This year one of the longest droughts in Australian sporting history was broken. 2016 saw the Cronulla Sharks bring home their first ever premiership, sparking long and slightly controversial celebrations in the Shire.

It was a year full of history and upsets, sprinkled with a healthy dose of controversy and incident.

Missleading pre-season

The year kicked off with the Auckland Nines competition in New Zealand.

The Parramatta Eels caused the first upset of 2016 by winning the tournament in what looked to be a new era for the struggling club, but more on that later.

Teams were kept busy throughout the offseason, including a historic clean sweep of the World Club Series in February.

The Roosters, Broncos and Cowboys all beat their Super League opposition by 20 points, which makes you wonder if the concept shouldn’t be reverted to the traditional one-match format.

None of these victories translated to success in the NRL season though. Although the Cowboys and Broncos both made the top eight, they were knocked out of the finals without much fanfare.

Not to mentioned the Roosters’ shocker of a season, racking up 18 losses despite coming into the year as three-time defending minor premiers.

The finals

The first round of the finals went relatively to plan, with just one side beating the team ahead of them on the ladder.

The Bulldogs and Titans were eliminated in the first round, while wins for the Storm and Sharks granted them a free pass to the grand final qualifier and a week off.

The Broncos and Panthers were next to go, during the semi-finals.

The Cowboys and Brisbane put on yet another epic in an increasingly long list between the two. It took a piece of Johnathan Thurston magic in extra time to send the Broncos packing.

North Queensland’s title defence fell one week short though, going down to the Sharks in a high-scoring affair to end their hopes of back-to-back titles.

The Raiders’ fairytale run also fell short, losing a two-point thriller to the Melbourne Storm.

With the grand final booked and every man and his dog jumping on the Sharks history-making bandwagon, the stage was set for the big finish to the season.

Cronulla ground their way to an 8-0 lead at halftime in a real war, but the contest lit up in the second half thanks to a pair of tries for the Storm and four-point margin late in the game.

Andrew Fifita crashed over with ten minutes on the clock, and a clutch conversion from James Maloney gave the Sharks the lead with just nine minutes to go.

A frantic final play of the game nearly saw Melbourne run the length of the field and pull off arguably the biggest play in NRL history, but it wasn’t to be and Cronulla finally broke a 49-year winless streak.

The Raiders and Sharks step up

The Sharks broke history this year, but it wasn’t just a fluke or a flash in the pan through the finals. No, no. Cronulla were one of the standout teams throughout the whole season.

They were on a record-breaking winning streak throughout the year, stringing together 15 wins on the trot mid-season to break free at the top of the standings.

The Raiders also won ten games in a row leading into the finals, seeing them sneak into second place at the end of Round 26, pipping the Sharks on points difference.

Neither side was given much of a chance at the beginning of the season to succeed, but succeed they did.

The Raiders were led by Jarrod Crocker, who had the best season of his career, topping the point scorers’ list by a huge margin and was unlucky not to get an Origin spot.

Jordan Rapana was a force to be reckoned with out on the wing, notching up a season-high 23 tries for the year.

The Sharks’ offensive power was shown off during the winning streak, with players like Ben Barba, Valentine Holmes and veteran Michael Ennis also causing havoc across the park.

The Raiders fell one week short of the big game, but after what had been some lean years in the nation’s capital, their improvement was monumental.

Come on Newcastle, are you even trying?

At the other end of the spectrum, Newcastle were coming off the back of a wooden spoon in 2015 and while expectations were fairly low, things surely could only go up from there right?

Wrong.

Newcastle won a single game for the season and rounded out the year with a record-breaking 17-game losing streak.

With seven players making their club debut for the Knights in Round 1, it was supposed to be the start of a new era, but the people of Newcastle surely hope not.

A draw against the Raiders and a win over the Tigers were the two highlights of the season for the Knights, because they were the only two games they didn’t lose all year.

Coach Nathan Brown used 34 players across the season. Just under half of them played fewer than ten games, and not a single man on the roster played every game of the year.

They broke the club record by a country mile. Surely they can only go up from here? Right?

State of Origin was fairly forgettable

In among all that, State of Origin came around and captivated the rugby league world as it does every year.

Queensland continued their stranglehold on the interstate rivalry, winning their tenth series in 11 years.

However, as I’m writing this article some five months after the series wrapped up, I can barely think of anything that memorable.

The first game was an absolute grind, a low-scoring 6-4-win for Queensland with a lot of tackling and not much else.

As Ryan O’Connell pointed out after the contest, t’was a nothing game.

The offence was bare, the physicality reared its head, but none of those little scuffles and group hugs we’ve come accustomed to in the Origin arena. Not even a controversial refs decision to complain about.

The series did get better, but it really felt like it lacked something from seasons past. Queensland wrapped it up in two games, keeping Suncorp the fortress that it is before NSW picked up the participation award in the last game.

Another year. Another Queensland win. Nothing terrible, nothing great. Just an average series.

Parra’s absolute shocker

It’s nearly impossible to cover everything that happened at the Eels in 2016 in a full dedicated article, so I’ll do my best to summarise.

Parramatta were threatened with starting the season on minus four points because of salary cap breaches in 2015 but were let off after the NRL board were satisfied with changes the club had made.

It didn’t take long for it to come back and bite them.

Further breaches and allegations were made public in May, leading to an investigation and subsequent fines of $1 million and 12 competition points, pushing the club out of finals contention and into the bottom eight. They were also stripped of their Auckland Nines title.

Nathan Peats fell victim to the breaches, being shipped off to the Titans mid-season to make space, while Anthony Watmough was basically forced into retirement so the club didn’t have to pay him.

The off-field trouble continued to stream through all year long.

Try-scoring machine Semi Radradra was arrested and ordered to court for an alleged domestic abuse incident.

Corey Norman was photographed doing naughty things with some bikies and was suspended for eight weeks and fined $20,000 for it, as well as drug possession and a sex tape that was leaked to the media.

Kieran Foran came and went in a flash, instead of becoming the great white hope he was brought in to be.

Their board was suspended, fired, stripped down and reset.

Thanks to the Sharks’ premiership win, the Eels now hold the longest premiership drought in the competition.

They had to say goodbye to their home ground at Parramatta and Jarryd Hayne signed with another club, despite initially stating that upon leaving the NRL if he were to return it would be with no one else.

Brad Arthur re-signed though, so they have that going for them after he stayed strong during the whole debacle.

Foran’s struggles

Marquee signing and hope for the future of a struggling Eels outfit, Kieran Foran had one very tough year both on the field and off it.

He suffered injury problems early in the season that saw him miss the first game of the year after being named the captain of a side he’d never played for.

He was barely a handful of games into his career at Parramatta before he was rushed to hospital in April amidst reports of a possible prescription medicine overdose.

A shoulder injury in Round 12 against the Knights put another dent in his 2016 season, before being stripped of the captaincy and fined $5000 for failing to attend rehab, and drinking while injured.

Foran was also caught up in a betting controversy, after information was released on a betting binge that allegedly saw the five-eighth spend more than $75,000 on the TAB in one sitting, causing the club to investigate a possible gambling addiction.

In July, Foran was finally released from the Eels after personal issues and an unfortunately highly publicised battle with depression and off-field troubles led to him taking a sabbatical from the game.

While Parramatta had one of the most drama-filled seasons of all time, Foran fell victim to the issues surrounding the club and his personal life.

He was released by the club less than one year after signing as a player the Eels would build their new generation around.

On a strong note, his condition has improved and things look up in the future having signed a one-year deal with the Warriors for 2017.

Facts and figures of 2016

* Jarrod Croker finished as leading point scorer, with 296, smashing the club record and equalling Hazem El Masri for third highest of all time.

* Fijian winger Suliasi Vunivalu finished the regular season with an astonishing 22 tries from just 18 games. He broke the record for most tries in a debut season and the Melbourne’s club try-scoring record.

* Vunivalu finished 2016 as equal leading try scorer, alongside Jordan Rapana with 23 apiece.

* Jake Friend made the most tackles in 2016, averaging over 50 per game to rack up an incredible 1279 for the season – even without playing finals he still finished over 100 tackles ahead of everyone else.

* The Sharks equalled the fifth longest winning streak of all time in 2016 with 15 in a row, breaking a club record in the process.

* At the other end of the spectrum, the Knights demolished their own club record of consecutive losses, finishing with 17 defeats in a row.

Premiers: Cronulla Sharks
Grand final: Sharks 14 defeat Storm 12
State of Origin: Qld 2-1 NSW
Minor premiers: Melbourne Storm
Wooden spoon: Newcastle Knights
Dally M: Cooper Cronk (MEL) and Jason Taumalolo (NQC)
Most points for: Canberra Raiders (688)
Least points for: Newcastle Knights (305)

Final standings

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	B	PF	PA	PD	Pts
1	Melbourne Storm	24	19	0	5	2	563	302	261	42
2	Canberra Raiders	24	17	1	6	2	688	456	232	39
3	Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks (P)	24	17	1	6	2	580	404	176	39
4	North Queensland Cowboys	24	15	0	9	2	584	355	229	34
5	Brisbane Broncos	24	15	0	9	2	554	434	120	34
6	Penrith Panthers	24	14	0	10	2	563	463	100	32
7	Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs	24	14	0	10	2	506	448	58	32
8	Gold Coast Titans	24	11	1	12	2	508	497	11	27
9	Wests Tigers	24	11	0	13	2	499	607	−108	26
10	New Zealand Warriors	24	10	0	14	2	513	601	−88	24
11	St. George Illawarra Dragons	24	10	0	14	2	341	538	−197	24
12	South Sydney Rabbitohs	24	9	0	15	2	473	549	−76	22
13	Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles	24	8	0	16	2	454	563	−109	20
14	Parramatta Eels	24	13	0	11	2	298	324	−26	181
15	Sydney Roosters	24	6	0	18	2	443	576	−133	16
16	Newcastle Knights	24	1	1	22	2	305	800	−495	7