The Manly Sea Eagles endured a difficult first season under Anthony Seibold, but will hit the ground running for 2024 with the sky the limit.
A club with a rich junior talent pool, improving youngsters on the fringes of first-grade and some of the biggest stars in the game at their disposal, anything less than the finals for a second year in a row simply won't be good enough.
Manly made the big call at the end of 2022 to move Des Hasler on from his role, instead controversially handing the head coaching chair to Seibold.
If he can't make it work this year though, his head may well be on the chopping block, and some critical questions will determine exactly how the Sea Eagles perform throughout the 2024 campaign.
Here are the five biggest.
3. Can Josh Schuster get back to his 2021 best?
Schuster comes into the 2024 campaign following a failed move to five-eighth in 2023. That was hampered horrendously by injury problems, but there is also little doubt he struggled to fit in at number six.
With Brooks arriving at the club, it means any chance of him filling that role is gone, and Schuster, who is on a big-money deal on the Northern Beaches, needs to rapidly get back to his best.
2021 - Schuster's rookie season - saw him become one of the competition's breakout stars on the edge, running gaps and working excellently on the back of Tom Trbojevic's form.
But 2022 was the start of those injury and fitness problems, with Schuster making it clear he wanted to play five-eighth on the back of media attention who seemed to forget or ignore the fact he had captained the New South Wales under-18 team in 2019 from the second-row.
The edge is Schuster's - at least for now - best position and where he needs to be if he is going to rediscover that form which turned him into a sensation during his rookie season.
