Its the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, but will it be the Australian year of the Dragon?

Is this the year of the Dragons? While loyal dragons fans are hoping for another year of domination under Wayne Bennett they have a fat chance of premiership really. In fact under the NRL's premiership rotation policy they will just scrape into the top eight. Their defence will continue to be solid under Wayne Bennett but you can be assured that the referees will be more vigilant when looking at Dragon's play the balls this year.

In fact the NRL is usually more than happy to step in to influence a result - just like last Friday when the ref ran into the defensive line to impede the Titans defenders. Unfortunately for the Dragons this generosity isn't likely to extend into the finals.

Still no matter how generous the NRL is for teams with no recent premiership none of this will help Souths. Another pre season of significant promise, and another injury prone late capitulation start to the season proper. Souths have lashed out and bought Greg Inglis to supposedly give them more point scoring ability. Why is a bit of mystery considering they scored points than any other team in 2010 - it was their defence that lost them the games.

Time to lash out on a coach with some defensive credibility - what's Ricky Stewart up to these days.

In Other News
Ricky Ponting's transformation from talented young piss head to Allan Border clone is nearly complete. 15 years ago Ricky was just a young kid from Tasmania, scoring lots of runs and strays from the burbon and beefsteak. Now after 5 years of fronting the media and attempting to explain what the hell the selectors were thinking, Ricky has finally lost the plot.

Ricky is actively trying to be a Allan Border clone. Unfortunately for Ricky when Allan Border was Captain grumpy he was still grafting out 50 runs each innings despite the team collapsing around him. (With the possible exception of David Boon who generally tried to score his runs as fast as possible so he didn't have to bat with Allan.) Allan was grumpy as he had to score all the runs, manage the team and control Craig McDermonts ego. Ricky on the other hand has plenty of time in the dressing rooms thanks to his world cup average of under 10.

Ricky - since your not scoring any runs, have no active say in field placements and your in incapable of showing any originality in nominating bowling changes - you might as well go back to being team Grog Monster. Give up the captaincy and the Valvoline adds and go back to what you do best drinking like a fish, picking up the odd burbon and beefsteak beast and sledging the poms.

Of course that brings in the rather scary prospect of who you would replace Ricky with. Michael Clarke - he's lucky to be in the team. Brad Haddin - possible but its likely that he might actually say what he thinks about the selectors so that's not going to happen.

Its at this point the head slumps in your hands as you realise the only reliable member of the Australian team who is aged under 30 is Shane Watson. Can you imagine the product endorsements if he was Captain. No longer would the Australian team be sponsored by a brewery, every male grooming product in production would be queuing to sign on. Instead of the Sheffield shield it would be the Niva for men Q10 revitalising bath gel and body lotion State Cup. When that happens - I'll be the first one saying "Please god take me now, I've lost the will to live"