Missed all the hype of the latest NRL Round and need and/or want to catch up in the quickest way possible? Well The Gurgler has you covered with our 2025 NRL Round 2 Match Results – Newcastle v Dolphins One Minute Match Report.
Our famous One Minute Match Reviews offer up just enough facts and figures and opinion to make it through the waiting for an Uber or Monday morning coffee catch ups, fifty cent train rides or carpools.
MATCH THOUGHTS
There’s only one thing worse than having to endure a Cooper Cronk commentary when he is on a high horse and bashing your team’s poor performance. And that’s when he is also right. Cronk pointed out the lack of energy from the Dolphins tonight, and continued to point it out, and it did seem like the Dolphins were playing with a player down all night. Even when they had a player advantage after Kai Pearce-Paul was sin binned for a shoulder high shot on Daniel Safiti some time before.
Folk from SEQ have excuses for being weary having had to endure a cyclone, flooding, power cuts and the incessant coverage of all of that. But that’s two average performances by the Dolphins in two weeks. And two losses from two, against sides they might have marked down on the 2025 draw as winnable. The longer the losing streak goes, the longer the Wayne Bennett curse continues in the media.
For the Dolphins Oryn Keely was good after getting a start in the second row. He at least looked like he was giving plenty. Ray Stone tackled like he always does, but no one really stood out for the Dolphins. Their best work which resulted in a try to the Hammer was ruled out due to small interference 50 metres ago that probably wouldn’t have made a difference. The Hammer was solid at the back, but even he was more Ham-meh than Hammer.
The 71% completion rate doesn’t help the Dolphins, nor their Missed Tackles figure, but neither did having the higher possession and territory stats.
He was well and truly beaten in the battle of the fullbacks on Thursday night by Kalyn Ponga, who shone the brightest for the Knights, in a backline that was pretty awesome. Perhaps it is the news of a huge deal for Dylan Brown that makes him feel threatened about his own stature around the club, or he’ll use the Brown deal as a distraction while he looks for a bigger deal.
The backline of Newcastle made a real difference. Bradman Best giving Queensland fans a taste of what could be coming in State of Origin. And all of the back five gave the Knights momentum up the field.
Newcastle in general just wanted it more, and they certainly got it, and now have a 2/2 record to start the season.
2025 NRL Round 2 Match Results Stats – Newcastle v Dolphins
Courtesy of nrl.com
BEST OF STATS
Newcastle have now won four in a row v Dolphins.
Dolphins have now lost seven away games in a row.
Dolphins have won only three of 16 away games outside of Qld. One of those wins was at Newcastle in 2023. But not this season.
The loss for the Dolphins broke a four game winning streak on a Thursday and the win for Newcastle broke a four game losing streak on a Thursday.
Since 2022, Newcastle’s home record v Qld teams is W5 L3.
Excluding finals, Newcastle have now won five in a row in the NRL.
