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Conditions: A day filled with glorious spring sunshine has given way to a mild and dry evening at Sydney’s Accor Stadium. Fullbacks will have a little southerly breeze to contend with, but the strength of that will decline as the night wears on.
In case you were unaware, Jai Arrow’s diagnosis of MND provided a forlorn backdrop to the 2026 season, while former Wallaby hooker Nathan Charles was more recently diagnosed with the condition.
If rugby league culture didn’t exist I’m not sure it would be possible to invent it.
Now she’s joined by Novacastrian Dave Gleeson from the Screaming Jets to sing “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes.
Now here comes Grinspoon’s Phil Jamieson, and this motley supergroup unload into Simply The Best.
Amy Shark performs in pre-match tribute to Jai Arrow
There is a pre-game musical celebrity after all: Amy Shark. But instead of the usual bombastic pop hits, she delivers a sombre a cappella version of You’ll Never Walk Alone, while Jai Arrow, who has retired from NRL after being diagnosed with MND, and former Wallaby Nathan Charles are driven around Accor Stadium.
Normally this close to kick-off on grand final night you’d be hearing a young pop star (who I wouldn’t recognise) singing one of their chart-topping hits (which I would have never heard before). But this year the soundtrack is provided only by the fans crammed into Accor Stadium following a difference of opinion between the NRL and the expected pre-game entertainment Tones and I.
The Dance Monkey singer made headlines this week after it was leaked she’d turned down an offer to perform at next weekend’s NRL grand final. The rugby league boss Peter V’landys said negotiations broke down due to “artistic differences”, and some claimed it was because the Aria award-winning artist didn’t want to play her biggest hit.
Instead, the grand final will go ahead without pre-game entertainment, and V’landys has put $1m towards junior rugby league – an idea he’d been toying with for a while, he said. “Rather than giving a performer $90,000 a minute, we would prefer to give it to grassroots,” he said on Tuesday. “When you look at it realistically for 11 minutes, it’s not worth it.”
We asked Newcastle fans what ‘better than Lego’ means to them. Here’s what they had to say.
Alex McKinnon
On Sunday night millions of people with no skin in the game will be forced to pick a side by their family, friends, partners, or the rest of their local pub.
When your team is not playing, choosing who to barrack for in rugby league comes down to one principle: class warfare. Should neutrals back the Newcastle Knights, the mulleted, working-class sons of the Hunter Valley? Or do eastside heavyweights the Sydney Roosters deserve your love?
Nick Tedeschi
As he prepares for his fourth grand final in his 14th season at the helm of the tricolours, Robinson stands tall as the leader of a new way that prizes personal connection, treats players as people, and understands that stability and happiness hold tremendous value.
Measured and methodical, few who have played under him have anything bad to say about the 49-year-old as a coach or a human – and the results have spoken for themselves. Across his tenure, the Roosters have made the finals on 13 occasions, winning three titles. He has managed big-name, big-ego recruits like Cooper Cronk and Daly Cherry-Evans, handled the development of talents like Latrell Mitchell and Sam Walker, championed hard-workers like Mitchell Aubusson and Victor Radley, and got the very best out of the mercurial Michael Jennings and Daniel Tupou.
Referee: Adam Gee will take charge of his second NRL grand final. The last time Gee refereed a grand final was during Penrith’s 2023 comeback victory over Brisbane.
Ben Smee
The first wave of Knights successes came against a backdrop of uncertainty about what a post-industrial future might mean for the steel city. Two decades on, for better or worse, working-class Newcastle is now safer, more confident and outward-looking; also more expensive and exclusive.
DCE has spoken to Channel 9 about the enormity of the occasion.
To be honest, just because of the occasion of the grand final, it’s been really easy to put it to the side. I feel like the moment I’ve made it all about myself at any time of my career, it’s never really worked out too well. So real team focus today.
The veteran was delighted with his team’s preparation.
Yeah, really good. The longer turnaround I feel really helped us. We were able to get extra recovery in and then build our week really nicely. So I feel like it was a great week of preparation. And now it’s just trusting that to go out and play… it’s not about any storyline for us tonight. It’s just about getting the job done.
Daly Cherry-Evans becomes the oldest player in NRL grand final history tonight, an occasion that will also bring the curtain down on the career of the second-most capped footballer in competition history. The 37 year old won a premiership in his debut season with Manly way back in 2011. Can he bookend his State of Origin and World Cup winning career with silverware at the Roosters?
There are Newcastle fans all over Sydney, they’ve packed Accor Stadium to the rafters, and there are 20,000 more back home watching from McDonald Jones Stadium.
Whatever the result, and no matter how brilliant the Roosters might prove to be, the occasion will be remembered for the Knights’ presence. They are, of course, outsiders against the formidable tricolours. The underdogs finished seventh, and the finals have already delivered them three upsets against the Rabbitohs, the Warriors and the Panthers. This Knights’ tale gleams more brightly one year after their wooden spoon.
Team News:
Just one enforced change per coach with the Knights’ starting hooker Phoenix Crossland serving a four-game suspension for his hip-drop in the preliminary final that ended Nathan Cleary’s season. Thomas Cant is the surprise late replacement despite Harrison Graham listed as starting rake earlier in the week. The No 14 will instead continue the role he has filled successfully all year and enter the game around the half-hour mark.
For the Roosters, bench utility Connor Watson misses out after failing an HIA last weekend and subject to the mandatory 11-day stand down. Benaiah Ioelu joins the interchange.
Sydney are otherwise at full strength, boasting a bench featuring the likes of Angus Crichton, Spencer Leniu, and Hugo Savala.
The underdogs remain without enforcer Jacob Saifiti, who was also rubbed out for four matches for a red card, his in round 26 away to the Warriors. Trey Mooney has been a revelation in the front row but remains sidelined following a shoulder injury on that same fateful trip to Auckland, while gun recruit Dylan Brown has been out of action since tearing his ACL in round 21.
Newcastle Knights XIII
1. Kalyn Ponga, 2. Dominic Young, 3. Dane Gagai, 4. Bradman Best, 5. Greg Marzhew, 6. Fletcher Sharpe, 7. Sandon Smith, 8. Tyson Frizell, 19. Thomas Cant, 10. Cody Hopwood, 11. Jermaine McEwen, 12. Francis Manuleleua, 13. Mat Croker
Interchange: 14. Harrison Graham, 15. Lachlan Crouch, 16. Pasami Saulo, 17. Dylan Lucas, 18. Fletcher Hunt, 20. Kyle McCarthy
Reserve: 21.Diesel Hagan
Sydney Roosters XIII
1. James Tedesco, 2. Daniel Tupou, 3. Billy Smith, 4. Robert Toia, 5. Mark Nawaqanitawase, 6. Daly Cherry-Evans, 7. Sam Walker, 8. Naufahu Whyte, 9. Reece Robson, 10. Lindsay Collins, 11. Salesi Foketi, 12. Siua Wong, 13. Victor Radley
Interchange: 15. Angus Crichton, 16. Nat Butcher, 17. Spencer Leniu, 18. Hugo Savala, 19. Cody Ramsey, 20. Benaiah Ioelu
Reserve: 22. Egan Butcher
Roosters out to make it a double after NRLW side dominates grand final
The Roosters will be seeking to make it a double for the club tonight after their women’s side dominated the Broncos in the NRLW grand final.
The Tricolours completed their perfect season with a 30-6 victory clinched by a six-tries-to-none first half, blitzing Brisbane and ruining the farewell of NRLW great Ali Brigginshaw.
Tarryn Aiken won the Karyn Murphy medal as player of match while Brydie Parker scored a hat-trick of tries as the unstoppable Roosters corrected the blip of last season’s decide.
You can read Jack Snape’s match report here and we have a picture gallery from the match here.
Angus Fontaine
After 210 games, 17,000 minutes and more than 10,000 points, it all comes down to the 2026 NRL grand final. One decider. Two desperate teams. The Roosters, a star-studded outfit with four premierships in 25 years and speed, power and tactical brilliance across the park. And the Knights, 25 years without a title and coming off a wooden spoon last year, yet riding an irresistible wave built on blue-collar courage and underdog characters.
Preamble
Jonathan Howcroft
Hello everybody and welcome to live coverage of Sydney Roosters v Newcastle Knights from Accor Stadium. Kick-off in Sydney is scheduled for 7.30pm local time (6.30pm AEST).
The showpiece fixture in Australian rugby league brings together one of the unlikelier pairings in the sport’s history.
Newcastle ended 2025 with the wooden spoon and a points difference of -300, while a seemingly transitional Sydney scrambled to eighth place. 12 months on and the Knights are a maverick attack-happy feel good story, and the Roosters have a new lease of life being led around the park by a pair of Queensland halves at opposite ends of their careers.
Nonetheless, the biggest day on the rugby league calendar pits fourth v seventh in a clash featuring just two of the 14 men selected in the official NRL team of the season (Roosters Rob Toia and Naufahu Whyte).
This is reflective of a topsy-turvy campaign, one that saw reigning premiers Brisbane implode, Melbourne finally regress to the mean, and the rising Bulldogs and Raiders hit speed humps.
Penrith looked imperious through the winter and the Warriors blossomed in spring, but neither could shake off the irrepressible Knights and the staggering belief instilled in them by Justin Holbrook, who has masterminded one of the all-time great single-season overhauls – not just in results but in mindset and style of play.
The presence of a genuine underdog has electrified grand final week, the experience enriched by tales of former glories from Novocastrian die-hards that haven’t been told in many a year.
But Easts are not short of narrative themselves with the inspirational Daly Cherry-Evans, along with fan favourites Mark Nawaqanitawase and Angus Crichton, leaving Bondi at the end of the season and desperate to sign-off with silverware.
Since 2019 the grand final has only witnessed one blowout, with the annual occasion turning into a near guaranteed source of nail-biting drama. It’s also become customary for superhuman feats to earn the Clive Churchill Medal with Nathan Cleary and Reece Walsh setting scarcely believable standards of brilliance in recent seasons.
Let’s hope we’re in for more of the same tonight.
I’ll be back with final team lists and more shortly. Please send me your emails and keep me company throughout the evening. The address is [email protected].
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