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Redcliffe have spent much of 2026 looking like a team capable of going deep into September. After Sunday’s 20–16 escape against Central Queensland, the equation has become considerably simpler: two more wins and the Dolphins are Hostplus Cup premiers.
They have also earned themselves the best possible preparation for the first of them.
Sunday’s qualifying-final victory at Kayo Stadium sent the Redcliffe Dolphins directly into a home preliminary final, giving them a weekend off while Burleigh and Townsville fight for the right to meet them.
For a side that finished second and closed the regular season with four straight victories, that is a strong position. But the manner of Sunday’s win may tell us more about Redcliffe’s premiership prospects than some of the bigger scores that came before it.
The Run Into September
Redcliffe finished the regular season with a 14-5-1 record, three competition points behind minor premiers Sunshine Coast.
The ladder contained another number worth noticing. The Dolphins scored 577 points and conceded 344, leaving them with a +233 points differential — the best in the competition, ahead even of the Falcons’ +187.
Their final month showed where much of that difference came from.
Redcliffe shut out the PNG Hunters 32–0 in Port Moresby, then returned home and put 46 points on Brisbane Tigers. Tweed were beaten 30–12 a week later before the Dolphins finished the regular season with a 44–26 victory over Western Clydesdales.
Those were four very different afternoons, but together they took Redcliffe into September on a run no other finals opponent could ignore.
The Tigers match was perhaps the clearest display of their attacking ceiling. Redcliffe ran in eight tries, Jude Saldanha scored three, Trai Fuller crossed and Joshua James contributed a try and seven conversions.
Tweed made them work differently. Redcliffe led only 12–8 at halftime and the scores were level early in the second half before the Dolphins pulled away.
Then came September, and a much sterner examination.
The Capras Made Them Earn It
Central Queensland arrived at Kayo Stadium in serious form of their own, having won five straight matches and eight of their previous nine.
For 40 minutes, they looked every bit like it.
The Capras scored three first-half tries and took a 16–4 lead into the sheds. Redcliffe had been hurt by errors and poor decisions, and suddenly the comfortable victories of August did not count for much.
What followed was probably more instructive than another big winning margin would have been.
A penalty try to Saldanha brought Redcliffe back into the contest before Brent Woolf forced his way over in the 63rd minute to make it 16-all. With three minutes remaining, James found Jaron Purcell, who put Fuller through the gap for the try that settled it.
Redcliffe 20, Central Queensland 16.
It was not their cleanest performance of the past month. At this stage of the season, that hardly matters.
Finals football has a way of changing the questions. Opponents bring form of their own, mistakes become more expensive and one poor half can put an entire season in danger.
Redcliffe had one of those halves on Sunday. They found a way out of it.
Five Straight, With Something Bigger Ahead
Sunday extended the winning streak to five and continued a season in which Redcliffe have spent much of their time around the top of the competition.
There is plenty of experience behind the run.
Captain Sheldon Pitama played his 150th Cup match against the Capras, with every one of those appearances coming in Redcliffe colours. Fuller remains capable of producing the sort of moment that decided Sunday’s final, while James has been heavily involved in the Dolphins’ attack through the closing stages of the season.
Yet the stronger case for Redcliffe is not really about one or two names.
They have beaten minor premiers Sunshine Coast 28–14 this season. They finished with the competition’s best points differential. They closed the regular season with four wins of 18 points or more, then won a completely different sort of game when their finals campaign began badly.
That does not make Redcliffe inevitable premiers. Sunshine Coast finished three points clear at the top and also won its qualifying final, while every team still alive has already survived enough football to get this far.
What Redcliffe have done is put themselves in a position where much of that can unfold without them.
Next weekend, they can watch.
One Game From the Grand Final
Redcliffe’s next match will be a preliminary final at Kayo Stadium on the weekend of 19–20 September against the winner of Burleigh and Townsville.
Win it, and they are in the Hostplus Cup Grand Final.
There is an added local dimension to where this season could finish. The 2026 QRL Grand Final Day will also be played at Kayo Stadium on Saturday, 26 September.
So after a season spent chasing the top of the ladder, Redcliffe now have the possibility of playing the rest of their football without leaving home.
Sunday’s first half against the Capras was enough of a warning that nothing about the next two steps should be treated as straightforward. It was also a reminder of why September cannot be judged purely by margins and ladder positions.
Redcliffe were 12 points down at halftime and three minutes from the end they were still locked at 16-all.
They won anyway.
After 20 regular-season matches and one tense afternoon of finals football, the Dolphins are now one victory from a Grand Final and two from a premiership.
For a club making its 10th consecutive finals appearance, this is where another strong season has finally brought them: a week off, a home preliminary final, and the premiership very much within reach.
Published 6-September-2026
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