After two years of dominance from the NRL East conference, a new champion has risen in 2015.

The NRL North has been crowned the champion conference in the National Rugby League for the second time this decade.

After two years of strong results in the NRL East conference, the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys helped the NRL North to its first NRL conference championship since 2011, despite the fact the Newcastle Knights, their conference rivals, also won the wooden spoon.

The conference championship was a close result: despite the fact three teams of the NRL South conference made the top eight, the strong performances of both the Broncos and the Cowboys offset the poor results of the Gold Coast Titans and the Knights to win by only two points, 118 to 116. Coincidently, 116 was the same overall points tally for the NRL East conference – only one win away from being crowned the champion conference for the third consecutive year.

Late-season wins by the Titans and the Knights helped the NRL North over the line in a remarkable result that will take some time to repeat.

While the NRL South and the NRL East finish on equal points (116), the NRL South claims second place by way of having more teams make the top eight.

The NRL West rounds out the league with 96 points.