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Parker: NRL season length contributing to injury increase
Charles Goodsir • August 20th, 2025 12:39 pm
Photo: Dave Hunt/AAP
Round 25 kicks off on Thursday night with the South Sydney Rabbitohs hosting the St George Illawarra Dragons at Accor Stadium,
Both sides are out of finals contention and boast significant injury tolls.
The Bunnies are missing 16 players due to injury whilst the Dragons will have up to 12 players on the sidelines. $12 million worth of talent will be unavailable for the NRL’s prime time fixture on Thursday.
SEN’s Corey Parker believes more teams will be affected by injuries in future seasons with the addition of expansion as well as the increase in matches.
“This weekend, there are close to 70 players unavailable," Parker said on SENQ Breakfast.
“If you look at it, there are soft tissue injuries. Lots of shoulders, knees and other contact injuries that you can’t really help.
“There are an enormous number of players out. We have to bring two more teams into the competition.
“I’ve had my views on that which means the competition is going to be diluted.
“I don’t think we have enough players but we’ll wait and see what unfolds.
“In my opinion, the season is too long. We have 27 rounds and we started in (February) with a four-week competition that’s televised.
“Three Origins plus International Tests and the Pacific Championships. It’s far too long and it could be contributing (to the rise in injuries).
“I think we could shorten it up.”
Parker believes the NRL could adopt a condensed pre season similar to the NFL to reduce the number of injuries.
“There’s a mandatory six-week period that players have off (at the end of the season),” Parker added.
“It doesn’t take you that long to get up to speed. I’ve come back from World Cup Tours and they are only four weeks long.
“We don’t need eight weeks or three month pre seasons.
“I think it (a lengthy pre-season) could potentially be a factor.
“Particularly if you've played every game and every minute.”
