Grin and bear it: Why Mal and the Perth Bears won’t come last in 2027

The player signings keep coming for the Perth Bears.

But despite adding more experienced forwards to their ranks in the past few days including Morgan Smithies and Tyson Smoothy, and a current Australian international in Gehamat Shibasaki, the pessimistic rumblings are continuing ahead of the club’s debut NRL season in 2027.

Read more Grin and bear it: Why Mal and the Perth Bears won’t come last in 2027

Like most new sides before them, the critics are predicting a baptism of fire for the Bears with only one possible outcome: the wooden spoon.

Yet history suggests written-off expansion sides rarely follow this script.

In fact, of the seven sides to join the NSWRL/NRL competition since the Broncos and Knights back in 1988, just one has finished last in their first season — the Cowboys in 1995.

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Will the Bears be Dolphins 2.0?

Far more recently, the arrival of the Dolphins brings several parallels and genuine reasons for Bears fans to be optimistic.

In the lead-up to their NRL debut in 2023 the pessimism around the Dolphins was loud and widespread.

In January 2023 Laurie Daley was just one of many who didn’t hesitate to write them off declaring the Phins ‘had to be favourites for the wooden spoon.’

Speaking about the Dolphins’ inaugural squad on SEN radio Scott Sattler (now the head of football for the Titans) went further, declaring it as ‘some of the poorest recruitment I’ve seen in rugby league’.

Their reasoning was sound on paper — a squad built around largely untested talent and an ageing trio of ex-Melbourne Storm forwards, but missing game-breakers after failing to lure several marquee targets including Cameron Munster and Kalyn Ponga.

The Dolphins ended up finishing with nine wins for a highly respectable 13th in 2023 — certainly not a finals berth but also nowhere near the spoon and by 2024 they were knocking on the door of the finals.

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Three years on and the Bears are now facing a similar narrative.

Their roster is taking shape around solid rather than superstar names — Nick Meaney, Tyran Wishart, Toby Sexton, Siosifa Talakai, Scott Sorensen — while the marquee splash already enjoyed by the PNG Chiefs hasn’t quite landed as more and more off-contract stars get snapped up by rivals or extend with their current clubs.

It’s easy to see why fans are already tipping the Bears to struggle before a ball is kicked, but the parallels with the Dolphins shouldn’t be ignored.

Like the Dolphins who began their life under Wayne Bennett, the Bears have secured a high profile coach in former Maroons and Kangaroos boss Mal Meninga with an elite assistant waiting in the wings in Ben Gardiner.

They’re clearly building for experience and physicality and there’s still time to add a few more difference-makers too, although the talent pool for 2027 is drying up quickly.

Of course, none of this guarantees success and the doubters could well be proven right by this time next year.

All expansion sides face genuine structural disadvantages with no depth, established culture or fanbase to be feared. 

Perth also has the added challenge of distance as their players will be required to travel more than any other team in the comp. Then again, that hasn’t hindered the city’s other elite sporting teams including the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers in the AFL, Perth Wildcats in the NBL and Perth Scorchers in the BBL.

Every NRL club will have its problems to navigate in 2027. But if the Dolphins taught us anything about the Bears, it’s that early pessimism is to be expected — and things are rarely as gloomy as they seem.

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The Bears might just surprise us all.

Where did they finish in their debut NRL seasons?