Wests Tigers NRLW team ends 15-year finals drought

As the NRLW finals get under way this week, the 2026 premiership appears to be a two-horse race between the Roosters and the Titans.

The Roosters are undefeated this season and have a week off before the preliminary finals next weekend, while the Titans, who also have a week off, have only lost once this year – their round one match against the Tricolours.

It sets up a potentially mouth-watering decider, with last year’s premiers Brisbane the only team seemingly capable of stopping the top two.

ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys conceded the Roosters’ dominance may not be good for the women’s competition – they have only lost three games in the past three years, and their most recent defeat was to Brisbane in the 2025 grand final – but he is confident teams are capable of stepping up to end their streak.

“Look, it isn’t [a good thing], but the thing is that they can be beaten,” V’landys said.

“As I’ve learnt in the racing industry, a favourite can be beaten, and I think there are a few more teams there that will give the Roosters an absolute run for their money.

“So, I don’t think it’s going to be as dominant as what the season’s been – the semi-finals go to another level.”

The Tricolours go into their week off fit and healthy, a welcome change from last year when halfback Tarryn Aiken damaged her ACL just before the finals.

The pain of last year’s grand final, which the Broncos won via a 65th minute try to Mele Hufanga, is still fresh in the mind of Roosters captain Isabelle Kelly. And while the team is undefeated in 2026 – something Kelly is adamant they have not spoken about – she is under no illusions that they will cruise through the finals to claim the premiership.

“Finals footy is a different breed,” Kelly said. “I think you can go all the way through, build consistency, be undefeated, but then we’ve obviously bowed out twice in a semi-final and then had that heartbreak of losing a grand final.

“It’s finals footy, everyone steps up, the game goes to a new level. I think we’ve seen it in the NRL this week with the games just played, and some of those games were insane.”

The Titans have been responsible for some Roosters heartbreak in the past. Gold Coast won a gritty semi-final 12-0 in 2023, but lost to Newcastle in the grand final.

The Gold Coast are certainly capable of causing an upset again this year.

“They’ve been so good; they’ve been unreal,” Kelly said of the Titans.

“I think they’re one of the hot contenders, to be honest, to be in that grand final, and I think they deserve to have the week off, same as us, because of the form they’ve been in.”

Titans captain Georgia Hale – who was part of the team that lost that 2023 grand final – has total belief in her team.

Not only are they battle-hardened, she said, after defeating every other finals team in the regular season – Broncos, Tigers, Knights and Raiders – but they are also capable of turning the tables on the Roosters in the decider.

“Absolutely [we can beat them]. The belief is there, and gosh, that would be such a good feeling,” Hale said.

“To be the best, you want to beat the best. So yeah, just say when and where.”

It’s been 15 long years, but the Wests Tigers are finally playing finals football again.

For the first time since 2011, a top-grade Tigers team will play a match at the business end of the season, thanks to the club’s NRLW side sealing a top-four finish with a 7-4 record during the 11-match regular season.

It’s an impressive turnaround for a team that finished with just one win, and the wooden spoon for the second year in a row in 2025.

The last Wests Tigers team to play finals was Tim Sheens’ 2011 squad that included Benji Marshall, Lote Tuqiri and Robbie Farah.

One of the most significant changes for the NRLW team this year has been the arrival of coach Craig Sandercock.

“If you were to say to me at the start of the year, you’re playing finals footy, I would have 100 per cent taken that,” Sandercock said.

“It’s been a great, great year, and you could probably consider it a really successful year from the club, especially with where we’ve come from.”

The team always had potential, said Sandercock, but there were a handful of areas that required improvement.

“When I watched all their games from last year, they only won one game, but there were periods in every game that they competed, and they competed hard, and it was just, I suppose, some key moments last year that really cost them,” Sandercock said.

“Then that fed into that mindset of, here we go again, and then they concede another try and another try. So, for us, it was all about trying to build some resilience and really work hard on icing or winning those key moments in games that can lead to positive results.”

The recruitment of veteran players Raecene McGregor and Shaylee Bent has also been a huge boost, and those experienced players have joined forces with captain Kezie Apps and forward Sarah Togatuki – who have been with the club since that first 2023 season – to steer the team into the finals.

“I feel like this year the coach and the recruitment [team] have done a great job of finding that balance [between youth an experience],” said Apps.

“We’ve still got our young girls coming through who are learning and who are going really good, but we’ve also got that great balance of the leaders and the experience within the group as well.

“It’s obviously been a big change this year from going from only winning one game last year, and now here we are near finals, and we’ve come fourth.

“Reflecting on the season that we’ve had ... and comparing that to last year coming last and then coming fourth, I think that’s something that needs to be celebrated and something that needs to be recognised of how hard the girls have worked to get to where we are.”

The Tigers will play Canberra, who they lost 22-10 to in the final round of the season, in week one of the finals.

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