Revisiting my five fearless predictions for the 2016 NRL season

They say “gambling is a mug’s game”, but at least you can keep your false prognostications relatively private.

Making public predictions on an NRL season? That’s a real mug’s game! All you’re really doing is setting yourself up for ridicule from rabid Roarers.

However, I must suffer from masochism, because I love doing my prediction column every year and then judging how convincing I was with my rugby league Nostradamus impersonation.

All the wash-up from the NRL grand final:
» LORD: Gallen leads Sharks into history books
» Five talking points
» Ten best tweets from the match
» Sharks player ratings
» Storm player ratings
» Match report: Sharks’ wait over
» Re-live the match with our live blog

So, how was 2016? As ugly as you would expect.

1. The Roosters won’t make the eight
Things started off brightly for me, didn’t they?

With the Chooks losing Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, James Maloney and Michael Jennings, then Mitchell Pearce being suspended for seven games to start the season, injuries to Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Boyd Cordner, with Shaun Kenny-Dowall facing legal issues, this wasn’t all that fearless a selection.

To that point, the Roosters ended up finishing 15th on the ladder, with only the truly horrendous Knights below them.

However, given their success in previous seasons, it was always going to be slightly risky to rule them out of the top eight, and given how some of the other predictions turned out, I’m happy to take the point here.

2. The Sharks will start slow, fire their coach, and then finish fifth
The Sharks set a record for consecutive wins, and ended the season as the premiers, so – in an understatement for the ages – I think we can put this one down as ‘incorrect’.

Not content with this pre-season selection, I hammered the Sharkies every chance I got this year. I wrote numerous times – even on grand final day – that I didn’t think the Sharks would win the premiership.

Needless to say, I was wrong. Dead wrong. And I don’t like eggs either, so it’s a double whammy here.

Though my love of sporting hoodoos was the primary reason for not backing Cronulla, I have to be honest and admit that I didn’t think they were a good enough team to win either. Credit to them though, because they were magnificent and were truly deserved winners.

As the siren went on Sunday night, and the raw emotion of decades of losing came to the surface, even I had goosebumps. It was a special moment for rugby league, and well done to the Sharks and their loyal supporters.

For all the flak I gave your team this year, I expect many a return-serve sledge from Sharks fans today. (Click to Tweet) We both deserve it.

3. Moses Mbye will win the Dally M Medal
Didn’t quite nail this prediction . . .

The Bulldogs playmaker didn’t even finish in the top ten.

Whether it’s the fact he’s a five-eighth masquerading as a halfback, that he doesn’t take control of games enough, Josh Reynolds impeding his development, Michael Lichaa not getting him quality ball, Des Hasler’s game plan stifling his potential, him simply not being as good as I think he is, or a combination of all the above, Mbye was disappointing in 2016.

Mbye is undeniably talented, and still showed enough flashes of brilliance that his fans shouldn’t lose faith just yet that he can be an elite player. However, some improvement is required of Mbye, and the Dogs in general.

Mbye needs to put his imprint on a game more regularly and demand the ball. He also needs to improve both his decision-making and his execution on the fifth tackle; particularly close to the opposition’s try line.

Ten metres out, with the ball in your hands, a repeat set of six should be the worst-case scenario you’ll accept from yourself. Yet the Dogs often kick the ball dead, or just get tackled with the ball. It’s unacceptable, and Mbye needs take more responsibility for an improvement in this area.

If he can, maybe this prediction will simply be a season early, instead of merely laughable.

4. Blake Austin will win a man-of-the-match award in State of Origin
I can’t fault the selection of James Maloney as NSW five-eighth too much. He was the form number six in the competition at the time, had his Sharks atop of the NRL ladder, and even ended up winning the premiership.

However, not picking Austin as the utility Blues player, and instead going with Manly’s Dylan Walker, was sheer stupidity.

Though he had an injury-interrupted start to the season, Austin was one of the best players in the competition in 2015, and should be one of the youngsters that NSW build around for the future.

Instead, the Blues brains trust once again overlooked Austin, damaging not just this prediction, but a Blues renaissance.

5. The New Zealand Warriors will win the premiership
Oh dear. The wheels have well and truly fallen off now.

No, the Warriors didn’t win the premiership. No, they didn’t even make the finals. And no, they were never really in the hunt either.

It was yet another disappointing season from the New Zealanders, who, thanks to the Sharks breaking their hoodoo, now become a target for cheap shots, as they are yet to win a premiership since entering the competition in 1995. The only other title-less team are the Titans, who entered the competition in 2007.

I didn’t actually think the Warriors would win, but I thought it might be worth a cheeky fearless prediction because they had so much talent, and potentially the best spine in the NRL.

However – broken record alert! – the Woe Woes once again massively underachieved. It cost their coach his job, but more devastatingly, ensured a score of just one out of five out for my 2016 predictions.