Despite the fact their 2024 season is even yet to get underway, Sharks fans can be forgiven for having one eye on 2025.
Recent days confirm that Craig Fitzgibbon, his staff and Sharks management are already thinking about next year also.
For those living under a rugby league rock, Cronulla have added one of the game's premier middle forwards to their set up for 2025 and beyond in Addin Fonua-Blake.
His arrival completely changes the outlook of not only the Sharks forward pack but their side and aspirations overall.
The current Warrior instantly becomes the pack leader, something the Sharks have lacked since the days of Andrew Fifita and Paul Gallen.
The job for Fitzgibbon and co now becomes shaping the pieces around Fonua-Blake to ensure the Sharks lay the platform to allow Nicho Hynes to take them to the promised land.
Toby Rudolf was largely viewed as the Sharks main man in 2023 and looked the most obvious starting partner for the incoming Fonua-Blake.
Having re-signed fellow starter Braden Hamlin-Uele to a long-term deal, it now looks as though it's a genuine race again.
I've always been of the opinion that Rudolf has offered the best impact coming off the bench. In his early days, coincidentally beside Hamlin-Uele, the Sharks often got stronger with their coming onto the field.
Whichever of the two ultimately wins the race to start, I believe both will figure in the middle rotation for 2025 and beyond.
Which leaves three bench positions, as well as the lock position open.
Both current lock options in co-captains Dale Finucane and Cameron McInnes are contracted for next season. Finucane's contract is especially club friendly, having agreed to a back-end pay cut.
Finucane will be 33 next season while McInnes will be 30. With both offering a very similar output, and minutes, you'd have to imagine it will be one or the other starting at 13.
Being three years younger gives McInnes the edge, while Finucane's contract allows value in carrying him as 18th man. His experience at training and on away trips will be enough to justify his semi-inclusion.
This opens up a spot for the recently re-signed Jesse Colquhoun to shift into lock.
He has mainly been seen as a second rower at NRL level, having started there and featuring in the first trial out wide, but was dominant in the NSW Cup as a prop.
Those who have seen Colquhoun would agree he is way too good for NSW Cup and his re-signing backs that thinking. I'd suspend he'll feature in the rotation somewhere.
I'm even willing to go out on a limb and say Colquhoun will split minutes with Cam McInnes in 2025, with a full time move to lock following.
Teig Wilton also played in the middle for the Jets, although Colquhoun is a bigger body and more suited to the role. Wilton will join Briton Nikora in the back row in a combination that looks to be a long-term option.
Siosifa Talakai has been linked to a move back into the forwards all off-season. Youngster Kayal Iro has been putting pressure on the Sharks left centre for over 12 months now.
Talakai is built like a second rower and has games at lock on his resume. Right now, if he were to lose his spot to Iro, I'm not sure where the spot in the forwards presents itself.
His contract was upgraded and extended last year. There has to be a spot somewhere for Talakai given the impressive starts to sets he provides.
Also extending in the shire is the towering Tuku Hau Tapuha. Although only a one year deal Tapuha offers size that the rest of the pack cannot match.
Royce Hunt, himself not a small man, is contracted for next year.
He had a barnstorming finish to the 2023 campaign and has been the one Shark to really take full advantage of the pre-season.
His early stint for the Maori Allstars was impactful while he was the best forward on the park against the Dogs in the second trial. He ran for 166 metres, 66 of which were made post contact.
Jack Williams, long thought of as the heir apparent to Paul Gallen is suddenly looking like the off man out. He is the biggest name, and money, forward off contract in the Shire.
Tom Hazelton and Oregon Kaufusi are the other two forwards very much in the mix. Kaufusi has a mutual option, however if the club chooses to walk away it kind of defeats the "mutual" part of the option.
Kaufusi was brought to the club with big expectations. To be truthful he failed to live up to the impressive form he enjoyed while at the Eels.
All the talk is he had a brilliant pre-season and comes into 2024 with a fresh and clear mind. You'd have to imagine he has a month or two to ensure he is around in 2025.
Thomas Hazelton has become a cult hero in the shire and a monster off the bench last year. He is the largest of the Round 1 likely starters and has become an almost much pick.
Billy Burns and Max Bradbury are the other forwards in the current Sharks set up but likely won't feature unless there is an injury crisis.
With Hazelton, Williams and Kaufusi all off contract, it looks as though it may become a straight shootout for one spot. The Sharks literally cannot keep them all.
Meanwhile BHU, Rudolf, Hunt, Tapuha, Colquhoun, Finucane, McInnes and potentially Talakai are all battling it out to stand beside the incoming AFB.
The Sharks forwards let them down in 2023 but if running out beside one of the game's best middle forwards next year isn't the motivation required to take the step up, I don't know what is.
With the majority of the Sharks pack contracted for the foreseeable future, it's really up to the players and the players themselves as to the makeup of the engine room moving forward.
