Ducking for cover like a Melbourne Storm Assistant Coach, in training for the next mascot race, rejecting any future playing contracts under $2M per season, and refusing to play most positions and play in reserve grade and at the Sydney Football Stadium, it’s time for some Rugby League tips and opinion from The Gurgler’s NRL Donkey. The NRL Donkey provides his NRL Donkey’s 2026 NRL Finals Series Week 3 Expert Tips as well as offers an alternative, slightly unhinged view full of sass of the world of rugby league and beyond for another week.
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NRL Finals Series Week 3 Rant
You have to wonder about the NRL, why do they get Ashley Klown aka Ashley Klein to referee big games. He’s not the worst referee like Lance Stroll is the worst F1 driver, or Chicken is the most disappointing flavour of Smith’s Crisps, but he brings controversy with him. Whether on the field or in the Bunker, talking points follow, and while that’s great for Fox League, angry One Nation voters, News Ltd shareholders, sales staff from Army Disposal shops, most rugby league fans are bored of it.
So instead of talking up the good news story that is Newcastle, what a great crowd it was at Eden Park, and why do the Sharks stink, we’re talking Ashley this, and Jericho that.
And while I’m at it, just get rid of The Bunker entirely. You can ask 1,000 rugby league fans, and at least 20 AFL fans, and I bet none at the start of any game want to wait for a minute while a computer nerd decides if a finger has moved a few millimetres. While it’s great to use that break to go to the toilet, get another beer or do both but preferably not at the same time, it’s dull. Most sporting fans, including VAR-weary Football fans, would prefer quick decisions that are mostly right, than much slower decisions that are slightly more right.
Cricket fans don’t mind waiting for video refs though, but they have seven hours to watch their so are generally prepared for boredom.
It’s a shame the Wahs are out, because it would have genuinely been a great rugby league story, and as I’ve maintained all year, if someone doesn’t wish the Wahs well then they obviously hate rugby league. And themselves. Hopefully they come back bigger and better in 2027. A good Wahs is good for league.
Not that the Knights coming from last to equal third best at worst isn’t a great story too, and good for rugby league, but they have won stuff already and the Wahs haven’t.
Surely if Newcastle don’t win then at least the coach will win Coach of the Year. Justin Holbrook proving once and for all it’s not the coaches but the club on the Gold Coast. And when Josh Hannay wins the 2028 NRL Premiership with the Broncos it’ll confirm it even more.
The only team that ever wins anything big on the Gold Coast was the Daikyo Dolphins in the old Australian Baseball League.
Not that the other coaches don’t deserve it. Well, Trent Robinson probably doesn’t, as his team probably should have finished first and didn’t. And even finishing first and winning a premiership probably isn’t enough for Nathan Cleary’s dad, as everyone expects that and it gets quite boring if Penrith win everything.
Kristian Woolf should be in the running, and I guess it depends on the final resting position of the Dolphins. But getting a team this far after breaking the chains of the Wayne Bennett curse deserves something. Maybe keeping his job a little longer is a good start.
Talking of good starts, you’re in good hands (or hooves) here, with some tips and more thoughts below on each game.
NRL Finals Series Week 3 Expert Tips
FRIDAY 8PM – DOLPHINS v ROOSTERS @ Suncorp Stadium
It worked out well for the Dolphins really, getting the Roosters in the Preliminary Final, because they would be very few if any Queenslanders that would support the Roosters over the Dolphins. Yes, yes Queensland based Roosters fans would, but since that’s only 2,000 of you I don’t care. And Queenslanders are good at getting on the bandwagon. So many Queenslanders will be shouting “Baaaalllllllllllllllllllllll” for the first time this year on Saturday when the Brisbane Lions play in the Grand Final, with the flags ready for waiving after the dust of September 2025 is brushed away.
But the Roosters will be a hard game, and who better to have a hard game named after than Artie Beetson. Not all Arties are great mind you, but the Beetson variety is, and let’s hope the players embrace the spirit of the big fella on put on a show. And no doubt someone who will is Ray Stone. If the Dolphins lose it could well be the last game of rugby league we’ll ever see from him, before he goes to terrorise another group of humans in MMA. I think either way the result goes, the perfect tribute would be the near undrinkable Stone’s Green Ginger Wine bringing out a special tribute bottle that’s harder to score a try of than Ray Stone.
Hard to believe the Dolphins are here just one week short of the Grand Final, after their ordinary start to the year, their finals fade outs of seasons gone by, and they enter this game with a three game run over the Roosters too, the last win was when the wheels to the Roosters wagon were wobbling. But they only beat a Sharks team that looked a little toothless, and a toothless Shark is pretty useless. Not that a Dolphin is any scarier than a toothless Shark, but it is still quick, smart and has loads of skills, and even just the bog standard sh!t start then 30 minute patch of the good stuff will see the Dolphins through, and send the Peninsula into joy only seen after the duplication of the Hornibrook Highway.
Dolphins by 14
SUNDAY 4PM – PENRITH v NEWCASTLE @ CommBank Stadium
If you needed more proof that Channel Nein love a Sunday clash then look no further than the only game available to be played in Sydney is played on a Sunday when in most other years this would be a Saturday night game. Not that I’m complaining as I probably would have been sleeping off my Brisbane Lions bandwagon-ing from earlier in the day.
This could be one of the most tense games this season between the bad Terminator from Terminator 2 Movie like robotic machine toughness of Penrith against the Arnie tough guy from Terminator 2 in-your-face toughness. Not sure who would be the screaming Edward Furlong (who nearly ruined the movie just like Sharon Stone ruined Casino). But then again, an annoying thing we wished would go away…..The Bunker for sure.
The narrative says Newcastle. Imagine a team that finished genuinely last and not rort related last making the Grand Final the following year. Nothing against Penrith, but the tall poppy chopping folk who hate Albo, Greg Norman and the Big Pineapple will certainly be on the Knights.
The brain, form and every other possible metric says Penrith. And you can picture Nathan Cleary running around a rugby league field like Arnie from T2 with that lovely 90’s CGI scanning footage, and much like Arnie he’ll be asking Newcastle for the clothes, their boots and their motorcycles. And like the bikie who butts his cigar in the chest of Arnie, Newcastle will burn a few cigars into the chest of Penrith on Sunday but ultimately because Arnie/Penrith is a robot, the Panthers will eventually grab their arm and inflict maximum pain.
Penrith by 12 or T2
NRL Donkey’s 2026 NRL Finals Week 2 Ratings
The Gurgler website is famed for the many, many stats and visuals on offer, and think they’re really clever, and the NRL Donkey was feeling a little left out.
But of course the NRL Donkey doesn’t want to celebrate the good, his cynicism won’t allow it, so he has found two ways to celebrate the mediocre. The first is taking The Gurgler’s all-new Player Ratings system, where stats are used to determine a player score out of ten, and flipping it’s on it’s head by taking the worst scores in each position. Secondly, he has devised a way of seeing which players was the worst contributor, coming up with a points system for all manners of errors, penalties, missed tackles, and gave it the subtle title of the Sh!t Play Index.
READ MORE: THE GURGLER’S FULL NRL 2026 GEAR
We’ve been working hard for you to bring you the 2026 NRL Season Previews from every angle and angel possible. But never Jo Angel.
NRL DONKEY’S 2026 SEASON PREVIEW
BOLD NRL 2026 SEASON PREDICTIONS
CAPTAIN HINDSIGHT’S SENSIBLE NRL 2026 SEASON PREDICTIONS
WHY YOUR TEAM CAN’T WIN THE 2026 NRL PREMIERSHIP
NRL 2026 RATINGS PREDICTIONS
2026 NRL JERSEY RATINGS WITH AI GREK NORMAN
2026 NRL DRAW ANALYSIS
2026 NRL DRAW ANALYSIS – TEAM BY TEAM
THE A TO Z OF THE 2025 NRL SEASON
