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What.
The.
Hell.
Just.
Happened?
But also not just what, but how?
Down 28-nil at half time, the score was 52-zip in the 70th minute before any attempt was made at restoring a shred of self-respect with a quick run of 18 points. The entire team transformed into a series of turnstiles. The electrifying attack that the Dolphins subjects other teams to was turned against them, with Sea Eagles slicing through the line with horrifying ease and finding it easier still to just go around the right side defence.
The team hasn’t found the songsheet it was singing from for most of the second half of last season. Whereas the 2025 Dolphins scored over 30 points per game, the 2026 Dolphins are at 23, while conceding four points more per game than last year’s team. It is not a combination that’s going to win games. Given last year’s team was hardly a steely stalwart of defence, doing a much worse job this year is dire, indeed.
The pack, which on paper looks fearsome, has yet to really assert itself. Other than a six again shutdown of the Sharks, the Dolphins weren’t able to compete with a Haas-less Broncos, much less Souths’ overhyped or Manly’s washed forwards. Flegler is still working his way back into shape, Gilbert is mercurial and Kaufusi is done. One bright spot has been Finefeuiaki.
The bigger concern is the function of the attack. While it took the Phins half a season to get going last year, and most of the issues against Manly were simple dropped balls that are easy to fix, a finals-bound team and a serious player in this league doesn’t have half a season to find its groove. Good teams start better than this and they certainly play straighter. Cue a considerable amount of discourse coming about Katoa before he gets everyone on his page (maybe). There will be less consideration of the below replacement level play of Kodi Nikorima, who put up a season average 109 Z score in 2025, his best since 2017, and has one game above zero in 2026.
While these were the three issues we talked about in the season preview as potential concerns, the more baffling factor is that Manly just fired their coach into the sun. Even though that was on the cards as soon as Seibold white anted his way in and signed a contract, Manly remain well in the conversation for the spoon. The Dolphins opened the door to a team in complete disarray, coached by a Jeff Saturday debutant who was on TV a week earlier, and being the more professional team, the Sea Eagles accepted the invitation and trashed the place.
With an MPL of 1830, this puts the Sea Eagles’ victory comfortably in the 98th percentile of all NRL beatdowns since 2016. It’s the seventh best blowout by a Manly side, a list of matches which inexplicably includes a different Dolphins thumping (round 15, 2023, MPL = 1940). They’ve only played four matches.
In 2023, that flogging was one of the tipping points for that inaugural team. Expected to get the spoon, and having made a decent account of themselves in the first half of the season, everything that happened after that was either irrelevant to future prospects if bad, or house money if good. Having banked seven of their eventual nine wins, in a season they were expecting to win three, it was a gentle slide to the finish from there.
It is now 2026 and what we’ve discovered about this club is that the slightest modicum of expectation causes a complete collapse. Think they should have a clear run to the finals? They’ll ship 64 to the Roosters and 58 to the Sea Eagles. Want them to show up against their erstwhile main rivals? They’ll win the one and only time that rival is in an even bigger mental hole than they. It is hardly an encouraging sign for the culture of the organisation that this keeps happening.
There is time to fix this. You may note that an embarrassing loss to the Sea Eagles was the turning point in the Broncos’ run to the premiership in 2025. Nonetheless, we can turn on the burners for Kristian Woolf’s hotseat, low at first but the temperature is going to increase if the results don’t come.
There are no existential threats in the NRL. The structure of the league is such that no matter how pathetic a following a club has, the league will never revoke a licence and the money from the broadcast deal is too good to ever land in significant financial trouble. So no matter how anonymous the Dolphins are, they aren’t going anywhere.
But there’s still something to be said for simple pride. That seems in short supply.
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