Revisiting my fearless predictions for the 2022 NRL season

Another NRL season is in the rear-view mirror, and as depressing as that may be, I feel like I may be able plummet further into the depths of despair, by reviewing my preseason prognostications.

I was hoping to bounce back in 2022, after a horror score of one out of five in 2021, but I fear we may be looking at another humiliating score, folks.

Let’s just rip this off like a band-aid, shall we?

1. Cameron Munster will win Dally M
At the start of the season, I preached thus about Munster: “A point to prove. An attitude adjustment. A lifestyle improvement. His next big contract on the horizon. All the ingredients are there for a monster Munster season.”

Look, I was right about all that, but it still wasn’t enough for the Storm star to win the Dally M, as that honour went to Nicho Hynes.
Munster finished ninth on the ladder, ensuring I have an inauspicious start to my 2022 predictions.

Verdict: 0 points

2. Wests Tigers won’t get wooden spoon
Holy bottom-of-the-ladder battling, Batman!

I took the field versus the Wests Tigers, and they still let me down. In its own sick and pathetic way, that’s actually pretty impressive by the Tiges. Kudos to you for sucking so incredibly bad.

I proclaimed this to be the boldest prediction I’d ever made, but I was incorrect on two counts: firstly, it wasn’t bold, it was stupid. And secondly, I was just plain wrong.

Verdict: 0 points

(Photo: Joe Frost)

3. The NRL will lose games to COVID-19
I didn’t mention it at the time, for obvious reasons, however this prediction was based on a little bit of intel I had received. Or, more specifically, a tip I got that the NRL was preparing itself for the potential of mass COVID-19 outbreaks within one club, or clubs, during the season.

I deducted that may mean postponing games, as other sporting leagues had to do.

Yet through a combination of vaccinations and less potent strains of the COVID-19 disease, this never eventuated. I’ve never been happier to get a prediction wrong.

Verdict: 0 points

(This is going really well, isn’t it?)

4. A coach, or two, will get fired mid-season
Finally, I’m on the board.

Trent Barrett, Michael Maguire and Nathan Brown all departed their clubs during the season.

You could argue Barrett technically didn’t get fired, however, he was about to. Likewise, Brown resigned, yet no coach quits if things are going well and they feel secure.

Meanwhile, Maguire most definitely got the bullet. Though in news that will shock no one, results after he was fired would suggest he wasn’t the biggest problem at the club.

He was also unlucky not to be joined by the Titans’ Justin Holbrook and the Knights’ Adam O’Brien, who skated on thin ice in the back half of the season, due to their respective teams’ underwhelming performances.

Being a head coach in the NRL is a brutal job, conducted in a cut-throat environment, and it actually makes a bit uncomfortable having any fun at the expense of someone losing their job, so that’s the last time I make a prediction about a coach getting fired. Roarers, hold me to that.

Verdict: 2 points
(Oh shush! That’s worth two!)

(Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)

5. Sharks will make grand final, with Fitzgibbon coach of the year
The Sharks did not make the grand final. In fact, they bowed out of the finals in straight sets, in an extremely disappointing end to their season.

However, they did finish in the top two, and surprised a lot of people during the season, which is what this prediction was really all about: I was high on Cronulla for 2022.

Specifically, I called out that Nicho Hynes could be a “dynamic” and “brilliant playmaker” in the halves, which he certainly proved to be, in being judged the player of the year.

Fitzgibbon had big wraps on him as a coach, and he proved that all the talk of his potential was bang on, though Todd Payten was fairly awarded the coach of the year.

I’ll take the smallest of small victory lap on this one, and give myself half a point.

Verdict: 0.5 points

Bonus prediction: the ladder
Below is my predicted ladder, with the team’s actual position in parentheses:

1. Panthers (1)
2. Storm (5)
3. Roosters (6)
4. Sharks (2)
5. Sea Eagles (11)
6. Rabbits (7)
7. Eels (4)
8. Raiders (8)
9. Bulldogs (12)
10. Broncos (9)
11. Knights (14)
12. Titans (13)
13. Warriors (15)
14. Dragons (10)
15. Tigers (16)
16. Cowboys (3)

Bit of a mixed bag here, which is a polite way of saying I got Penrith and Canberra right, a few other were close, and then almost everything else was a complete hot mess of garbage!

Nothing highlights this more than selecting the Cowboys for the wooden spoon, then watching as they instead finished third and were just ten minutes from the grand final!

In summary, an extremely generous score of 2.5, proving once again that if you mark your own homework, you’ll never completely suck. Perhaps the Tigers should ref their own games?

See you next NRL season, Roarers!

And be gentle in the comments. Or at least buy me a drink first.

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