Christmas is here, and for a brief moment, the NRL world will slow down to take in the holiday period and festive season.
But with salary cap and collective bargaining agreement discussions continuing, clubs still not having full rosters for the 2023 campaign, and over 190 players remaining off-contract at the end of the season ahead, it won't stay slow for long.
Teams will be back training and making final preparations for the new season before long, and every club in the competition needs a visit from the big guy in the red suit this morning to deliver a shower of magic for the new season.
Here is what your club needs for 2023.
On behalf of the entire Zero Tackle team, I'd like to wish all our readers a very merry Christmas and safe holiday season for you and your family.
The Broncos fell off the side of a cliff during the last seven weeks of the 2022 season, and while it'd be easy to suggest that is what they want to avoid in 2023, it's not as simple as that.
There were plenty of reasons for their fall from grace, and while Adam Reynolds' health wasn't actually one of them, it's clear the men from Red Hill need their veteran number seven to remain fit if they are any sort of chance at targeting a return to the top of the competition.
The veteran, who moved from the South Sydney Rabbitohs ahead of the 2023 campaign, was their most important player for much of the season, directing traffic in the number seven jersey.
He also found a new level to his running game that hasn't been seen for years, while his calming influence for Ezra Mam in the six was evident, and a combination that will need to continue growing and improving in 2023.
Jack Wighton is crucial to the Raiders - that much is clear, and has been for a number of years.
The star five-eighth is a former Clive Churchill Medal and Dally M Medal winner, and is regarded highly on the representative scene after being selected for both New South Wales and Australia this year.
Despite that, his form at club level for the Raiders was poor for the first half of the year.
Right up until Jamal Fogarty returned. So this is potentially a two-part wish for the Raiders, with Fogarty staying fit and Wighton staying in form, but should Fogarty be out for any length of time, then Canberra desperately need Wighton to still be able to stand up as their leader.
The Canterbury Bulldogs have been in the doldrums for a number of years, but there is finally a positive vibe coming out of Belmore, with the club primed to turn around.
A lot of that is down to director of football Phil Gould, who is turning the club around with radical recruitment and retention decisions, and a longer-term plan regarding Canterbury's pathways.
But no club will turn things around without the coaching situation in order.
That end has plenty of potential for it to work in 2023 following Canterbury's signing of Cameron Ciraldo, who joins from Penrith for his first head coaching role.
If he makes it work, then Canterbury will be a top-eight hope. If he doesn't, it'll be back to the drawing board for the famous old club.
Nicho Hynes was the runaway Dally M Medal winner in 2022, putting up a record for votes gained during a single season, with no one else coming close.
It was a wonderful first season fro the star halfback, who took a big risk in moving from Melbourne to play the position permanently.
While he shut down all the doubters who had plenty to say in the pre-season, Hynes struggled to get the support he needed to take the Sharks to the next level, both creatively and in the forwards.
While Matt Moylan had a strong season in the number six, Hynes needs more from William Kennedy and Blayke Brailey, and he needs forwards like Braden Hamlin-Uele, Royce Hunt and the returning Jack Williams to go up the gears.
The Gold Coast Titans were something of a rabble during the 2022 season - there is really no other way to describe what they dished up on an almost constant basis.
Both ends of the park saw the Titans sloppy at best and terrible at worst.
They lacked a game manager and experience after Justin Holbrook elected to release Jamal Fogarty to Canberra, and fill his spine with youngsters, as well as AJ Brimson, who was moved from fullback to five-eighth.
But 2023 brings the addition of Kieran Foran, who suddenly has one of the toughest tasks in the game - to turn around this team who have struggled badly over the last 12 months.
He will need to be the buy of the season, with Sam Verrills likely a close second, for the Sea Eagles to go anywhere.
Whichever way you try to spin it, the Manly Sea Eagles' 2022 campaign - and as a result Des Hasler's contract - was ruined by the pride jersey scandal.
This is a relatively simple one as Anthony Seibold takes over on the Northern Beaches, but they need to stay out of the headlines for the wrong reasons, and in them for the right ones.
The pride jersey is a current non-committal from the club, which is fair enough given what transpired last year, but they simply need a clean season, to play at full strength, and have no issues surrounding the club as they look to make their way back into the finals.
Jesse Bromwich, Kenneath Bromwich and Felise Kaufusi leaving at the same time would likely scare just about every other club in the NRL to their wit's end.
But not the Storm.
I'm sure questions have been raised about how to effectively replace the trio, who take with them hundreds of games of experience and the winning Melbourne culture.
But Craig Bellamy has a plan. Tariq Sims, Eliesa Katoa, Joe Chan and existing players Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Tui Kamikamica as well as the returning Christian Welch, who missed most of 2022 with injury.
That plan reads well - now all Bellamy and the club's fans need is for it to work.
At long last, the New Zealand Warriors will get to play a full season at home.
It will mean they spend longer on a plane than any other team in 2023 by a substantial amount, but they have the advantage of playing games in Auckland again, something they haven't had since before COVID.
That advantage, when the club is at their best, is worth its weight in gold.
But the Warriors need to make it so. It's something they have struggled with at various points over their run, but with a real appetite for footy in New Zealand right now, the future of the club could hinge on a strong 2023 at home, even if they are unable to replicate that on the road.
Any chance of making the finals likely needs at least ten wins at home as well.
The Newcastle Knights' wish for 2023 - apart from climbing the table - is a simple one.
Kalyn Ponga to stay fit, and play club games like he tends to play State of Origin games.
Ponga has struggled to stay on the field for the Knights in recent times, but if they are going to be anywhere near the finals, or even the smallest chance of fixing their woeful attack of the last two years, they needed their headgear-wearing, Western Australian-born fullback to be on the park.
If he is, they stand a chance of an improving attack and being able to keep pace with top sides. If he isn't, then the Knights may be resigned to the bottom of the pile yet again.
Reece Robson was one of the true success stories of 2022.
The former St George Illawarra Dragon really found his potential - a potential he has always had - during the 2022 campaign.
That's a level the club desperately need him to hold throughout 2023 as they attempt to prove 2022 was no fluke, but you feel there is another level for Robson to find.
Whether that be in his service out of dummy half, his running game or overall creativity, there is more in the star's game yet, and it feels as if it could ultimately be the difference between North Queensland going all the way or falling just short again.
The Eels have one major re-signing already in the bag, with Dylan Brown committing to the club on a new long-term deal.
There is still one big one to go though, with Mitchell Moses being chased from left, right and centre, and yet to agree on his future with the men in blue and gold.
The beating heart of the club, Moses went through the ringer during the 2022 campaign to stay on the field at times, and his form was the best it has potentially ever been.
If he stays at that level, then the Eels will go close to another trip to the big dance - but they don't want 2023 to be the last time Moses is the one guiding them through the campaign.
One of the biggest losses anywhere in the NRL for 2023 is that of Apisai Koroisau from the Panthers, with the salary cap clamping down hard on the club's ability to maintain a team who have won back-to-back premierships.
That also hinders their ability to sign high-profile talent from outside the club.
But Penrith have a plan - it's a plan which has already driven them to their two premierships and a grand final appearance before that, with the club's junior academy the best in the game.
That was on display with Penrith winning four premierships - the NRL, NSW Cup, Jersey Flegg and SG Ball - this season, but Mitch Kenny and Soni Luke have the biggest shoes to fill anywhere in the competition this coming year given how important Koroisau was to Penrith.
The Dragons had some major problems in 2022, but two of them could be partially fixed by a number 13 who stands up and owns the position, playing with pace at both ends of the park.
All the talk out of the Red V is that Jack Bird will be the man tasked with the difficult role, in a position where players like Isaah Yeo and Cameron Murray are among the best in the NRL.
Whether Bird can fill that role effectively for the entire season remains to be seen, but there is little doubt he has the talent to.
The South Sydney Rabbitohs have been a force to be reckoned with over the last five seasons.
This is a team who have made the preliminary finals or better in all of those years, and yet, have still failed to lift the Provan-Summons trophy.
Whether that's an option in 2023 and beyond with the team ageing remains to be seen, however, recent contract renewals for Damien Cook and Cody Walker show the level of confidence Jason Demetriou and his staff have in the current set up.
That said, Alex Johnston is currently the best winger in the NRL. A try-scoring machine, he is edging closer and closer to the 200-try barrier, and, beyond that, becoming the top try-scorer of all-time.
It's something the club will want to see continue in 2023.
The way young gun Sam Walker and Luke Keary finished the 2022 campaign is exactly where they need to pick up in 2023.
The duo took a long time to get going this season, with a position swap eventually being the catalyst to their form turning around, and with it, the plight of the entire Bondi-based club.
They were ultimately knocked over in a fiesty elimination final during the first week of knockout action against the South Sydney Rabbitohs, but all the signs are there that the Roosters can move further through September this year with a clean bill of health.
They are just going to need Keary and Walker to be major drivers in that.
The Dolphins 2023 campaign will be an intriguing one to follow. Most players they have signed are on two-year contracts, and the roster is something well short of what they may have been hoping it would have been at one stage.
Despite that, the Dolphins, particularly under the coaching team of Wayne Bennett and Kristian Woolf, are likely to be far more competitive than the majority have given them credit for during their inaugural campaign.
That said, signings for 2024 will still be a high priority for the Redcliffe-based outfit, and something they would love to be doing early in the New Year once the collective bargaining agreement is locked in.
Rewind to 2005, and as he spent so many years doing, Benji Marshall was at the centre of everything that was good about the Tigers.
Fast forward to the end of 2022 and moving into 2023, and there really isn't much good about the Tigers at all after their wooden spoon season.
But Benji Marshall is back.
He joins Tim Sheens for 2023 in an all-new look coaching team, and his influence almost immediately in restoring the club to its former glory has to be enormous.
Marshall feels like the last roll of the dice for the fed-up Tigers, but it's a strong option alongside a coach who led the club to a premiership in 2005.