This weekend, we revisit no less than four finals matches, including grand final victories by the Roosters and Sea Eagles, two semi-final thrillers, and the day the New Zealand Warriors put an end to the Bulldogs’ record winning streak.

Round 8, 2007: Broncos 8 defeated Rabbitohs 4 at Suncorp Stadium
After starting the 2007 season so impressively, the Rabbitohs faced a serious test of their credentials when they travelled to Brisbane to face the defending premiers at Suncorp Stadium.

Under first-year coach Jason Taylor, the Bunnies had won four of their first seven matches, eclipsing their three-win tally from the previous season (the first of those wins were against an Origin-depleted Brisbane at Telstra Stadium in Round 14).

However, their season had taken a turn for the worse when David Kidwell, one of several players recruited to the club during the 2006-07 off-season, suffered an out-of-club knee injury that sidelined him for the rest of the year.

Meanwhile, the Broncos were struggling to get anything going in their premiership defence, going into Round 8 with only two wins for the season, both away from the comforts of Suncorp Stadium.

But while they hadn’t lost to South Sydney at home since 1989, they weren’t going to take this up-and-coming side lightly.

Neither side gave an inch in what proved to be a war of attrition, with the scoreline reading 0-0 at halftime in what was the Rabbitohs’ first Friday night premiership match since 2002 (which, coincidentally, was also against the Broncos in Round 8).

The first points of the match came via a Darren Lockyer penalty goal in the 46th minute, but the first try didn’t come until less than 15 minutes remaining when Darius Boyd scored and Lockyer converted to make the score 8-0.

The Bunnies pegged back a try to Shannon Hegarty which was unconverted, before they took the match right up to the death, with John Sutton appearing to finish off a length-of-the-field play with a try which could’ve at least forced golden point.

Sutton’s try was sent to the video referee for adjudication, and after it was ruled that he had knocked on, the home side held on for an 8-4 victory.

Further rubbing salt into the wound, Sutton suffered a shoulder injury during the act of attempting to score and missed over two months of football.

Round 22, 2002: Warriors 22 defeated Bulldogs 14 at Ericsson Stadium
It was going to take a whole team effort from anyone to beat the Bulldogs and the New Zealand Warriors did just that in Round 22.

Going into the final five rounds of the season, the Dogs had won 17 matches in a row and seemed destined to go all the way for the first time since 1995.

However, the Warriors, who had only lost two matches at their Mount Smart home base for the season, recorded a stunning victory in front of a crowd of 21,570 that would set off a stunning chain of events.

The Dogs were first to score, through ex-Warrior Nigel Vagana, but the home side, led brilliantly by halfback and captain Stacey Jones, ran riot for the rest of the match, leading 12-4 at halftime.

By the end of it, the Kiwis had put an end to the Bulldogs’ 17-match winning streak – leaving the men from Belmore just two wins short of the all-time premiership record of 19 held by the Sydney Roosters in 1975.

It later emerged that Canterbury had been guilty of massive salary cap breaches, and the consequences were fatal – the club were stripped of 37 competition points in one hit and sentenced to finish the season with the wooden spoon.

As for the Warriors, they finished at the top of the standings for the first time in the club’s history and reached the grand final, putting up a valiant effort against the Roosters before succumbing 30-8.

As if that wasn’t enough, the following year, the Warriors went on to beat the Bulldogs by 48-22 in a qualifying final at Giants Stadium in Sydney, with Francis Meli scoring a club and finals-record five tries.

2018 grand final: Roosters 21 defeated Storm 6 at ANZ Stadium
One of the grudge grand finals saw the two most consistent sides of the NRL era facing off in the big dance for the first time.

Lighting the fuse was the presence of Cooper Cronk in opposition colours, after he had featured in the Storm’s 2012 and 2017 premiership wins. The week leading up to the grand final centered on whether he would take his place in the decider after he had suffered a serious shoulder injury in the Chooks’ preliminary final win over the South Sydney Rabbitohs the previous week.

Eventually, less than one hour before kick-off, it was confirmed that he would play, sporting the #23 guernsey made famous by the likes of Michael Jordan, LeBron James, David Beckham and Lance Franklin.

Storm retiree Billy Slater was also cleared to take his place in the decider after being cleared by the tribunal of a shoulder charge in his team’s preliminary final win over the Sharks, meaning he got to finish his career in front of over 80,000 people at ANZ Stadium.

While Melbourne were the defending premiers and had the majority backing up from the previous year’s win over the Cowboys, there were only five players left from the Roosters’ 2013 premiership side – Daniel Tupou, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Jake Friend, Boyd Cordner, and Mitchell Aubusson.

The first half saw the Roosters produce their best first half of the year, scoring three tries to lead 18-0 at halftime. On the flipside, it was a dirty opening 40 minutes from the Storm, whose five-eighth Cameron Munster was sin-binned for a professional foul.

There would be no score in the second half until Josh Addo-Carr intercepted a pass in the 63rd minute, but that was as good as it got for the Victorians.

A field goal to Luke Keary, who’d featured in the Rabbitohs’ 2014 premiership side, and a third penalty goal to Latrell Mitchell, which came after Munster was sin-binned for a second time, this time for kicking the head of Roosters winger Joseph Manu, completed a phenomenal season for the men from Bondi Junction.

It also saw Cronk win his second premiership medal with two separate clubs, becoming the first player since Johnny Mayes in 1973-74 to do so (coincidentally, Mayes’ second title was with the Roosters, after he won at Manly in 1973).

He retired with four premiership medals, with the Roosters’ 14-8 win over the Raiders in last year’s grand final (in which he was sin binned for an illegal tackle) being his final NRL game.

Round 24, 2004: Dragons 24 defeated Knights 22 at EnergyAustralia Stadium
Both the Knights and Dragons went into this clash needing a win to keep their finals hopes alive.

The stakes were higher in the Dragons’ case, however, because they were still a chance of sneaking into the top four dependent on how the Penrith Panthers fared.

The Knights, on the other hand, had done well to stay in finals contention after losing their halfback and captain Andrew Johns to a season-ending ACL injury in Round 3.

After just seven minutes, the match took an ugly turn when Clint Newton charged into Ashton Sims with his elbow, breaking the teenager’s jaw. Referee Tim Mander had no choice but to give Newton, now the CEO of the Rugby League Players Association, an early shower.

This left Newcastle to play out the match with only 12 men.

The Red V scored the first try of the match, through winger-turned-model Nick Youngquest. However, the home side took a 6-4 lead into halftime and when Matt Gidley scored, they led 12-4 after 50 minutes.

Two tries in five minutes to halfback Matthew Head, followed by a second try to Youngquest, saw the Dragons take the lead 20-12 going into the final quarter.

By that point, Newton was fully suited up and could only watch on as his side hung on for dear life.

Anthony Quinn scored a try for the hosts but the unsuccessful conversion from Kurt Gidley left them in arrears at 20-16.

Then Matt Cooper scored for St George Illawarra to extend their lead to 24-16 and while Gidley scored at the death, it was too little, too late as Newcastle fell short by 24-22.

Their finals hopes would ultimately be extinguished the following week by way of a 52-6 loss to the Bulldogs, which saw them out of September for the first time since 1996.

2010 first semi-final: Wests Tigers 26 defeated Raiders 24 at Canberra Stadium
The Raiders, having finished seventh on the ladder at the end of the regular season, stayed alive after beating the Panthers on the road in their qualifying final.

Under the old finals system, any team that won in Week 1 would earn a home game for their next final, which meant Canberra were hosts at a packed Canberra Stadium.

Benji Marshall, who to that point of his career had never lost in Canberra, passed a late fitness test after suffering a knee injury against the Roosters the previous week.

The Tigers led 18-12 at halftime and a try to Chris Lawrence nine minutes into the second half saw the visitors lead 24-12.

Trevor Thurling then scored for the Green Machine before the match took an ugly turn when Terry Campese suffered a gruesome knee injury, robbing the home side of a potential match winner when the match was on the line.

A penalty goal to Marshall saw the Tigers extend their lead to 26-18, but when Canberra captain Alan Tongue crashed over, the stage was set for a grandstand finish.

It was then all up to Jarrod Croker to send the match into golden point extra time with a penalty shot at the death. Ultimately, he missed this conversion, and the Tigers hung on.

The Tigers proceeded to lose their preliminary final to the Dragons 13-12, ending their dreams of a second premiership in six years.

Round 1, 2008: Titans 36 defeated Cowboys 18 at Skilled Park
After entering the NRL in 2007, the Gold Coast Titans were forced to wait until 2008 to unveil their purpose-built stadium in Robina.

In the meantime, they played out of the old Carrara Stadium, which was subsequently demolished and rebuilt into the present-day Metricon Stadium, which now hosts the Gold Coast Suns, and was the main venue for the Commonwealth Games in 2018.

But for the 26,974 fans who turned up for the christening of Robina Stadium, it was worth the wait as they witnessed a complete team performance.

Unheralded winger Jordan Atkins was the star of the show, becoming the fourth man in Australian rugby league history to score four tries on debut.

Luke Bailey and Anthony Laffranchi were their other tryscorers, while Scott Prince landed six goals – including two penalty goals.

Cowboys playmaker Johnathan Thurston was expected to have missed the match due to off-season shoulder surgery, but coach Graham Murray pulled off a selection surprise naming him in his side, five weeks ahead of schedule.

Thurston managed a personal haul of 14 points from two tries and three conversions, but his efforts were not to be enough as North Queensland lost a Round 1 match for the first time since 2005.

The Titans completed the double over the Cowboys that season, defeating them 26-20 in Townsville in Round 23.

2018 first semi-final: Sharks 21 defeated Panthers 20 at Allianz Stadium
Despite both the Cronulla Sharks and Penrith Panthers entering the competition in 1967, it took them until 2018 to finally meet in a finals match.

It was billed as a grudge final, pitting Matt Moylan and Luke Lewis up against their former club – and in the latter’s case, the club with which he won a premiership with in 2003.

Both teams also had a history of poaching players from each other, none more so than in 2003 when Preston Campbell moved to the Panthers and won a premiership in his first year at the foot of the mountains.

Cronulla led 18-0, then another Shire outcast, James Maloney, registered the Panthers’ first points via a penalty goal seconds before halftime.

Cronulla held what appeared to be a match-winning lead, but the Panthers, as they had done so many times in 2018, pulled themselves out of the grave, scoring the only three tries of the second half to level proceedings at 20-all in the final ten minutes.

A field goal to Chad Townsend put the Sharks in front 21-20 and after Nathan Cleary missed his field goal attempt, the 2016 premiers booked themselves a preliminary final date with the Storm in Melbourne.

It marked a disappointing end to what had been a tumultuous season for the Panthers, whose coach Anthony Griffin was controversially sacked just a month out from the finals series.

1976 NSWRFL grand final: Sea Eagles 13 defeated Eels 10 at the SCG
Finally, we look back at one of the classic grand finals from the seventies – the 1976 decider between the Sea Eagles and Eels at the SCG.

Manly were going for their third premiership in five years, while Parra were attempting to break their duck in what was their 30th year in the competition.

The Eels were actually first to qualify for the decider, after beating the Sea Eagles 23-17 in a bloody and brutal semi-final at the SCG – the Silvertails booked the rematch by beating the Bulldogs in the preliminary final.

Jim Porter scored the first try of the match for the Eels, before Phil Lowe replied to see the scores level 7-all at halftime.

A try to Geoff Gerard had Parramatta leading 10-7 early in the second half (back then, tries were worth three points instead of the four), but back-to-back penalty goals to Graham Eadie saw the Sea Eagles reclaim the lead, 11-10.

The Eels then blew a golden opportunity when Neville Glover dropped a pass from John Moran with the tryline in sight, and another penalty goal to Eadie saw Manly extend their lead to 13-10, which they would hold to the full-time siren.

The result was that the Sea Eagles took home their third premiership, and they would end the ’70s as the most successful side of the decade, winning another title in 1978.

It was also the first of two premierships for coach Frank Stanton, who would later become acting CEO of the Melbourne Storm in the wake of their salary cap scandal in 2010.

Parramatta waited another five years to capture their first premiership, also being unsuccessful in 1977 when they were thrashed 22-0 by the Dragons in the replay after the first grand final had ended in a 9-all draw.