There are only seven rounds remaining until the finals get underway, with the spotlight to be on several teams as the ladder continues to take shape.

It kicks off on Thursday night when the Eels welcome the Broncos to Commbank Stadium for the first time since August 2020, with the visitors looking for their first win at the venue where, nearly three years ago, they suffered a record 58-0 finals loss.

Another pre-finals stoush sees the third-placed Sharks look to claim their third consecutive top-four scalp when they travel to face the Panthers for the only time this season, while the Storm will attempt to put an end to three straight losses when they face the Rabbitohs.

Sunday sees the Bulldogs and Titans look to move further away from the wooden spoon, while the Tigers will attempt to offload it when they make the difficult trip to Townsville to face the Cowboys.

Here is your preview to Round 19.

Eels vs Broncos

A pre-finals blockbuster kicks off the round with the Parramatta Eels playing host to the Brisbane Broncos at Commbank Stadium, a venue which doesn’t hold any good memories for the latter side.

Why’s that, you ask? It was because, in September 2019, the Broncos suffered what was, at the time, their worst ever defeat in club history as well as the worst defeat by any team in a finals match in Australian rugby league history.

Only five players from that side remain at Red Hill today, the club having underwent a significant rebuild of its playing list under then-coach Anthony Seibold and his successor, Kevin Walters, who has done very well to lift them back into finals calculations.

Last Saturday night, the Broncos survived a major scare from the Gold Coast Titans before emerging with a 16-12 victory, with Adam Reynolds joining the likes of Johnathan Thurston and Cameron Smith in scoring 2,000 career points.

They now sit in fifth place on the ladder, just ahead of the Eels on percentage, with the men from western Sydney enjoying a 28-18 win over the Warriors at home last Friday night.

The Eels’ win, which has done little to ease the pressure on coach Brad Arthur, was their eleventh of the season but if they are to do well in the finals there is one thing that they must address – consistency.

While they were the only team (so far) to beat the Penrith Panthers, and do so at the foot of the mountains, they were also on the wrong end of a shocking 34-4 loss to the then-last placed Bulldogs on Queen’s Birthday last month.

Recent history is in their favour, though, having beaten the Broncos five out of the last six times, most recently by 46-6 in round seven last year, but the side they will face on Thursday night will be a vastly different one to back then.

On that note, despite having not yet won at Commbank Stadium from three attempts, the Broncos should leave with the points for the first time.

Prediction: Broncos by six points.

Dragons vs Sea Eagles

Another poor performance over the weekend in which they coughed up over 50 points against the Roosters on the Central Coast has Dragons coach Anthony Griffin skating on thin ice, with speculation he could be moved on at or before season’s end.

With Origin III hero Ben Hunt back on deck, the Red V led by 14-12 at half-time, and were level at 20-all in the second half, before they capitulated in embarrassing fashion to drop to 11th on the ladder and drift further away from finals calculations.

Questions have been asked of why the club has been relying on its older players (of which a few, including Hunt, Andrew McCullough, Francis Molo and Josh McGuire all played under Griffin at the Broncos) at the expense of developing its younger guns.

The same can’t be asked of the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, who have had a topsy-turvy season but retained their place in the eight over the weekend with a clinical 42-12 win over the Knights at home last Saturday night.

Back in club maroon after leading state maroon to Origin glory, captain Daly Cherry-Evans was the architect of the victory, and will again be their x-factor as the Silvertails push for a finals berth in September.

Their recent record at Kogarah Oval doesn’t make for good reading, however, the men from the Northern Beaches having not won at the suburban venue since 2014, while they’ve also lost seven of their past ten against the Dragons.

Their task won’t be made any easier by Jake Trbojevic entering COVID-19 protocols, meaning he must watch the match from the comfort of home.

But despite his absence, the Sea Eagles should get the job done this Friday night.

Prediction: Sea Eagles by 10 points.

Knights vs Roosters

The Novocastrians return home following a heavy 42-12 loss to the Sea Eagles last week, and things will not get any easier for Adam O’Brien’s side who welcome the Sydney Roosters to town this Friday night.

Given how their season has unfolded it is easy to forget that they actually won their first two matches, including pulling off an upset 20-6 victory over the Roosters at the SCG in round one.

Thus, there is reason for the Knights to belive that they can again repeat the dose on the Chooks, though it is the men from Bondi Junction who go into Friday night’s clash as the favourites looking to reverse that shock round one defeat on their home turf.

On the Central Coast last week the Roosters trailed the Dragons by 14-12 at half-time but with Joseph Manu switched to five-eighth, they ran amok in the second half as they scooted to a 54-26 win on the Central Coast, breathing some life back into their season in the process.

It made for a dream result for Trent Robinson, who chalked up his 250th game as the club’s coach and will be remembered as the club’s greatest coach of the modern era, when his time does come to an end.

Despite the victory, the Roosters remain outside the eight having dropped four straight games beforehand, and with five of their six remainders after this weekend to come against sides currently above them on the ladder, they will face a tough run home.

This makes a successful trip to Newcastle this Friday night a non-negotiable before they face the Sea Eagles, Broncos and Cowboys in succession, while they also have to travel to Melbourne to face the Storm in the penultimate round.

Prediction: Roosters by 20 points.

Raiders vs Warriors

Having played its first true home game in nearly three years earlier this month, suddenly the New Zealand Warriors face a second straight match away from home soil when they make the difficult trip to Canberra to face the Raiders on Saturday afternoon.

Two weeks after marking their long-awaited homecoming with a 22-2 hammering of Wests Tigers, the Warriors proved to be no match for the Eels at Commbank Stadium last Friday night, going down by 28-18.

It came after the club announced that one-time Tigers interim coach Andrew Webster would be their new coach from next season, the current Panthers assistant to fill the void currently held in the interim by club legend Stacey Jones.

Awaiting them this Saturday afternoon are the Raiders, who return home on a high after withstanding a Storm comeback to win by 20-16 at AAMI Park, recording their fourth straight win in the Victorian capital in the process.

It was also their sixth win in their past nine matches after they had, at one stage, sat in second-last place on the ladder, and Ricky Stuart’s side will fancy their chances of breaking back into the eight in the coming weeks with only two matches against current top eight sides in the run to September.

While they will start favourites, they’ll be wary of what happened the last time they faced the Warriors, who pulled off a 21-20 win in golden point back in round eight, thanks to the boot of Shaun Johnson, just five days after being humiliated 70-10 by the Storm in Melbourne.

Unfortunately for the Warriors, there will be no repeat as the Raiders will be expected to show no mercy at home.

Prediction: Raiders by 22 points.

Panthers vs Sharks

On a high after recent wins over fellow top four sides the Storm and Cowboys, the Cronulla Sharks face the toughest task of all on Saturday night, making the hour-long, roughly 70km trip to the foot of the mountains to face reigning premiers the Penrith Panthers.

Along with the Cowboys, the Sharks have been one of the most improved teams this season, with Craig Fitzgibbon and Nicho Hynes emerging as the coaching and playing recruits of the season respectively.

An early trip to prepare for the clash against the Cowboys in Townsville (they arrived in town on Tuesday) paid off handsomely as they kept the northerners scoreless in the second half to claim a 26-12 win and close in on a coveted double chance.

Their opposition goes up a notch on Saturday afternoon when they face the Panthers, who despite being without seven regulars following the third Origin match in Brisbane staved off an attempted upset by the Wests Tigers to emerge 18-16 victors.

In the absences of both co-captains Isaah Yeo and Nathan Cleary, Dylan Edwards and Viliame Kikau stepped up to lead the mountain men to their eighth straight win, with James Fisher-Harris scoring seven minutes from time to get the side out of trouble.

An intriguing subplot going into Saturday night’s potential finals preview is that the Sharks actually won their most recent clash, by just 19-18 at Kogarah Oval in round 14 last year; that came after they were humiliated 48-0 by the mountain men just five weeks earlier.

The Sharks side that will rock up to Bluebet Stadium on Saturday night will be a vastly different side to the one back then, and having claimed the scalps of the Storm and Cowboys will look to make it a grand slam over the top four.

But with all their stars back on deck, the Panthers should be too good.

Prediction: Panthers by 10 points.

Rabbitohs vs Storm

Doubts are now starting to be cast over the Storm as premiership contenders this year after three straight losses and a season-ending knee injury to its fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen.

The 2020 Clive Churchill Medallist has been confirmed to undergo surgery on a dislocated knee cap, meaning he won’t play again this year even if the Storm advance to this year’s Grand Final, a prospect that now looks remote despite their current fourth-placing.

Their 20-16 loss to the Raiders at home last Sunday afternoon marked the first time in seven years that they’d lost three straight matches, something they’ll look to put an end to when they face the Rabbitohs at Accor Stadium on Saturday night.

Papenhuyzen’s absence will be welcome news to the Rabbitohs, as it was him who broke their hearts when he potted the winning field goal for the Storm in golden point when the teams met back at AAMI Park in round two.

Even so, this will be the Storm’s first match at the Olympic stadium since round nine last year, when the since-departed Josh Addo-Carr scored a record six tries in their 50-0 humiliation of the Bunnies.

Historically, the Rabbitohs have never enjoyed playing the Storm anywhere and unfortunately for the men from Redfern, the southerners should heap more misery on them this Saturday night.

Prediction: Storm by eight points.

Bulldogs vs Titans

Not for the first time this year, the Bulldogs will fancy their chances when they face the Gold Coast Titans at Commbank Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

While the results may not suggest so, the Dogs have lifted in the two months following Trent Barrett’s dramatic departure from the club, notching up wins over the Wests Tigers and Eels, the latter with an astonishing scoreline of 34-4.

Last Sunday night they took it up to the Rabbitohs at home, with scores level on at least two occasions before they lost by 36-28.

That has given interim coach Mick Potter some food for thought as he seeks the role on a full-time basis, with the Bulldogs the only club without a full-time coach for next season.

Next on their hit list are the Titans, who have lost their last seven matches to drop to second-last on the ladder with coach Justin Holbrook finding himself under the pump only ten months after leading his side to a shock finals berth where they just fell short of beating the Roosters.

Holbrook has pleaded his case maintaining that he has had to consistently field a young side all season, but when there are players such as AJ Brimson and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui among their ranks, there are simply no excuses for their poor form in 2022.

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Last Saturday night, however, they put up a spirited performance against the Broncos, being level 6-all at half-time and leading briefly in the second half before going down by 16-12.

While both the Bulldogs and Titans sit in 14th and 15th place on the ladder respectively, it promises to be an exciting affair of sorts as both sides look to move away from wooden spoon territory, and I have the home side winning by just.

Prediction: Bulldogs by six points.

Cowboys vs Wests Tigers

After having faced the top-placed Panthers and losing by only 18-16, there will be no respite for the Wests Tigers who must now head north for the first of two consecutive matches in Queensland, starting with Sunday’s clash against the second-placed Cowboys in Townsville.

A month after coach Michael Maguire was relieved of his duties, the last-placed Tigers went back to the future by appointing Tim Sheens as coach for a second time, following his decade-long stint between 2003-12, after which Benji Marshall will assume the top job from 2025.

Last Sunday, the joint venture threatened a major upset against a Penrith side that were missing up to seven regulars, but conceded the final try just seven minutes from time to crash to their 14th loss of the season.

It followed suggestions that Luke Brooks would be better off playing for another club, the halfback having failed to live up to the hype since his rookie season in 2014 (which followed a stunning debut at the SCG late the previous season).

Now they face a Cowboys side that will be smarting following a 26-12 loss to fellow top-four hopefuls the Sharks, failing to score in the second half after Jason Taumalolo was controversially denied a try after half-time.

The northerners have otherwise been the most improved team this season, rising from second-last with only seven wins last year to be sitting in second place on the ladder with twelve wins against just four losses.

Should they remain where they are at season’s end, it would eclipse their third-place finish in both 2007 and 2015, the Cowboys having never finished in the top two in their history.

Todd Payten’s men can just about book their ticket to September for the first time since their inspirational run to the 2017 decider with a win over the Tigers, who won the corresponding match by 24-16 last year and are one from one at QCB Stadium.

But they do face a challenging run home; after the clash against the Tigers, they’ll play their following three matches in Sydney against the Dragons, Bulldogs and Roosters, and must also face the Panthers in the final round in what shapes as a potential Grand Final preview.

Prediction: Cowboys by 20 points.