Why the Dolphins-Roosters clash doubles as a Dally M showdown for Isaiya Katoa and James Tedesco

Australia Broadcast Center

3 days ago

With six points on offer in every game and anonymous judges, the Dally M race has become murkier and harder to predict than ever before.
But with five rounds remaining, the Dolphins-Roosters match at Lang Park on Saturday should double as the opening salvo of the final run for this year's version of rugby league's ultimate individual prize.
Relying on the votes to reliably make sense is an easy way to get your heart broken, and given the judges are now anonymous, it's a game of shadows even before it goes behind closed doors.
But anything less than a race to the finish between Phins halfback Isaiya Katoa and Tricolours fullback James Tedesco simply won't match up with the reality that has unfolded before us in 2025.
Canberra's top contender is Joseph Tapine, but a prop has to practically walk on water to win an award like this, while Canterbury has experienced a season which has been a triumph of the many rather than one built on the excellence of the few.
Despite its dynasty, Penrith is yet to win the big Dally M prize and its slow first half of the year just about ensures that streak will continue.
New Zealand's Luke Metcalf led at the halfway point of the season but has since succumbed to a knee injury.
Cronulla's Will Kennedy was second, but that form has been harder for him to come by in the months since, and while teammate Blayke Brailey has shined recently, his run has surely come too late.
Terrell May was four points off Metcalf's lead, but the Tigers lengthy losing run will count against him, and outside the top eight there are no other contenders.
Payne Haas rounded out the top five, but Origin representation and a few missed games here and there are enough to cross him out, and Brisbane's losing streak in the middle of the year won't help matters either.
Melbourne's Cameron Munster is an outside chance, but the presence of Jahrome Hughes, Ryan Papenhuyzen and Harry Grant through much of the season can always drag points away.
That leaves Katoa and Tedesco, two men at opposite ends of time — a young prince and an old master, the first son of tomorrow and one of the last heroes of a past age.
At 21, Katoa would be the youngest Dally M winner in 40 years. At 32, Tedesco would join Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Johnathan Thurston in winning the medal again at an age when most players are slowing down.
They're coming at the prize from different directions and in different ways. Katoa was equal fifth when voting went dark, fresh off a six-point haul in the Dolphins 44-6 win over Canterbury in Round 12.
Metcalf's lead wouldn't have lasted much longer because the competition's youngest club started rewriting its own history by the week, with Katoa at the heart of it.
They set a record for their biggest ever win in Round 13, then broke it in their very next game.
In a month, the Dolphins broke 50 points more times than the Gold Coast Titans have in their entire existence, and while the points have slowed a little, the beautiful football has not.
Injuries have torn apart their forward pack and are now spreading into their backline, but they are not shambling to the finish line as the parts fall away, they are speeding up to a point where their first-ever finals berth feels possible, and so much of that possibility has flowed from Katoa.
His play is not singular, and it's a measure of how well-drilled and adaptable the Dolphins have become that they've sustained their level of play despite the many players they've lost along the way.
Katoa is a creator and he is surrounded by finishers like Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow and Herbie Farnworth, or players with a bit of both in them like halves partner Kodi Nikorima and Swiss army knife Jake Averillo.
The Phins middle has been ripped apart by injury, but their back row depth has proven to be outstanding with Kurt Donoghoe, Oryn Keeley and Connelly Lemuelu thriving both on the ball and off it.
There's a lot of heroes at Redcliffe but the Dally M is an award for playmakers — aside from Jason Taumalolo and Cameron Smith, every winner for the past 20 years has been a half or a fullback.
Katoa is the ringmaster of the Phins attacking circus, drawing the eye and directing it where he will, and that means the votes will flow like a river.
He is second in the league for try assists, first in line break involvements, and first, by a huge margin, for line engagements.
His trademarks — like when he looks inside to play out or when he controls the tempo of his running as he goes to line, mixing fast and slow and always equalling out to smooth — speak to his enormous sophistication as a footballer, especially for someone so young.
Listen to how other players, former and current, talk about him. The tired old buzzwords — brilliant, unbelievable, freakish, a natural, a 10-year Origin player — don't do the job because Katoa demands greater detail. You have to pop the hood.
"I think of the boys working in and around him, and the rewards they're getting off his style of play," Shaun Johnson said on Fox League after one Dolphins win.
"He's direct, he's running the footy and he's playing at various speeds. Every element we see in the footage looks different; there's not one repetitive movement.
"He's got such a variety in his tool kit, but none of it is low percentage. For a 21-year-old, 50 games experience, that's what's got me scratching my head.
"The way he's balancing his game and executing — he's not overplaying. This was an 80-minute masterclass, and he was at the centre of it."
The battle between his kicking game and Tedesco's positional play is where they'll cross paths the most on Saturday, and Tedesco knows what's coming because he's an unabashed fan of Katoa.
"I love watching him. Some of his ball-playing, we talk about it at training, it's unbelievable," Tedesco said on the Freddy and the Eighth podcast earlier this year.
"We'll come in on a Monday and say, 'See that Katoa, see that try he set up?'
"It's so impressive for a young kid. Playing against him, if you slide off, he'll show and go, or play short, (but if you come up) he goes out the back.
"I was talking to Cooper (Cronk) about him and he was so impressed. He's a real student of the game who loves watching and learning."
Tedesco was just three points off the lead when voting was silenced and his football since has been a continuation of a great regeneration, a return to his best in defiance of what has come before.
What's happening in 2025 is far from a last gasp. It's a continuation of what happened last year, when Tedesco lost out on the Dally M to Hughes by a solitary point.
The Melbourne man taking the medal was the right call, but Tedesco's return to true excellence after a slower 2023 season was something to behold.
He finished on a career high for tries, and set a new career high for linebreaks and try assists. He led the league in tackle busts for the fifth time in seven seasons, and was just 128 yards shy of setting a new career best mark for run metres.
Tedesco's raw attacking numbers are down for 2025 because the Roosters had to retool, and there are less tries and assists to go around.
The 2024 edition of Trent Robinson's side scored the sixth most tries of any team in premiership history, a level of attack that was not sustainable with the departure of Luke Keary, Joseph Manu, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii and the long-term injury to Sam Walker.
They had to find a way to retool and they have, and Tedesco has done it with them. He is running the ball more often later in the tackle count, acting more as a yardage weapon who provides attacking shape than out-and-out playmaker.
It gives the Roosters' youngsters a strong platform to build from. The style is tougher and better suited to younger legs, but Tedesco is thriving in it.
At the time of writing, he leads all fullbacks in tackle busts, total runs and run metres, and continues to find the attacking touch when called upon.
After losing his Australia and New South Wales jerseys, Tedesco was meant to be over the hill, but he's steadily dragged himself back the way he came, past the generation of fullbacks who came after and were supposed to replace him, until he's back at the top again.
It's a tremendous feat of evolution and adaption at an age where change can be the hardest thing of all, and another Dally M would be the capstone on the second part of his career.
Like Smith or Thurston or Cronk proved before him, once a player hits the top, there's nowhere else to go, and we can grow accustomed to even the greatest wonders. Sometimes, we all need a reminder of what a truly great career looks like.
For Katoa, the stakes are simpler. A Dally M win would be physical proof of what all know to already be true — that the future has arrived and his time has come.
There's no way of knowing which is in the lead, but both men still have time to secure the medal, or have it slip from their grasp, which brings us back to Lang Park on Saturday night.
A Dolphins win will leave the Roosters two wins out of the eight with four games remaining, which is getting perilously close to the state of mind where the phrase "mathematically possible" is invoked as proof your finals dreams are still alive.
Brisbane's loss on Thursday night also opens the door for the Phins to finish as high as sixth, which would mean a home final, and that could prove an invaluable gift given Lang Park is where the light shines out of them.
A Roosters win would throw the race for eighth spot wide open. The Tricolours have a tough run home, and consistency has not always been their strong suit as a unit this year, but their unpredictability and attacking class make them dangerous against anyone.
This game is bigger than Katoa and Tedesco because it's a hinge on which two seasons can swing. Both men would likely be happy to trade the medal for a finals berth, but given no team from a non-finals side has won the Dally M since 2014, whoever gets it done at the Cauldron likely won't have to choose.
Tedesco does not need a second Dally M to affirm his greatness, and Katoa doesn't need a first to confirm he's on the way to it.
This season should be remembered as a banner one for both of them, but hardware can last in a way memory doesn't. A Katoa win, in this match and otherwise, would be a warning of what's to come, while a Tedesco victory would be a reminder of what has already been.
That makes Saturday evening a point in history where two legacies collide, one just beginning with a future that stretches into the promised land, and the other with a long tail that has no end in sight.