Welcome to the Phin Review, a regular, independent newsletter about The Dolphins that is not the Australian Financial Review.
This chart would normally be behind the paywall but it neatly demonstrates a point I would like to make:
It feels very much like praising the Dolphins for their turnaround since the last edition of the Phin Review would be ringing the bell at the top of the market. That is the typically silly behaviour we engage in for these club newsletters, signalling the apex of the season with our exuberance and the nadir with our melancholy. Nonetheless, like Kurt Donoghue claiming a loose ball during a seemingly dead play against the Cowboys, I am going to plough ahead.
The Futures on The Almanac have the Dolphins at a near-certainty of making finals and gives them the third best odds of winning the premiership, albeit Penrith are currently twice as likely and this assumes the Phins maintain their current level of form.
Over the course of the season, Redcliffe have scored 0.8 tries more than their opposition per game but over the last six weeks, that number is +2.7, the second best in the league. Their recent form is the second best in the league for net metres and fifth best for net line breaks.
The advanced metrics haven’t caught up with the avalanche of points that are likely to come, now that the team is fit and firing, but has caught the Dolphins’ stingy (or efficient, if you prefer) defence. As it stands, the Dolphins are not quite at the Panthers’ or Warriors’ level but sit in the next group with the Roosters and Sea Eagles, facts reflected in Almanac tables and on the NRL ladder.
Those are all good numbers. They do not quite reach the heights of the back half of 2025, where the team was somewhat better again, but eclipsing that should not be a challenge if the Dolphins are going to have top four aspirations. While the line on the first graph may not continue to rise, if they can keep it going sideways, they’ll be on track.
The run home is full of pot holes, which the Dolphins love to fall in and wallow about (as per rounds 19 through 23 last year), but if they are serious, then they will need to find a way to deal. The three key opponents are the Roosters, the Knights and the Broncos.
The Roosters are putting together a similar resume to the Dolphins. They have similar points difference, Sydney have one more win than Redcliffe and both are competing for the top four on a pile of shootouts. While this most immediate clash will not be the blockbuster we need, thanks to Origin sludge, the return match towards the end of the season will be far more insightful. The Dolphins’ only win over the Roosters came in their very famous first encounter.
The Knights have been bad the entire time the Dolphins have been in the league, but other than their first encounter in 2023, the Knights have won every meeting between these two teams. Their criminally dull style of play seems to put the Dolphins to sleep in defence and the Red Fish sway slowly side-to-side when on the attack and fail to break the Novocastrian line. It is boring and it is infuriating. Put the frauds to the sword.
The Dolphins have only beaten the Broncos once, in a smashing that ruled Brisbane out of the finals in 2024. A reverse smashing in 2025 all but ended the Dolphins’ hopes of making the post-season for the first time. The Broncos are in very sick shape right now and are ripe for another pantsing.
A focus on these three key matches, adding a second win to where only one exists, and a high level of performance across the rest of the schedule and we can start thinking about how far the Dolphins can go in September.
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