The top four teams have the best chance of winning the premiership and play the two qualifying finals.

The bottom four teams play the two elimination finals, where the winners advance to week two away games and the losers' seasons are over.

This most notably occurred in the 2015 NRL Grand Final, when the North Queensland Cowboys defeated the Brisbane Broncos thanks to a Johnathan Thurston field goal.

[6] The new finals system was introduced after the 2011 season, after debate had raged for several years before that.

In 2009, the scenario occurred for the 2nd time ever when the Parramatta Eels defeated the St. George Illawarra Dragons.

However, under the current system the 7th and 8th placed teams can never have a home finals match – a move which seems designed to eliminate the possibility of a team making a late charge towards the grand final despite finishing relatively low in the regular season.

This has led to criticism that the current system has rendered having a top 8 pointless because some of the teams are there simply to make up numbers as it has been made far too difficult for them to progress very far into the finals series.

[7] Despite this, in 2017, the eight-placed North Queensland Cowboys were able to reach the grand final, where they were defeated by the minor premiers, the Melbourne Storm.

Complaints about the system from teams that have won games they were expected to win seem far less prevalent.