans in the red and green are expecting their club to go right back to winning ways under Wayne Bennett.
Bennett is one of the all time great rugby league coaches but the fact the succession plan to Wayne Bennett at the Bunnies is ... Wayne Bennett, brings its own pressure.
Souths could finish 14th this year and Bennett is not going to be sacked, but the expectations are huge.
An aging roster, one under recent injury concerns, is expected to bounce back into the eight straight away. Anything less and questions will be asked.
Bennett isn't one to show any signs of, well any emotion at all, but at 75 year's of age, the time to win another Premiership is surely running close.
Fans of the Knights, Dragons and Broncos still haven't forgiven him for leaving the club the way he did. Souths fans will be weary of this happening, again!
This may seem tough given O'Brien oversaw the Knights return to Finals footy in 2023, with a repeat in 2024. They were a play off a second straight Week Two spot also.
That said, I have no doubt the Knights mentor is under serious pressure to retain his role in 2025. His coaching future almost entirely comes down to one man; Kalyn Ponga!
Without Ponga's ridiculous Dally M medal-winning form in late 2023, I think the Knights would have moved on from O'Brien by now.
A late Ponga surge saw them scrape in last season too. He almost saw them past the Cowboys and into Round Two.
It sounds silly to say that a coach relies on his star player, but these two are almost tied at the hip. Daniel Saifiti has left the club. They really haven't added much in terms for '25.
Last year they ran out in the Finals and I still don't think anyone knew (or continues to know) who the Knights starting halves are.
They actively shopped their starting number nine and club captain. It's Ponga or bust for the Knights coach.
I don't know how to rate Des Hasler's first season in charge of the Gold Coast Titans. It would be low, but I'm not sure it's all of his own making. That said, he has to turn it around in 2025.
His biggest task will be deciding on how to deploy Aj Brimson. His short stint in the centres didn't work, while his preferred positions of fullback and five-eight seem to be taken by youngsters Keano Kini and Jayden Campbell.
You can't pay a player the wage of Brimson, a former QLD rep, and sit him on the bench. The Titans have added a big name player in the form of Reagan Campbell-Gillard. The Origin prop arrives to strengthen the Titans forward pack.
Unfortunately there are certain holes throughout this squad that weren't covered. I am sure Hasler is aware of this.
I doubt we'll see him face anyone calling for his job in 2025, but anything less than a return to Finals and those conversations will start to swirl.
The Titans will be super exciting in 2025. Will fans accept being fun to watch though? They want wins and Hasler has to provide.
The Tigers coach is no longer a rookie dealing with the years and years of bad decisions made by previous coaches.
He enters the 2025 season with a marquee, Origin-winning half in Jarome Luai. One of the game's best youngsters in Lachlan Galvin will partner him in the halves.
Every single decision Marshall makes in 2025 will come under the microscope. Whether that is fair or not, doesn't really matter.
The Tigers simply have to improve this year. A fourth straight wooden spoon is unfathomable. It shouldn't happen in the salary cap era. Three shouldn't! Two is ridiculous!
Are fans going to accept a comfortable 14th placed finish though? Is 10th good enough? This fan base have earned the right to be impatient, and expectations are high given the players arriving this year.
Appointing a rookie coach, 18 months before the original plan, was always going to be a risk. Marshall is a club legend, a brilliant football mind and a loveable character. All that will count for zero if the Tigers start the season poorly.