This month we’ve gone above and beyond our usual impressive form to deliver the best NRL longform articles, statistical analysis and in-depth one on one player interviews – so that you’re fully prepped for the season ahead.

Every footy club has a story to tell, and these tales often shape seasons as much as wins or losses. For Inside Sport’s season preview, James Smith and Jeff Centenera identify the narrative arc which every team is tracking in 2018. And before we get too carried away with these stories, we also take a look at the numbers (with an assist from the Fox Sports Lab) that confirm or disprove the plotline.

 

Meanwhile, with eight matches scheduled across regional New South Wales and Queensland, plus blockbuster events in major cities including Perth, Adelaide, Darwin and Melbourne, elite-level rugby league will be taken to every corner of the Aussie mainland in 2018 and beyond. Accordingly, James Smith has produced a rough guide for those keen to catch some away games.

After three straight wooden spoons, Newcastle is harbouring hopes for something vastly different this season. And following an overhaul of the club that would rank among the NRL’s most complete, the Knights might have good reason. For his feature story Night And Day, our correspondent Matt Cleary headed to their preseason prep to witness the makeover in action.

 

In many respects, Braith Anasta’s playing career tracked a path that can be distinctly observed in rugby league stardom today: from teen hotshot to early success, a big-money move to overbearing public scrutiny. Having gone through it all, Anasta is clear-eyed in his view. “I’m telling you how it is,” he insists in this month’s Inside Sport. We were eager to get his take on why the stars go to the Roosters, will Brad Fittler be a good coach for NSW Origin, and what it means to be called “overrated” … among other things.

For whatever reasons, the Green Machine just couldn’t click into gear in 2017. One man who experienced the frustrating season close up was Blake Austin. The popular 27-year-old five-eighth, who has played exactly a century of games in first grade since his debut for the Penrith Panthers back in 2011, was generous enough to share his thoughts on the Raiders’ 2017 battles, and how his side can return to the pointy end of the ladder in 2018.


In an honest one-on-one chat with Inside Sport, 28-year-old Wests Tigers forward and New Zealand rep Elijah Taylor discusses maturing into a leader by example, and the hot competition for spots under coach Ivan Cleary in 2018.

And there’s plenty more rugby league in this edition where all that came from, including a column by Fox Sports commentator Andrew Voss, a lesson from Dragons hooker Cameron McInnes on how to be a tackling machine, a quick guide to the major NRL off-season player moves … there’s even a fun photo caption competition, with the chance to win merchandise from ‘47 Brand.

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