Magic Round dazzles as NRL’s influencers manoeuvre backstage | Jack Snape

The promise of Magic Round is all of rugby league in one place, but 2024’s edition was defined by those more distant. Not least the Dragons, whose fans saw the bright side of getting the bye. “At least we get the two points,” anyone wearing a red V slurred along Caxton Street.

The collective brain of rugby league may have descended on Brisbane, but this was a weekend for the sport’s great tentacles. The Women’s State of Origin opener penetrated close to two millions screens around the country on Thursday – no NRL match this season has attracted a higher audience – as well as many of the weekend’s conversations.

The men’s football was largely compelling to the end. Until Sunday’s final fixtures, six straight matches went down to the wire. There were length of the field tries, spectacular put downs, contentious decisions, and bristling coaches. Magic Round produced more than its 175,000 patrons across four days could have hoped. But it didn’t have everything.

Tom Trbojevic, Ryan Papenhuyzen, Shaun Johnson and Reece Walsh were just some of the big names missing from team sheets. Nathan Cleary, perhaps the game’s premier player, was missed most of all. In a spectacular upset, the under-strength Warriors knocked off the reigning premiers Penrith in Sunday’s opener.

The notable absences allowed others to emerge. New Zealand’s full-back Taine Tuaupiki grimaced at the start of his ninth NRL appearance when he kicked the ball out on the full from the first kick-off. 80 minutes later he was grinning after his first career try and a crucial conversion, in off the post, secured a shock 22-20 victory.

That match’s final minute was pure rugby league slapstick. As Panthers No 1 Dylan Edwards lined up a 38m penalty to tie the scores, his teammate Jack Cole – victim of a brutal Adam Pompey hit to the torso moments before – was vomiting behind him. Edwards’ kick drifted wide and Warriors’ half-back Te Maire Martin caught the ball in the in-goal, but needed Dallin Watene-Zelezniak to run desperately in from his wing to tell him to play on.

The comedy continued in the post-match press conference. Panthers coach Ivan Cleary was curt with his responses, and when a reporter asked, “The Warriors practically had a reserve team playing, do you think they just wanted it more?”, he cocked his head and raised his eyebrow. “Excuse me?”, he said, before a rephrased but similar question was met with an eye-roll and a one word response: “Maybe”.

Before the Dolphins defeated the Tigers 24-12 in the final match, the Storm demolished the Eels 48-16. It might have been the weekend’s biggest victory, but the Storm also recorded its biggest loss. Cameron Munster’s problematic groin had him writhing in pain at the end of the first half, and the five-eighth is now in doubt for Origin.

One young Eels fan, overheard in the crowd, was disappointed with his team’s performance. “The teams below us are the only things stopping us from being the wooden spoon,” he said. The logic was impregnable, and for this Parramatta tragic, expansion can’t come soon enough.

The weekend accelerated discussions of where the NRL should go next. Rather than consider just an 18th side, Australian Rugby League Commission chair Peter V’landys said the code would pursue a 20-team competition under a model put forward by Roosters boss Nick Politis.

From commissioners to ministers, many VIPs occupied the corporate hospitality high in Suncorp Stadium’s western stand – conveniently adjacent to the press box. It was noted the clubs must approve any expansion plan, and sweeteners would be a necessity. “We wouldn’t be doing this unless it was for the financial benefit of our members,” V’Landys told reporters.

In the rugby league world, these club supremos wield unquestioned influence. But around a Papua New Guinea team – raised as part of a 10-year, $600m plan for Pacific diplomacy – V’landys must balance the views of another key stakeholder. Anthony Albanese’s government does not wish to be seen to be frivolous with the taxpayers’ chequebook. However “aligned” the NRL and the government might be right now, the proposal must still go through the cabinet.

A year out from the next federal election, those discussions will be robust. PNG’s NRL licence might win a few votes. If a Port Moresby franchise gets up, Australia’s diplomatic tendrils might even buffet the influence from further north, as the analysts hope. Before then however, young families in Adelaide or pensioners in Melbourne are unlikely to view favourably a subsidy to professional rugby league clubs.

Brisbane may have delivered a brilliant weekend slate of games – certainly the most compelling Magic Round ever – but those behind the scenes were aware the levers of rugby league lie elsewhere.