NRL Round 15 2026 Preview & Tips

Between them these two are missing twelve players to Origin, five Dolphins and seven Roosters, so this is as much a test of squad depth as it is a contest. The difference is how each side is built to absorb the hit.

The Dolphins arrive on a five-game winning run, and every one of those wins has come by eight points or more. They have also been in exactly this position before. In the Round 12 Origin bye they were similarly stretched and still went to Canberra and won by eight. Herbie Farnworth is the man who makes their backline tick, and against a Roosters side reshuffling its entire spine he looms as the difference in the centres. He is a live tryscoring chance and the Dolphins are simply the more complete team this week.

The Roosters are the side that gets pulled apart. Seven outs strip the spine bare: Cody Ramsey plays his first game at fullback for the club, Hugo Savala gets his first run in the halves, and Daly Cherry-Evans is left to do the steering alongside a reshuffled centre pairing. The forward pack holds up well enough even without the absentees, but the bench is short on experience. One note worth making is that the Roosters were on the bye in Round 12, so unlike the Dolphins there is no recent Origin-round form line to lean on. What we do know is that their form has been patchy, with back-to-back losses either side of that bye, going down to the Cowboys at Suncorp in Magic Round and then to the Storm in Melbourne, before bouncing back to beat the Raiders 26-0 last week.

I have been on the Roosters plenty this year, but this is not the spot for them. The short head-to-head favours Sydney, who lead the five-game history 4-1, though that record predates a Roosters outfit missing this much of its spine. With the Dolphins humming and fielding the more settled seventeen, I am happy to lay the points.

On the total, I have genuinely conflicting feelings, and this is where the game gets tricky. The fixture itself screams over, having cleared the line in four of the last five meetings, and Suncorp under good conditions is hardly a venue that kills points. Everything else points the other way. The Roosters ran hot through the middle of the year, going over from Round 3 through to Round 9, but they have since posted four straight unders. The Dolphins have been inconsistent on totals and have only gone over four times all season. Add the Friday-night under trend, where the Dolphins are 4-0 to the under and the league sits at 11 of 17, and the weight of numbers is firmly on the under. With this many players out, these games tend to scrap along at the lower end. I lean the under 50.5, but with the head-to-head pulling so hard the other way it is a no bet for me. The spread is the play.

New Zealand Warriors vs Cronulla Sharks

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The line is the story here, and 9.5 is too many for me. The Warriors as a big favourite in Auckland is a spot I have learned to fade, and the record is blunt about it: across the last three seasons, when they have started as double-digit favourites in front of their Auckland crowd, they are 0 from 10 against the spread. They have not even won most of them. The Warriors are just 5-5 straight up in those ten games, so half the time the big favourite has lost the match outright, let alone covered. This week's 9.5 sits just under that bracket, but the pattern is the same. It is a classic Warriors trap, a side that has a habit of playing down to its opposition at home.

This week hands them every reason to do it again. Mitch Barnett and Kurt Capewell are in Origin camp, and captain James Fisher-Harris is out injured, which strips the middle and the left edge in one go. That is two of their main props and their most experienced edge forward gone from the pack. This is experience walking out the door, not just bodies. Between them, Barnett, Capewell and Fisher-Harris have played more than 600 first-grade games, and pulling that much leadership and big-game nous out of one forward pack is exactly the sort of loss the market has underrated here. The players coming in are capable enough, but none of them carry that kind of experience. They also return from a bye, though that is no help to the read either way. Off a bye under Andrew Webster they are a middling 5-4 against the line.

The Sharks are far from the pushover this line implies. They have won their last three and four of their last five, and just as importantly they have covered four of those last five against the spread. The most recent two of those wins, over the Sea Eagles and the Dragons, came without Nicho Hynes steering the side. They are also missing Addin Fonua-Blake and Briton Nikora to Origin, but they have absorbed those outs and kept rolling. The bigger point is that these two already met this year, and the Sharks handled the Warriors 36-22 in that one. Add a winning record on their most recent trip across the Tasman, back in 2024, and a 9.5-point head start looks generous.

I am not telling you the Warriors cannot win this. They might. But I am not laying 9.5 with a side this prone to flat home performances and this short in the forwards, against an opponent that has already beaten them this season. Give me the points.

Parramatta Eels vs Canberra Raiders

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The Raiders have owned this fixture of late. They have won each of the last four meetings by eight points or more, three of them by 24 or more, and the favourite has won eight of the last ten games between these two. Canberra are favourites again here, but only at -2.5.

The Eels are the rare side this week to come through the Origin window almost untouched. They are essentially unchanged from the team that pushed the Bulldogs to the wire last week, with the only tweak a bench swap, Toni Mataele out for Teancum Brown. That continuity counts for something in a round defined by disruption. The problem is form. The Eels have lost three on the trot, and while they were a whisker away from springing the upset on the Bulldogs, close losses are still losses.

Canberra are not arriving in great shape either. Ethan Strange and Hudson Young are both in Origin camp and Savelio Tamale drops out, so utility man Daine Laurie shifts to five-eighth and Sebastian Kris returns to the centres. It is also worth remembering how the Raiders coped the last time they were missing players to Origin duty. In Round 12, the round prior to Origin Game 1, they went down at home to the Dolphins. They have also lost three of their last five, so consistency is missing on both sides of this one.

On paper the Raiders are the slightly better team, and I lean them here. But I am not comfortable, and there is not much value in laying -2.5 with a side this up and down. It is a lean, not a play, and an Eels upset would not surprise me here either.

The total is where I am most confident in this one. Both teams are trending hard towards the under. The Eels have gone under in five of their last six, the Raiders in six of their last seven, and across the season the Raiders have hit the under in nine of their thirteen games. This fixture has cleared 49.5 just twice in the last ten meetings, and the Saturday-night trend backs it all up, with the competition landing under in nine of thirteen this year, a shade under 70%. With both teams desperate, low on rhythm and built more to grind than to throw it around, the under is the play.

Wests Tigers vs Gold Coast Titans

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The Titans have quietly had the better of this fixture, winning seven of the last ten meetings, and the favourite has covered just three times in those ten. That makes the Tigers an awkward favourite at -5.5 on the history alone.

Both teams feel the Origin pinch. The Titans are without Tino Fa'asuamaleaui and Jojo Fifita, while the Tigers lose only Apisai Koroisau to Origin, with Taylan May returning to the centres. There is not much to separate the two on form beyond the ladder. The Tigers sit 6-6 and the Titans 3-9, and both have been wildly inconsistent, the Titans having won just one of their last six. The Tigers in particular can win one out of nowhere or be blown off the park, as they were when Penrith ran in 68 points against them only last week. That unpredictability is exactly why I am wary.

The Tigers are my play here, though not with big conviction. The main draw is the spot: a Sunday afternoon at Leichhardt, a ground where they have been strong all year, winning both their games there by 18 points or more, and a response game after last week's 68-0 hiding, the kind of result no side wants to back up from. They are the better team on paper and have more to play for. The reasons for caution are real, the fixture history favours the Titans and this is not a side I trust week to week, so it is a light play rather than a strong one, but the Tigers are the side I want.

The total sits at 51.5, one of the bigger numbers on the slate, and I lean over, though with nothing concrete behind it. For me it is less about either attack and more about the timeslot, with Sunday afternoon games having leaned over in recent years, and both these defences have been questionable this season, the Tigers' especially after they shipped 68 points last week. What holds me back is the Titans' profile. They have been one of the worst sides in the competition to back for the over, going over just twice all season, against the Eels in Round 6 and away at the Sharks in the opening round, with the under landing in six of their last seven and this fixture going under in six of the last ten. So the lean is to the over, but it is nothing concrete and the total is a no bet. The play here is the Tigers on the line.