The Canberra Raiders enter the 2024 season as one of those that are going to prove nearly impossible to predict.
Sure, you could think you know what will happen to Ricky Stuart's green machine.
But in the best of times, this side often either wildly exceeds or grossly fails their pre-season expectations.
This year is not the best of those times. They have lost a stalwart of the playing group and snuck into the finals last year despite having mostly narrow and unconvincing wins combined with some horror-low moments throughout the campaign.
That leaves plenty of questions that will ultimately define Canberra's season. Here are the five big ones facing the Raiders in 2024.
2. Can Corey Horsburgh find yet another level?
Corey Horsburgh was one of the great success stories in lime green during the 2023 campaign. Previously something of a hothead with a tendency to make fairly rash on-field decisions, Horsburgh stood up as a real pillar of Canberra's forward pack during the most recently completed season.
He might have started the campaign from the bench as Ricky Stuart looked to work out exactly who would replace Adam Elliott, but Horsburgh eventually stuck his hand up and had a wonderful campaign.
Once he took the number 13 jersey, it never left his grasp as he regularly churned out 60 or more minutes per game at big production, putting big metres on the board, defending strongly and even more importantly for the number 13 role, finding offloads and tackle busts as if they were going out of style.
His form was so strong that it eventually earned him a State of Origin debut - an arena that many have little doubt he will return to in 2024 if he continues his form.
'Big Red' as he is labelled, became one of the game's best locks in 2023, and cementing that status to form one of the game's strongest forward packs alongside Josh Papalii and Joseph Tapine in 2024 will go a long way towards taking a heap of pressure off the Canberra-based outfit.
