2017 NRL season: Round 1 preview (Part 1)

Nearly five months have passed since the Cronulla Sharks won their first premiership in their 50th year of existence, and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since.

The club will begin its premiership defence, without the retired Michael Ennis and departed fullback Ben Barba, when they tackle the Brisbane Broncos at home this Thursday night to kick off the new season.

Friday night’s matches will see the introduction of a new 6pm match, when the Canterbury Bulldogs welcome last year’s beaten grand finalists, the Melbourne Storm, to Belmore Oval.

There will also be a grudge match between the South Sydney Rabbitohs and Wests Tigers.

Sharks versus Broncos
The Sharks enter the new season with a huge target on their backs as 15 other clubs look to knock them off their premiership perch.

Of course, Shane Flanagan’s men defeated the Melbourne Storm 14-12 in the decider last October, to end a 50-year premiership drought and have their fans finally turn off their porch lights.

Their mission to become the first team since the Brisbane Broncos in 1992-93 to defend the title in a unified competition starts when they come up against that very team at Southern Cross Group Stadium.

In addition to Barba and Ennis having left the club, the Sharks will also be without fullback Valentine Holmes, who is nursing a leg injury.

The two teams have already met once this calendar year, with the Broncos prevailing 30-12 in a pre-season match at Redcliffe last month, before both teams lost their respective matches to Warrington and Wigan in the World Club Series in England.

For the Broncos, Ben Hunt will be under the most pressure to perform in season 2017. This will be his last season at Red Hill before he moves to the Dragons, where he will almost certainly finish his playing career.

After famously knocking on in the golden point extra time period in the 2015 grand final, Hunt endured a poor 2016 season by his standards, but was still able to play every match for Brisbane and score seven tries.

The partnership between Hunt and Anthony Milford will again be crucial to the club’s chances of ending their 12-year premiership drought, as will the leadership of new captain Darius Boyd.

While recent history favours the Sharks, who have won four of their last five against the Broncos, Wayne Bennett’s men will get up in this one.

Prediction: Broncos by six points.

Bulldogs versus Storm
With the axing of Monday night football for the 2017 season, comes a brand new timeslot which will definitely test the persistence and patience of NRL fans.

The Friday 6pm timeslot will have its pros and cons, of which two of the cons are trying to beat the peak-hour traffic just to get to the match, and that the timeslot is exclusive to Fox Sports.

One pro, however, is that the early finish to the match means fans will be home at a respectable hour – even before it gets completely dark in the early rounds.

The Dogs enter the new season under a heap of pressure, with reports that the club must make the grand final to have any chance of retaining Des Hasler, who is being heavily courted by the Dragons, after this season.

While the club has made the finals in each of the five seasons for which Hasler has been in charge, including reaching two grand finals, the Dogs have been unable to break through for its first title since 2004.

They come up against a Storm side which has shown no signs of ageing, though their ‘Big Three’ of Billy Slater (who is still out injured), Cameron Smith and Cooper Cronk will all be 34 by Christmas.

Craig Bellamy’s men reached another decider last year and will once again be one of the teams to watch in 2017. Can they kick off their bid for a third premiership with victory against the Dogs?

You bet they can.

Prediction: Storm by 10 points.

Rabbitohs versus Tigers
It will have taken just three matches, but the ultimate grudge match of the new season arrives as the Rabbitohs and Tigers run out onto ANZ Stadium this Friday night.

This is because Robbie Farah will make his Bunnies debut, against the very side which he served between 2003 and 2016, during which he played a huge part in the club’s 2005 premiership victory.

Farah’s time at Wests Tigers came to a calamitous end, when he was dropped to reserve grade after featuring for New South Wales in all three State of Origin matches last year.

Finally, after months of speculation over his future, Farah joined the Rabbitohs, where he will be integral to their chances of returning to September this year, following their absence from last year’s finals series.

It was the first time since Michael Maguire took over as Rabbitohs coach in 2012 that the club failed to reach the eight; by contrast, the Tigers have remained sidelined from September action since 2011.

There will be a new halves pairing for the Bunnies, following Luke Keary’s defection to arch-rivals the Roosters and the injury to regular halfback Adam Reynolds. Cody Walker and Luke Kelly are set to marshal the decision making against the Tigers and for the period in which Reynolds is sidelined.

Their match-up against Mitchell Moses and Luke Brooks could go a long way towards deciding this match-up, but Farah could prove to be the difference here.

Prediction: Rabbitohs by 14 points.

Dragons versus Panthers
One of the teams to watch in 2017 will without a doubt be the Penrith Panthers.

The arrivals of James Tamou and Mitch Rein completes a playing squad that is capable of going all the way for just the third time, after previous premiership victories in 1991 and 2003.

The decision by Phil Gould to move Ivan Cleary on in favour of Anthony Griffin at the end of the 2015 season paid an early dividend when the club finished in the top six last season.

By contrast, after sneaking into the finals in 2015, the Dragons took one step backwards too many last season, finishing 11th and struggling to score.

It came to the point that upon his signing with the Panthers, Rein labelled his old club “boring”. This has no doubt lit the fuse ahead of his and Trent Merrin’s return to Kogarah Oval (the Dragons’ win over the Panthers in Round 4 last year was at Wollongong) as opposition players.

Still, they were the only club last year to defeat each of the top four (namely the Storm, Raiders, Sharks and Cowboys), though their wins over the Storm and Cowboys came when those teams were missing key players on Origin duty.

But any chances the Dragons have of improving on last year’s dismal campaign took a huge hit in the pre-season, when halfback Drew Hutchison went down with a knee injury which will see him sidelined for the entire season.

This leaves Josh McCrone and Jai Field as their first choices in the No.7 guernsey, which will be inherited by Ben Hunt when he joins the club from the Broncos at the end of this upcoming season.

In the meantime, not much is expected from the Red V in 2017, and fans will have to churn through yet another tough season; this is despite their season opener against the Panthers being at Kogarah Oval.

Prediction: Panthers by 12 points.