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.
This is the single biggest question and one of the biggest questions facing any club heading into the 2024 campaign.
Jack Wighton, who has played his entire career with the Raiders and spent the last number of years in the five-eighth role at the club, dropped a bombshell on the club in the middle of the season when he confirmed he would be moving to the South Sydney Rabbitohs for 2024.
It will also come with a change of positions at Redfern as he moves back into the centres despite entering the back end of his career.
However, what his move does for the Raiders remains to be seen, with the club now needing to build a new spine.
Jamal Fogarty will be the familiar face in the number seven, but with questions over the number one and seven jumpers (more on this later), the Raiders spine faces big questions heading into 2024.
As the second half of 2023 went along, it became clear the Raiders wouldn't find an out-and-out replacement for Wighton. They eventually signed Kaeo Weekes from the Manly Sea Eagles and also have youngster Ethan Strange in the squad for 2024.
That is ultimately where they will look for a replacement for Wighton. I'd expect Weekes to start in the six, but this will be one storyline to watch with interest in 2024.
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.
Morgan Smithies arrives in the NRL as Canberra's latest recruit directly out of England, and he has exactly one season to acquaint himself with the level of the NRL before being required to take over from Elliott Whitehead, who will hang up the boots at the end of 2024.
Whitehead has been a long-time stalwart of the Raiders, leading from the front over the years. Anytime the Raiders have had success in the last decade or so, Whitehead has been a part of it.
Smithies will now be expected to take up that role. While he can also play lock, it's the second row where he will be required, with the Raiders on a recruitment charge for players in that position, given Whitehead's impending retirement and the uncertainty over the future of Corey Harawira-Naera.
Smithies, at just 23 years of age, has already played a Test for England to go with 114 games for the Wigan Warriors. A hard-hitting, no-nonsense forward with footwork and an offload, he may need to play from the bench in 2024, but he will have a major point to prove as he attempts to confirm to the green machine recruitment staff that he was an investment worth taking.
Savage might be rated as one of the best young talents in the NRL, but in the year he turns 22, he needs to start realising it consistently, or that term will start to fade rapidly.
Ricky Stuart has (and rightly so at times, it must be added) held Savage back from being a regular in first grade, although it must be said injuries certainly haven't helped the youngster's cause during 2023.
He played 19 of his 23 first-grade games during 2022 with mixed results, but this must be the year he locks down a spot because if not, he is going to lose his spot on the waiting list to Chevy Stewart, who is the next big thing in the nation's capital.
A future NRL-level fullback, some suggest this could be the year Stewart makes his first-grade debut, dislodging Savage from his role in the process. Savage could potentially shape up on the wing, although many will argue he is going to need to pack on plenty of size for that to become a consistent reality moving forward.
Whatever the case, the Raiders are likely to have a youngster at the back in 2024, and for the club to make waves and move forward, it simply has to work as they build this new spine without Wighton.
The Raiders had somewhat varying strategies in the number nine jumper throughout the 2023 campaign, with all of Danny Levi, Zac Woolford and Tom Starling in their Top 30.
That, despite some recent speculation around their respective futures, is not something that's about to change for the 2024 campaign.
The constant seemed to be Starling coming off the bench for the green machine, and yet, you could argue he needs and absolutely deserves more minutes heading into the 2024 season.
It's not so much that he didn't provide in the minutes he had, but it's arguable that the Raiders looked at their best with Starling on the park.
His coming off the bench seems to be the right school of thought, though, so it may simply be about getting him into the game earlier. Woolford has turned himself into a strong defensive force through the middle and looks to have the inside running on the starting role, although Levi brings plenty of experience.
Ultimately, it'll come down to who has the best pre-season, but this will be one of those questions that coach Stuart needs to get right and find consistency early in the campaign, particularly as he builds a new spine without Wighton.