NRL Nines and Rugby League's Short Formats
How NRL Nines works: nine players, nine-minute halves, the five-point bonus zone and the golden try, plus the World Cup 9s and where Oztag fits.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Variants18 min read
- Players per side
- 9
- Half length
- 9 minutes
- Tackles in a set
- 5
- Interchange players
- 5, used without limit
- Try in the bonus zone
- 5 points
- First NRL Nines
- 2014 in Auckland
- Last NRL Nines
- 2020 in Perth
- Replaced by
- The NRL Pre-season Challenge
NRL Nines is rugby league with four players removed, played in nine-minute halves, over two days, with a five-point try zone under the posts. It produces roughly the same number of tries in eighteen minutes as a full match produces in eighty, and for a few years in February it was the most entertaining thing the code put on.
It ran at Eden Park in Auckland from 2014 to 2017, once at Perth Oval in 2020, and has not been played since. What replaced it is a very different sort of pre-season event, and the reasons the Nines went away say a lot about the constraints on the modern rugby league calendar.
This guide covers the Nines rules in full, every edition and winner, the women's tournament, the 2019 World Cup 9s, the sevens experiment that preceded all of it, and where Oztag, touch football and the modified junior formats fit — because between them those tackle-free codes have more registered players in Australia than the tackling one does.
What NRL Nines actually is
Nine players a side rather than thirteen, with five on the bench who can be interchanged without limit. The field is the same size. The ball is the same size. The play-the-ball works the same way.
Everything else about the game changes as a consequence of the first sentence. Removing four players from a full-sized field removes them, in practical terms, from the middle third, which is where thirteen-a-side football is won. A Nines defensive line cannot cover the width of the pitch. Every set is therefore an attacking opportunity in a way that almost no set in a standard match is.
The format was designed as a pre-season tournament: two days, all sixteen clubs, pool play into knockouts, with each club playing five or six short matches across a weekend. That is only possible because the matches are short.
The rules that make it different
- 9Players per side
- 5Interchange players
- 9Half length
- 5Tackles in a set
- 5Bonus zone try
The format used across the NRL editions. The bench was six players in 2014 and five from 2015 onward, and the sin bin was five minutes in 2014 and three afterwards.
The tackle count is five rather than six, which sounds minor and is not. Losing a tackle from every set compresses the attacking sequence and forces a decision earlier, and combined with the extra space it means teams attack from the first play rather than working through three hit-ups to establish field position. The strategic effect is close to what the six-again rule did to the thirteen-a-side game, but taken further.
Interchange is unlimited. Players come and go freely, so a middle forward can play thirty-second bursts at full pace, and nobody has to pace themselves through a set the way they do across eighty minutes.
Scrums are almost eliminated. One forms only after a double knock-on, and the attacking side gets to choose which side of the scrum to feed. Given how much of the standard game's stoppage time goes into scrums, removing them is a substantial part of why so much football fits into eighteen minutes.
There is no video referee. One on-field official runs the match with two touch judges and two in-goal judges, so a decision is made and the game continues. Whether that is a rule change or a philosophical statement about the Bunker is a matter of taste.
Nines against the standard game
| NRL Nines | Rugby league 13s | |
|---|---|---|
| Players on field | 9 | 13 |
| Bench | 5, unlimited interchange | 4, limited interchanges |
| Match length | Two 9-minute halves | Two 40-minute halves |
| Half-time | 2 minutes | 10 minutes |
| Tackles per set | 5 | 6 |
| Try | 4 points, 5 in the bonus zone | 4 points |
| Conversion | 2 points, drop kick only | 2 points, place or drop kick |
| Restart after a try | Scoring team drop-kicks from halfway | Conceding team restarts |
| Sin bin | 3 minutes | 10 minutes |
| Scrums | Only after a double knock-on | After knock-ons and forward passes |
| Video referee | None | The Bunker |
| Drawn match | Golden try, 5 minutes in pool play | Golden point extra time |
The restart rule is the one people miss on a first viewing. In standard rugby league the team that concedes kicks off again, which gives it possession and a chance to respond. In Nines the scoring team restarts, so a side that has just scored also gets the ball back. Leads build very fast, and a two-try burst inside ninety seconds is normal rather than remarkable.
The bonus zone
The bonus zone is the strip of in-goal directly behind the posts. A try grounded there is worth five points rather than four.
The purpose is to stop the format degenerating into a series of overlaps finished in the corner. In a game with this much space, the easy try is always the wide one — get the ball to the edge, beat the last defender, score near the touchline. That is quick to produce and dull to watch by the twentieth repetition.
Making the middle worth an extra point changes the calculation on the last tackle. A support runner backing up through the ruck is worth more than a winger with a two-on-one out wide, so attacking sides deliberately turn back infield in the final metres. It also makes the conversion easier, since a try under the posts is a straightforward kick, meaning the actual difference between a bonus-zone try and a corner try is often five points to four rather than one.
Conversions must be drop-kicked. There is no tee and no lengthy routine, which removes about ninety seconds from every scoring sequence.
The golden try
A drawn pool match goes to a five-minute golden try period. The first team to score anything wins. If neither scores, the match is a draw and both teams take a competition point.
In the knockout rounds the period is unlimited and runs until somebody scores, because a semi-final cannot end level. Those are the matches the format is remembered for: two exhausted nine-man teams on a full-sized field with unlimited interchange and no defensive structure left, which is close to guaranteed to produce a try within a couple of minutes.
- The scoring side kicks offAfter a try the team that scored restarts with a drop kick from halfway, so a side in form can build a lead in consecutive sets.
- Five tackles, not sixThe attacking set is one tackle shorter, which removes the hit-up phase and forces a ball-playing decision from the first or second play.
- Nine defenders, full-width fieldFour fewer defenders cannot cover the same width, so the defensive line is either narrow and beaten wide or spread and beaten through the middle.
- The last tackle turns infieldBecause a try under the posts is worth five, attacking sides deliberately come back toward the ruck rather than shifting to the corner.
- A drop kick converts itNo tee and no routine — the conversion is a drop kick worth two points, and the sequence is over in seconds.
- A level match goes to golden tryFive minutes in pool play, unlimited in the finals, with the first points of any kind ending the match.
Describes an attacking sequence under NRL Nines rules. Field position and tactics vary, but the compression of the set and the incentive to finish under the posts are structural rather than situational.
Why the format was created
The NRL had a pre-season problem. Trial matches are unwatchable, poorly attended and commercially worthless, but clubs need match conditioning before the season starts and broadcasters need something to fill February.
The Nines answered all of that at once. Sixteen clubs in one place across a weekend, a real trophy, a genuine crowd, a broadcast product, and a format short enough that a coach could rest his best players for entire matches without ruining the event. It also gave fringe and development players a public stage, which is why several Nines standouts turned into first-grade regulars.
Auckland added an international dimension. Holding the event in New Zealand gave the NRL a presence in a market with one club and a great deal of latent support, and the New Zealand Warriors' fanbase carried the first editions.
The Auckland years, 2014 to 2017
The first edition at Eden Park in February 2014 was a genuine hit, drawing a reported 89,000 across the two days. North Queensland beat Brisbane 16-7 in the final. It looked, immediately, like a permanent fixture.
South Sydney won in 2015, beating Cronulla 18-14. Parramatta won in 2016, beating the Warriors 22-4, though that title was later stripped as part of the club's salary cap penalties — the wider story of which is in the guide to NRL salary cap breaches. The Sydney Roosters won the last Auckland edition in 2017, beating Penrith 10-8.
That final scoreline is the tell. A Nines final decided 10-8 is a Nines final in which both teams have worked out how to defend the format, and by 2017 coaches had. Structured defensive lines, kick-and-chase field position, conservative last-tackle options: all the things the format was designed to avoid had been reintroduced by professionals doing their jobs.
Crowds fell in step. By 2017 attendance was down to around 22,000, roughly a quarter of the first edition. The novelty had worn off, the football had tightened up, and the Warriors' own form in the period did not help a market that had turned up largely for them.
Why Auckland lost it
The NRL shelved the event for 2018 and gave two reasons.
The public one was player workload. The 2017 Rugby League World Cup finished in early December, and asking internationals to return for a February tournament after a compressed off-season was not viable. That reasoning was genuine and it has become more, not less, relevant as the international calendar has filled out with the Pacific Championships and expanded end-of-year fixtures.
The other reason was commercial. Attendance had fallen four years in a row, and the event's promoters had already been pushing for a move across the Tasman. An event that draws 89,000 in year one and 22,000 in year four is not a fixture, it is a fad with a good opening weekend.
Perth, 2020
The Nines returned once, on 14 and 15 February 2020, at Perth Oval — the ground more commonly called HBF Park. It was the first time the tournament had been held in Australia.
All sixteen clubs played, in four pools of four. North Queensland beat St George Illawarra 23-14 in the men's final, giving the Cowboys both the first and last NRL Nines titles. Scott Drinkwater was named men's player of the tournament.
Crowds were 10,128 on day one and 14,739 on day two, which is respectable for a new market and well short of what Auckland had drawn at its peak. Whether the event would have found an audience in Perth over three or four years is unanswerable, because a month later the 2020 season was suspended and the rugby league calendar stopped being a normal object for two years.
The women's tournament
The 2020 Perth event included the only women's NRL Nines ever held. It used four NRLW clubs rather than representative sides, played as a round robin, and St George Illawarra won it comfortably, beating Brisbane 28-4 in the final. Maddie Studdon was the women's player of the tournament.
It was a sensible inclusion and it worked. The NRLW was still a four-team competition at that point with a very short season, and a nines tournament gave those squads competitive minutes in a window where they otherwise had none. The competition has since expanded substantially and no longer has that particular gap, but a women's nines event remains one of the more obvious things the NRL could restore if it wanted to.
Every NRL Nines edition
| Year | Host | Venue | Winner | Runner-up | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Auckland | Eden Park | North Queensland | Brisbane | 16-7 |
| 2015 | Auckland | Eden Park | South Sydney | Cronulla | 18-14 |
| 2016 | Auckland | Eden Park | Parramatta | New Zealand Warriors | 22-4 |
| 2017 | Auckland | Eden Park | Sydney Roosters | Penrith | 10-8 |
| 2020 | Perth | Perth Oval | North Queensland | St George Illawarra | 23-14 |
- North Queensland40.0%
- South Sydney20.0%
- Sydney Roosters20.0%
- Parramatta20.0%
Counts the five editions played between 2014 and 2020. Parramatta's 2016 title was subsequently stripped as part of the club's salary cap penalties but is counted here as the on-field result.
Show the numbers
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| North Queensland | 2 |
| South Sydney | 1 |
| Sydney Roosters | 1 |
| Parramatta | 1 |
Five editions, four different winners, and no correlation whatsoever with premiership form. North Queensland won the first Nines two seasons before winning a premiership; South Sydney won the 2015 Nines in the year after winning the premiership. The format rewards a different set of skills — speed, offloading, one-on-one defence — and clubs that invested in it tended to do well regardless of where they sat on the ladder in September.
What replaced it
The 2021 Nines was cancelled outright. Notably, this was not a pandemic decision: the reason given was that the pre-season program had become too crowded to accommodate it.
In 2023 the NRL introduced the Pre-season Challenge, which fills the same slot on the calendar with something quite different. It uses standard thirteen-a-side rules and full-length matches, but awards bonus competition points for scoring tries, making line breaks and completing offloads, and it runs as a short ladder rather than a two-day knockout.
The 2026 edition ran from 7 to 22 February, with Parramatta taking the A$100,000 prize for finishing on top of the ladder, and Brisbane absent because they were in England for the World Club Challenge. It is a more conservative product than the Nines — real football with an incentive scheme attached rather than a different game — and it solves the workload problem the Nines could not, because clubs can rotate squads across three separate weekends rather than cramming six matches into two days.
The 2019 World Cup 9s
The international game had one go at the format. The Rugby League World Cup 9s was played at Bankwest Stadium in Sydney on 18 and 19 October 2019, with twelve men's nations and four women's teams.
Australia won the men's tournament, beating New Zealand 24-10 in the final, with Mitchell Moses scoring a hat-trick. New Zealand won the women's tournament, beating Australia in the final. There have been no further editions.
The case for international nines is genuinely strong on paper. It gives smaller rugby league nations a format in which a squad of fourteen can be competitive against a squad drawn from a professional competition, it fits inside a single weekend, and it is the obvious vehicle for any future multi-sport-games inclusion. The case against is the same one that killed the club version: nobody can find room for it in a calendar that already asks too much of the same few hundred players.
Before Nines, there was Sevens
The Nines was not the first attempt. The Rugby League World Sevens ran from 1988 to 2004, first at Parramatta Stadium and from 1992 at the Sydney Football Stadium, on the site now occupied by Allianz Stadium.
Seven players a side, two seven-minute halves, ten-minute halves in the finals, and a tackle count that was reduced from six to four in the final year. Entry was open beyond NRL clubs: representative sides such as NSW Country played, and so did national teams from England, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, France, Russia, Canada and the United States. Manly won it most often. Wigan took it in 1992, Parramatta in 1997 and 2003, and Wests Tigers won the final edition in 2004.
Why sevens died and nines lasted longer
The World Sevens folded after 2004 with attendance down about 15,000 on the previous year. Three causes are usually given, and all three reappeared in the Nines story a decade later.
Clubs stopped sending their best players, because the injury risk in a high-speed, low-structure tournament in January was not worth a trophy nobody counted. Broadcast support thinned. And the format itself had drifted too far from rugby league — seven players on a full field is not a compressed version of the game, it is a different game that happens to use the same ball.
Nines lasted longer because it kept more. Nine players can still form something resembling a defensive line, still run a recognisable set, still play a middle-and-edges structure. That preserved the sport's texture, and it is the main reason nines rather than sevens is the format the code keeps returning to.
The tackle-free codes
The largest short formats in Australia are not played by professionals at all.
Oztag was created in 1992 and uses eight players a side over two twenty-minute halves. Instead of a tackle, a defender removes a velcro tag from the ball carrier's shorts. Mixed-gender teams are the default rather than a special category, which is central to how the sport is organised and a large part of why it grew. Australian Oztag reported around 496,000 registered players in 2024, up eleven per cent on the previous year.
Touch football is the larger of the two, with more than 600,000 registered members through Touch Football Australia and a National Touch League at the top of its pyramid. It is a distinct sport with its own governance rather than an NRL product, but its rules descend from rugby league and the crossover in playing personnel is heavy in both directions — a large share of professional players came through touch as juniors, and many play it in the off-season.
Between them those two codes have well over a million registered participants, which is comfortably more than tackle rugby league. Whatever the elite game does with its pre-season, the short-format version of rugby league that most Australians actually play is a tag or touch one.
Modified formats for juniors
The junior pathway runs its own reduced formats before players reach full thirteen-a-side football. The general pattern is smaller teams on smaller fields for the youngest age groups, with reduced tackle counts and restrictions on contact, expanding gradually toward the full game through the early teens. League Tag runs alongside as a non-tackling option for those who want to keep playing without contact.
The reasoning is developmental rather than commercial. Fewer players on a smaller field means every child touches the ball far more often, which is the single largest determinant of skill acquisition at that age, and the graduated contact rules exist for the obvious reasons covered in the guides to concussion protocols and rugby league injuries. The full pathway is set out in the junior rugby league guide.
The short formats compared
| Format | Players | Playing time | Contact | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rugby league 13s | 13 | Two 40-minute halves | Full tackle | NRL, state leagues, community |
| NRL Nines | 9 | Two 9-minute halves | Full tackle | Dormant since 2020 |
| Rugby league sevens | 7 | Two 7-minute halves | Full tackle | Discontinued after 2004 |
| Oztag | 8 | Two 20-minute halves | Tag | Community, mostly NSW and Queensland |
| Touch football | 6 | Two 20-minute halves | Touch | Community and National Touch League |
Do short formats actually work
The honest answer is that they work brilliantly for two or three years and then stop.
Every short-format experiment in rugby league has followed the same arc. A first edition that is a genuine spectacle because nobody knows how to play it. A second and third in which crowds hold up. A fourth in which coaches have solved it, defences have tightened, scores have come down, and the thing that made it worth watching has been coached out. Then a decline in attendance, then a quiet cancellation.
The World Sevens ran that arc over sixteen years. The Nines ran it over four. The pattern is not a failure of the formats so much as a consequence of professionalism: put professional coaches in charge of anything for long enough and they will find the low-variance way to win it.
Community formats do not have this problem, because nobody is coaching an Oztag side to grind out a 4-2 win on a Wednesday night. The tackle-free codes have grown every year for three decades, which is the strongest evidence that the appetite for short rugby league is real — it just may not survive contact with elite competition.
Will the Nines come back
There is no announced plan, and the structural obstacle is worse now than it was in 2017.
The calendar is the problem. The season is long, the international window at the end of the year has expanded, and the pre-season has been shortened deliberately to protect players. The Pre-season Challenge occupies the February slot and does so with less risk, because it is real football that doubles as conditioning rather than a separate tournament requiring separate preparation.
What could change it is a venue or a market willing to pay for it — the Nines was always partly a road show, and Auckland and Perth both took it as a way of putting sixteen clubs in one city for a weekend. Any expansion market wanting to demonstrate demand would find a nines weekend a cheap way to do it, and Magic Round has already proved the NRL will build an event around geography if the numbers work.
What the short formats are actually for
Three different things, and confusing them is why the debate about the Nines goes in circles.
For the NRL, short formats are a market-entry tool. You cannot put a club in Perth or Auckland cheaply, but you can put all sixteen there for a weekend and see who turns up. Every elite nines and sevens event has been at least partly this.
For players, they are a development window. A fringe forward gets three hours of televised football in February that he would otherwise spend in a trial match nobody watches, and several careers have started that way.
For the million-odd Australians playing Oztag and touch, short-format rugby league is not a variant at all — it is the sport. Mixed teams, twenty-minute halves, a Tuesday night, no tackling and no coach. That version has never needed a broadcaster or a pre-season slot, and it is the one that has grown every single year.
More on the code, its rules and its competitions is in the Australia section, the rugby index and the wider sports hub. For the full-length game these formats are cut down from, start with the NRL rules explained and the draw and fixture guide, and for how rugby league's variants differ from the other code's see rugby league versus rugby union.