According to the article below, there's a good reason for that
The pre-season return dates for every NRL club have been revealed as they look to get ready for the upcoming 2024 season.
www.zerotackle.com
That article just lists the players who get 10 weeks mandatory leave.
Any players not on that list will have started if they are fit and didn’t play in the Internationals. That’s 10-15 guys from the top 30 and dev list, plus any young players with a pre-season deal, plus the T&T’s. There will be a large group training already, but the media guys are probably waiting for that group to come back before doing “first day back” photos.
The rule is that anyone with 5 full pre-seasons gets 10 weeks off. Everyone else gets 8 or less. I did a list a few pages back when someone asked.