I think we'll see further divisions as the competition goes on but currently, I have three tiers.
Tier 1 is Penrith, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Souths and Parramatta.
Canberra belong in here, they've been among the best teams in the competition for the past few seasons now and they've got the systems in place now to bring through quality talent when they need them. They play with finals intensity most weeks which is a gear a lot of the middle teams don't have.
Tier 2 is Newcastle, Cronulla, New Zealand and Gold Coast.
These are the teams that have the structures in place and have some combinations forming but either the cattle isn't quite there or they're not as good as the top tier teams.
Tier 3 is Wests, Manly, St. George, North Queensland, Canterbury & Brisbane.
Struggling teams still trying to find themselves and they'll completely lose the plot and get bullied when things don't go their way. A couple of them may join Tier 2 by season's end but right now it is what it is. The sad thing is, in most competitions, you usually only see one maybe two teams in this position. I haven't seen something like this since 2007.
Yeah I think I agree with your tiering the most, but it's also very sensitive. A team can quite quickly drop tiers because of injuries (look at manly without Turbo... how far do Easts drop without Keary and a young spine).
Last year I would probably have Melbourne and Easts as the top of tier 1 when fully fit. This year I'd say Easts were easily my top tier on their own, because Melbourne lost CS9. However, the loss of Keary brings them way back.
Souths join the top of tier 1 because of the immense talent they have across their squad and they probably have the best spine in the comp.
Melbourne are a little bit of an unknown, primarily because they lose CS9's composure, but Grant legitimately looks the top 1 or 2 hooker in the comp and their structure is holding up... although fatigue and speed of play may catch up to them in the end
However, without Keary how far down the list do Easts now suddenly fall?
I think Canberra, Parra and Penrith are a tier below those 3. Penrith and Parra had a lot of advantages due to covid last year... I think Penrith didn't leave NSW until round 17 last year (hello lack of FIFO) and to me they were easily beaten if not smashed in the GF by Melbourne... they had some very dubious calls go their way and scored their last try with no time on the clock to bring it within 4 or something.
In the next tier New Zealand to me are very susceptible to dropping to the lower level... for whatever reason they are remaining competitive with basically only Kodi and RTS as competent players in their spine, so do they all of a sudden fall in a heap if something changes mentally. AFB was a massive pick up, but I think they're playing well above their weight at the moment.
I also think tier 2 is closer to tier 3 than they are tier 1... and by that I mean a tier 3 team is closer to beating them than they are to beating a tier 1 team.
Overall I just think the comp is closer to an EPL system with how disproportionate the quality is between the tiering than what a salary cap is meant to be delivering and I think players will lean towards going to a higher tier team than a lower if salary is the same.
That is not a good thing for the NRL and unfortunately the Broncos are on the wrong side of the ledger at the absolute worst time in their history