2023 has been a year full of incredible rugby league stories.

When you have a grand final for the ages, sacked coaches - including one at Origin level - a new team entering the competition and big changes across the competition, that is hardly going to come as a surprise to many.

But what were the stories that defined 2023?

Here are the top ten.

6. Kalyn Ponga leads incredible Knights resurgence

The Newcastle Knights were, without doubt, dead and buried at one point in 2023.

Adam O'Brien appeared to be hanging by the narrowest of threads to his job, and the whole club was about ready to blow things up and start again.

Kalyn Ponga couldn't stay on the field, Jackson Hastings hadn't had the impact he was supposed to have upon arrival, and things simply didn't work.

But then, it changed.

Ponga was the mastermind, but the entire team bandied together and improved out of sight. Even with Hastings spending a chunk of the second half of the year on the sidelines with an injury, it was the likes of unsung heroes Phoenix Crossland and Kurt Mann who filled in at hooker, the Saifiti brothers and even Greg Marzhew and Dominic Young in the backs who made the Knights a force.

They ended up being bundled out of the finals in Week 2, but their win over the Raiders in an elimination final and run to the end of the regular season had to be seen to be believed.