Blockbuster: Greg Inglis and the Rabbitohs will take on the Broncos in Brisbane in the NRL season opener. Photo: Getty Images

NRL 2015 season draw

The NRL has released the full draw for the 2015 season with officials hopeful a reduction of matches during the State of Origin period will ease the burden on the game's elite players.

The dates and times for every game across the first 20 rounds have been fixed with the NRL to visit Perth, Darwin and Bathurst again as well as returning to storied grounds including the Sydney Cricket Ground and Belmore Sports Ground in 2015.

The season kicks off on Thursday, March 5 with Brisbane hosting premiers South Sydney. Parramatta are at home to Manly the following night with Saturday's matches featuring Newcastle v the Warriors, Gold Coast v Wests Tigers and North Queensland v Sydney Roosters. Canterbury travel to Penrith and Cronulla host Canberra on the Sunday with St George Illawarra taking on Melbourne in the first Monday night match of the year.

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Rounds 11, 14 and 17 will each feature just four games rather than five – one each on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday – with a view to easing the burden on clubs in pre-Origin rounds.

"We went in and worked with our broadcast partners and clubs really closely to try and understand within the agreements that we've signed, what we could deliver," NRL head of commercial Paul Kind told NRL.com. "I think the biggest outcome is Sunday on Channel Nine will go live at four o'clock... to the credit of Nine and Fox we've been able to work together to make that happen."

With the strong opening rounds, the NRL expects to attract bigger crowds than it did in 2014 which was one of the key issues addressed from last season.

"The other [important lesson] was the value of your key public holidays and event days and clubs working with the game and the broadcasters to build events," Kind said. "We've seen the success of events across the game in 2014 and we took advice from that and grew it to another level in 2015."

The reduction of games from five to four in major Origin bye rounds was done deliberately with a view to player welfare and reducing the impact on clubs as well as not scheduling major blockbusters in those rounds with the game's biggest drawcards unavailable for their respective clubs.

"We deliberately targeted trying to minimise the number of what you call 'blockbuster' games in that Origin period," Kind said. "It's inevitable there are going to be some and you're looking at Friday night football on Channel Nine throughout that period, so it's inevitable there are some games still there but we've tried to minimise those. There has been a focus on that. Having said that, State of Origin remains in its traditional Wednesday night slot where we think it belongs and where it's so dominant and where it's such a big part of our season."

smh.com.au