Predicting the NRL season - you’d probably have more luck trying to coax our national flag from a drunk yobbo on Australia Day.
There are so many variables. Unknowns.
Regardless, here are some potentially fleeting 2012 predictions, barely a month out from the season opener between the Dragons and the Knights.
Premiership winners: Tigers
The Tigers came oh so close to securing a deserved premiership last year. What’s changed since then? Well, the club has merely bolstered its stocks ahead of the new season.
Adam Blair will beef up their grossly talented starting 13: including the likes of Marshall, Galloway, Heighington, Farah and Ellis.
And news that fullback Tim Moltzen will occupy a play-making role makes you wonder whether something was tabled before he reneged on his Dragons contract. Regardless, it’s another arrow in the Tigers’ bulging quiver.
Most improved side: Bulldogs
They’ve taken out the NRL’s under achiever award for the past two years, so will Des Hasler be the ingredient to vanquish Canterbury’s woes?
Expectation has been lingering among the Belmore ranks for some time now, and 2012 looms as a better year than any to make good on their pre-season potential.
The Dogs have beefed up their pack by adding english prop James Graham to lead the charge alongside Aiden Tolman.
And Trent Hodkinson and Kris Keating bring a new dynamic to the play-making role.
Highly commended: Rabbitohs - They’ve got all the superstars: Inglis, Burgess, Luke, Asotasi and Taylor to name a few - and should really by now have created enough chemistry to be consistent. New coach Michael Maguire looks set to provide the much-needed spark to revive the operation.
Top 8 certainties: Dragons
Commentators and cynics alike wrote off the Red V months before the season began. On paper, the Dragons boast a highly formidable line-up with a new coach who has proved his ability to get the most from his players. The post Wayne Bennett-era may be in full swing but that doesn’t mean the culture he created vacated Dragons headquarters accordingly. It would be ambitious to suggest the Dragons will bounce back and win a premiership, but consider them a worthy yardstick for opposition clubs, for this year at least.
Biggest surprise packet: Cronulla
We’ve heard the Todd Carney predictions many times before. Let’s steer away from them. The Sharks have some genuine promise heading into the new season - unprecedented compared to recent years.
Sure, pressure is on Carney to make an impact on the field and not the nightclub scene, but there are some good men, and for that matter, coaching staff, around him.
Props Bryce Gibbs and Andrew Fifita have joined the mix, so too has Jeremy Smith’s old sparring partner at the Dragons Jon Green, while Ben Ross will make his grand encore after numerous seasons hampered by injury.
Driven forward by their fearless leader Paul Gallen and retaining a number of core players, 2012 looms as the year Cronulla could finally make the naysayers eat humble pie.
Biggest upset: NSW Blues
No Darren Lockyer for the Maroons and some security in coach Ricky Stuart points to a long-awaited NSW breakthrough this year.
It’s tough to contemplate a series whitewash so early, but there is emerging optimism coming from the Blues camp.
Biggest let down: New Zealand Warriors
How do you turn the anguish of a grand final defeat - where an entire season is virtually put on the line - into, well, another grand final berth?
The Warriors did a stellar job backing up from their 2002 grand final loss, returning to 6th the following year, but rebounding from last year’s defeat will be tough.
The club has perhaps the best playing stocks in the NRL - namely an under 20s side which has won back-to-back titles. Add to that the proven pairing of Shaun Johnson and Kevin Locke in the halves, and the Warriors are certainly a top eight threat.
But there are so many unknown variables - the biggest being their unproven coach Brian McClennan. Can he orchestrate a season campaign to match Ivan Cleary? More to the point, can he do so in the 12 months succeeding a premiership defeat? A tough road back, indeed.
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