The last dance: Which team will finish with the NRL wooden spoon?

Let’s get one thing straight. Nobody wins a wooden spoon.

Think about it. Why would the biggest loser in a season win anything? That makes zero sense.

You receive a wooden spoon. You collect a wooden spoon. You cop a wooden spoon. And you begrudgingly accept it, head bowed, without so much as a handshake or eye contact.

And then, for the next 12 months, that spoon is a source of embarrassment for everyone associated with that particular club, until it can be offloaded to some other poor unfortunates.

With six rounds remaining in the 2025 NRL season, the battle to avoid the spoon is shaping as a loser-takes-all dogfight, and seven teams are in contention.

Pressure is mounting on the coaches of those particular clubs, and they each deal with it in their way.

Souths slipped to bottom of the NRL ladder after their loss to Cronulla last weekend.Credit: Getty Images

Rookie Parramatta mentor Jason Ryles insisted recently, after his team beat Gold Coast in round 16, that he had been unaware the two teams were equal last on the points table before kick-off.

“I don’t check the ladder and I don’t check social media,” he said. “Generally, all we’re worried about is how we’re going to get better every single day so that we can go out and perform well on the weekend. That’s our focus.”

Ryles’ Titans counterpart Des Hasler, in contrast, knew what was at stake.

“We had a lot to play for ... sitting in last spot, it’s a position we don’t want to be in,” he said.

“We thought coming in that it’s very tight at the bottom, and those sides are pretty congested. That’s why tonight’s game was so important for us.”

Like Hasler, South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett has never collected a wooden spoon during a top-level coaching career that kicked off at Canberra in 1987 and has delivered a record seven premierships.

Bennett finds the subject so distasteful that he refused to discuss it after a 14-12 loss to Cronulla last week that left Souths in last position, albeit with one more win in the bank than Gold Coast.

“I knew someone would ask that question. I’m not answering it,” Bennett said.

Regardless of whether the men in the hot seat are nervous, defiant or in denial, the bottom line remains the same, and was encapsulated by Ryles: “Last sucks.”

It sucks even more if your team happens to become long-term residents in the competition cellar, as has been the case for Wests Tigers in the past three seasons, and Newcastle (2015-17) before them.

Only six teams have finished last in three or more consecutive seasons, and three of those sides - Newtown, University and the Gold Coast Seagulls - are long-since defunct.

Spare a thought for Parramatta fans, who have not only endured 14 wooden-spoon seasons - second only to Western Suburbs Magpies (17) - but had to suffer through six in a row between 1956 and 1961.

The spoon, however, does not necessarily have to be a lasting curse. It is sometimes a rock-bottom scenario that proves to be a turning point in a club’s fortunes.

Just two years after Penrith finished last in 2001, they were hoisting the premiership trophy.

Likewise, Cronulla emerged from a disastrous 2014 campaign that was overshadowed by the peptides scandal to win their first title in 2016.

The much-maligned Brian Smith almost went one better with the Sydney Roosters, who were last when he arrived at the end of 2009, and 12 months later led hot favourites St George Illawarra 8-6 at half-time in the grand final, before losing 32-8.

Penrith coach Ivan Cleary appeared in danger of heading in the opposite direction earlier this season, when his four-time premiers found themselves propping up the ladder for six weeks, before embarking on a seven-game winning streak that has them in contention for a top-four finish.

Cleary, like Hasler and Bennett, is yet to suffer the ignominy of a wooden spoon, although he came within 40 minutes of one back in 2015.

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Cleary’s injury-riddled Panthers were a tailspin that culminated in a loser-takes-all last-round showdown with Newcastle to decide which hapless team would finish at the foot of the ladder.

The Knights led 12-8 at half-time before Penrith produced four unanswered tries to win 30-12.

Afterwards, at the post-match press conference, you might have assumed Cleary’s major emotion would be relief, or even satisfaction that his depleted team had been able to dig deep for a face-saving victory.

Instead, he appeared bemused and queried whether the whole subject had been blown “a little bit out of context” because only two points separated the bottom six teams.

“It’s something strange about our culture,” Cleary said. “We really want to label somebody who comes last with something.”

It was an interesting observation, but after his brief philosophical moment, Cleary came to his senses.

“I think deep down no one wants the spoon,” he said.

Unfortunately, someone always gets it, and when they do, there is nowhere to hide.

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