Penrith Panthers pipped Brisbane Broncos at the post to snatch their third minor premiership in four seasons, bagging the JJ Giltinan Shield, a big chunk of change and top seed for the finals in the process.
But how much of an advantage has the minor premiers tag provided during the playoffs?
Since an overhaul to the premiership’s finals system almost seven decades ago, a mere 37 of 70 grand finals have been won the top-rated team of the regular season.
The advent of mandatory grand finals in 1954 loosened the traditional stranglehold of minor premiers taking out the title, while the shift to five-team and later eight-team, finals series further exacerbated the likelihood of the season’s most consistent team failing to hold up the trophy on grand final day.
Between the first season of the Sydney premiership in 1908 and 1953, the last year before the introduction of mandatory grand finals, just eight minor premiers failed to take out the title (note: seasons 1912-21 and 1925 operated under a ‘first-past-the-post’ system of the minor premiers being declared champions).
The fledgling mandatory grand final system immediately brought the minor premiers undone.
Newtown won consecutive minor premierships in 1954-55 but went down to South Sydney in the grand final in each year.
Despite topping the ladder in 1967, St George’s record run of 11 consecutive premierships (which all came after finishing top of the table) came to end after losing both finals matches to Souths and Canterbury – thus becoming the first minor premiers to fail to qualify for the grand final.
The same fate befell Manly in 1971, slipping out the back door with defeats to the Rabbitohs and Dragons, before converting minor premierships into their first three grand final triumphs in 1972-73 and ’76.
The expansion to a five-team finals series format provided even bigger hurdles for the minor premiers, despite the apparent advantage of getting a week off.
Between 1977 and 1994, just eight of 18 minor premiers went on to win the grand final.
Western Suburbs’ last genuine shot at a title came unstuck in 1978 after their table-topping form gave way to gut-wrenching finals losses to Cronulla and Manly.
Bob Fulton-coached Eastern Suburbs finished the regular season in top spot in 1980-81 but faltered in its premiership bid in both seasons and missed the grand final in the latter year, bundled out in straight sets by Parramatta and Newtown.
The Sea Eagles (1983) and Dragons (1985) endured grand final defeat after finishing atop the ladder, while consecutive minor premiers later in the decade out of the title race with successive finals defeats.
The 1988 Sharks were foiled by the Bulldogs and a Tigers side that had walked the tightrope from a fifth-place playoff, and the following season the 18-1-3 Rabbitohs ran out of steam in the finals with losses to the Tigers and Raiders.
Canberra (1990), Penrith (1991) and Brisbane (1992) completed the minor premiership-grand final winners in three straight years for the first and only time during the five-team finals era.
Incredibly, the Broncos won the grand final in each of the seasons they have claimed a minor premiership – 1992, 1997 (Super League), 1998 and 2000 – accounting for four of just eight times the minor premiers won the ensuing grand final in the 21 seasons from 1992-2012.
But dual minor premiers the Bulldogs suffered a straight-sets finals exit in 1993 – crashing 27-12 to the Dragons before going down 23-16 to a Broncos side that became the first team ever to win the premiership from fifth spot – and were thrashed by the Raiders 36-12 in the 1994 grand final two weeks after taking out the teams’ major semi.
Three-time minor premiers Manly (1995-97) made the grand final each year but had only one title to show for their 53-2-11 regular-season record across those three campaigns.
They were rolled by sixth-placed Canterbury in the inaugural eight-team finals series in 1995 and Newcastle in the decider of the seven-team 1997 ARL playoffs either side of a win over St George 1996.
It got worse for minor premiers during the NRL era following the introduction of the controversial McIntryre Finals System (which saw a 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5 week one schedule with the two lowest-ranked losers eliminated) in 1999.
Only four minor premiers – Brisbane (2000), Penrith (2003), Melbourne (2007) and St George Illawarra (2010) – progressed to a NRL grand final victory lap during the format’s 13-season reign of terror.
Cronulla (1999) and Parrmatta (2005) suffered heavy preliminary final defeats after wrapping up minor premierships and winning in week one, while the Saints acquired an unwanted piece of history in 2009, losing consecutive NRL finals matches to the Jarryd Hayne-inspired, eighth-placed Eels and the sixth-placed Broncos become the first minor premiers to be eliminated before the preliminary final stage.
Melbourne won three minor premierships (2006-08) that were later stripped due to the club’s well-documented salary cap breaches and collected just one grand final win during those seasons – mirroring Manly’s dominant side of a decade earlier.
Emerging from the horrors of that scandal that saw them play for no competition points in 2010, the Storm took out the 2011 minor premiership only to famously lose to the sixth-placed Warriors in a prelim boilover.
The NRL switched to its current, exponentially fairer and more logical, finals system in 2012. But in its 11 seasons in operation, only four minor premiers have hoisted the trophy on grand final day.
Canterbury lost to Melbourne in the 2012 decider, while Sydney Roosters’ minor premiership threepeat from 2013-15 garnered only a grand final win in the first season – they were bundled out at the preliminary final stage in the latter two, with third-placed outfits Souths and North Queensland, respectively, carrying off the title.
The Storm’s emphatic 2017 success – beating the Cowboys 34-6 in the grand final after finishing six points clear of the field in the regular season – is countered by a grand final loss in 2016 and preliminary final exits in 2019 and 2021 as minor premiers.
The Panthers endured a first-half ambush at the hands of the Storm in the 2020 as their minor premiership achievement went to waste, but they went on with the job after streeting the competition in 2022 – beating the Eels twice convincingly either side of a prelim win over the Rabbitohs to pair the JJ Giltinan Shield with the NRL premiership trophy.
If they become the first team to win three straight grand finals in 40 years in less than a month’s time, the Panthers will also be the first club to complete the minor premiership-grand final win double two years in a row since Eastern Suburbs in 1974-75.