Sunshine Coast NRL finals coup

FOOTY finals will be coming to the Sunshine Coast when the NRL takes some of the biggest games of the year out of Brisbane.

The NRL is on Wednesday expected to confirm venues for the finals, which will be played entirely in Queensland for the first time.

The league was still finalising venues on Tuesday, but what is clear is Sunshine Coast Stadium will host two finals.

The Kawana venue will host an elimination game in each of the first two weeks of the finals.

Other venues in regional Queensland have been explored as potential venues, following a push from the state government to take the NRL out of the capital.

The NRL has investigated playing finals in Townsville, but the costs and logistics of hosting games in North Queensland add another layer of complexity.

There have been suggestions a finals double-header could be hosted at Queensland Country Bank Stadium in Townsville.

Since relocating the entire competition to the Sunshine State, the NRL has experienced better support in the regions for non-queensland teams than it has in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, as crowd capacity gets back to 100 per cent.