If you’ve had the pleasure of running into a Novocastrian Dribbler of late you might have noticed we’re slightly more chipper than usual. While we’re globally recognised for our general friendliness and regular habit of referring to strangers as ‘Braaaah’, you’ve probably wondered what’s got us in such a buoyant and cheery mood of late?

Why are we so happy?

It’s because we’re about to win the 2022 NRL Premiership.

Here’s why.

The Return of the King

Joey’s returned. And he’s been to Officeworks. If you’ve ever flicked through the Men’s Women’s Weekly around Origin time you’ll know that the Murdoch press pays close to 6 figures for Joey to write a pre-game strategy column. In that column, Joey provides some ancient holy cave drawings, in the form of set plays that he scribbles with a pencil on the back of Steel City beer coaster. Now we’re aware of a high-security vault that sits under the National Art Gallery of Australia, that exists purely to preserve the artistic integrity of Andrew John’s collection of hand drawn masterpieces.

The sight of Joey training with the Knights with some stationary under his arm, some plays on paper and a pencil behind his ear should send shudders throughout the other camps across the league. Joey’s back baby and he means business.

Kalyn is looking hot

Rather than putting the rumours to the side, let’s do what the Knights do best and tackle issues head-on. Kalyn’s lost his best mate. Connor’s gone. The hottest elephant in the room has walked out, taken an Uber to Bondi and left us crying in his wake.

What does any man do after a breakup? He takes some Pilot pills, get’s his hair looking gorgeous and works on his six-pack. Kalyn is looking hot as ever and with Joey whispering sweet backline plays in his ear, he’s about to have the greatest season of his life.

(While I’m here, Dolphin’s get ya eyes off him. Or the city of Newcastle might have to glass ya braah!)

The Boys Are Back in Town

Of course, to win a Premiership, the arrival of one genius won’t be enough. So Joey’s gone the big lift, thrown some bait into the old boys WhatsApp and brought the rest of Newcastle’s biggest legends out of retirement.

Bedsy, Kurt Gidley, Bill Peden, Steve Simpson… even the Chief has answered the Eighth Immortal’s call and jumped on the Sidd Fogg’s bus to glory. Not content with just helping Adam O’Brien put out a few cones at training, half the 97’ and 01’ Premiership team have recently been spotted down at Merewether getting stuck into a bit of Belmont Bootcamp.

Imagine walking along the beach and seeing the greatest ever to play God’s Winter Game and a man who wrote the Nut Tucker’s Bible (Paul ‘The Chief’ Harragon) doing 10 burpees on the beach soundtracked to ‘Better‘ by the Screaming Jets blaring from a UE Boom box. It’s Premiership winning stuff.