NRL to relocate every club to Queensland amid worsening COVID-19 crisis

The ARL Commission called an emergency meeting on Sunday afternoon after NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo conceded shifting clubs ahead of round 18's kick off on Friday is a genuine possibility.

The Canberra Raiders are among the group of clubs being told to move despite there being no active COVID-19 cases in the capital. Newcastle have also been grouped with the Sydney-based clubs and the Central Coast-based New Zealand Warriors.

The Storm and Cowboys will be allowed to remain at their Melbourne and North Queensland homes, with the rest of the league in the state's south-east.

Clubs will be asked to put forward a list of 30 players plus 11 staff members who will be allowed to join the bubble, with all expected to arrive in Queensland before Wednesday.

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Family members will be able to join the bubble, but only after serving a 14-day quarantine period.

The decision to move an entire competition interstate presents an enormous logistical exercise given the NRL would need to secure training and accommodation venues for each club.

There are no cases of COVID-19 in Canberra but the Raiders will pack their bags and move as the NRL wants to group every club in one state to ensure the competition can be run smoothly without the hassle of border restrictions.

It means Canberra's clash with Cronulla, which was scheduled for Canberra Stadium on Saturday afternoon, will now be played at a venue in Queensland.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian effectively warned the NRL to get out of Sydney on Sunday, and said she "will be shocked" if Sydney records less than 100 active COVID-19 cases on Monday.

Seventy-seven locally-acquired cases were announced on Sunday as Greater Sydney was plunged into its third week of lockdown.

Raiders prop Josh Papalii is in camp with the Queensland State of Origin side and suggested a move to the sunshine state would be ideal given his wife is pregnant at the moment, thus allowing her to be closer to family.

Border restrictions add another layer of complexity to an already challenging season for the Raiders as Ricky Stuart's side fights for a place in the top eight.

Stuart's troops showed enough to suggest a late playoff run is not beyond them as they rebounded from an uninspired 38-point thrashing on home soil to pull off a clinical win over Manly last week.

Raiders captain Jarrod Croker concedes "it's hard to put your finger on" what has been going wrong for Canberra on the field this season, which has left them in a dogfight to crack the finals.

"It's hard to put your finger on it, and it's even harder when you're not a part of it and you're not out there," Croker said on Channel Nine's Sunday Footy Show.

"The game has changed quite a lot, the rules, speed of the game, momentum and all those sorts of things. But at the end of the day, we're probably just letting sides off the hook.

"We had a lot of games throughout that period where we had leads, and there were little parts of a game and key areas where we let sides off the hook and they regained that momentum. It's hard to stop once you've lost it.

"We've had two or three games where we really should have won those games and we've let sides off the hook. It shows where we are on the table at the moment.

"We're fighting it out for that edge of that top eight spot as opposed to being in it where we could have been if we could have hung onto those games."

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