With Christmas in the rear view mirror, the 2023 Super League season is looming on the horizon.
Can St Helens' all-conquering side make it five Grand Final victories on the bounce? And what lies ahead for their challengers?
Will Leeds continue their upturn in form from the second half of last season? And just what will the lasting legacy of England's heartbreaking World Cup defeat be on international rugby league in the northern hemisphere?
Here, Nigel Wiskar takes a look in his crystal ball and predicts what will happen month by month.
Expect lemurs, Hobnobs, donkey tranquilisers, Spacehoppers and more…
JANUARY
Sir Kevin Sinfield (it’s coming) announces his latest challenge to raise funds for Rob Burrow.
The obdurate rugby league legend vows to clear snow from the upper slopes of Ben Nevis, using only a miniature toothpick he pulled out of a Christmas cracker.
He completes the task two days ahead of schedule and, somewhat disgruntled, immediately aims higher.
Sinfield treks to Everest in the Himalayas armed only with one of those tiny plastic spoons you get in overpriced ice cream parlours.
He attacks a hellish ice sheet close to the Hillary Step at 28,000 feet above sea level and chips away night and day for a week dressed only in an old Waterhead RLFC playing jersey and flip-flops.
Once again he succeeds and raises millions more for MND research.
His knighthood is fast-tracked in February after his new rugby union charges England manage a 3-3 draw with Italy in the Six Nations.
FEBRUARY
The build-up to the new season is going brilliantly with exciting signings and fascinating team prospects heralding a vibrant campaign.
However, on the day of the opening game between Warrington and Leeds, the Daily Mail exposes the crazed exploits of a leading player (who it had never mentioned before) on its back page.
The star is photographed naked on a seesaw, mashed off his tiny mind on donkey tranquillisers and lighter fuel.
He is banned for half the season, says it won’t happen again and declares he is a changed man.
St Helens lose to Penrith Panthers in the World Club Challenge.
After simultaneous firework displays in Wigan, Castleford, Perpignan and Hull, Saints are branded a ‘crisis club’.
MARCH
Leigh Leopards owner Derek Beaumont caves in to much ridicule and announces a rebrand.
After hours of consultation with himself, he dresses in a grey, furry onesie and announces the club is changing to Leigh Lemurs.
Beaumont says each player will have a long, curly tail attached to the back of their shorts, sponsored by a local skip company.
The tail causes havoc with the video referee’s offside calls and after just two games players are forced to cut them off.
APRIL
England coach Shaun Wane selects Michael McIlorum to face France despite the Catalans hooker being on crutches, banned and retired from the international game.
“I know Micky and I know he can still do a job,” says Wane.
McIllorum is part of a squad picked entirely from players who have played for Wigan which Wane brushes off as “coincidence”.
Sam Tomkins had also quit the international game earlier in the season but is picked as vice-captain with Wane also coaxing Sean O’Loughlin out of retirement as his skipper.
Tony Gigot starts promisingly for France but… well, you know the rest.
MAY
A mystery fire destroys a terraced house in Halifax.
Investigators later find the cause was a pile of discarded posters of Dom Young and Victor Radley in an eight-year-old’s bedroom.
A spokesman for West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue says: “It appears the boy tore down the posters after a conversation with his dad.
“The lad was told he was unlikely to see the pair play in this country again in the next decade and the only kangaroo he would see was at Chester Zoo.”
The spokesman bitterly added that this was because of a complete lack of a meaningful international programme and narrow-minded NRL clubs refusing to release players for uninspiring mid-season games.
JUNE
After year upon year of a joyful two-day event full of lifelong memories, excitement, thrills and spills, it’s the final Magic Weekend.
IMG are still being cagey about what will replace the event.
Leaked emails show a proposal to have a mixed four-a-side tournament played on club-branded Spacehoppers on the Isle of Man.
The proposed date coincides with a national rail strike and ferry operators are also planning to stage industrial action on the Liverpool to Douglas route that weekend.
JULY
Despite England winning the wheelchair World Cup, there has been little legacy from the tournament.
A makeshift gazebo is erected at Cleckheaton Folk Festival with a promise to honour the winning athletes.
The disabled ramp is vandalised the night before and Yorkshire is hit by Storm Geoffrey which blows the gazebo in to a back garden in Rochdale some 23 miles away.
To cap things off, the disgraced Super League star who vowed to behave turns up and assaults the mayor of Kirklees Council with a pair of Morris Dancing sticks.
AUGUST
The BBC panic when they realise Helen Skelton and Alex Scott haven’t appeared on TV or radio for 24 hours.
The pair are hastily shoehorned in to present coverage and trophy presentation at the Challenge Cup final.
Post-match highlights go viral on TikTok (whatever that means) when Skelton kicks Richie Myler in the clockweights instead of presenting him with his loser’s medal.
Winning St Helens skipper James Roby vows to play on another year.
SEPTEMBER
Leigh Lemurs announce another rebrand.
Dressed in a three-piece furry suit with matching furry hat and boots, Derek Beaumont says the club will now be known as Leigh Lemmings.
OCTOBER
Crisis club St Helens win their fifth Grand Final on the bounce.
James Roby says he will play on for another five years.
NOVEMBER
Super League chiefs call an extraordinary meeting of the disciplinary panel to discuss the conduct of two Leeds Rhinos players.
James Bentley and Zane Tetevano managed a mere 27 minutes between them on the field the entire season.
Both make a personal appearance and things are going well for the first five minutes as the pair acknowledge they must improve their conduct in 2024.
But Bentley notices Tetevano has more chocolate Hobnobs on his plate than he does and erupts, upturning the table and hurling a red teapot through the window.
The meeting is adjourned but it all kicks off again when Bentley claims one of the office cleaners “looked at him in a funny way”.
He swipes the elderly lady’s Henry vacuum cleaner from her and swings it around his head before finally launching it through another window, injuring a small cockapoo doing its business in the car park below.
Leeds vow to appeal any subsequent punishment.
DECEMBER
Rugby League is given a 32-second segment at the annual Sports Personality of the Year awards.
It is sandwiched between a 20-minute piece on curling and a 15-minute interview with a cheese-rolling champion from Norfolk.
St Helens are beaten to the team of the year by England RUFC after the Red Rose juggernauts’ courageous defeat to Chile saw them eliminated from the group stages of the World Cup.
