The Cronulla Sharks will again attempt to get over the hump in 2026.
It's really that simple. The men in black, white and blue are a finals quality team, and one in contention for the premiership, but they haven't been to the decider since 2016.
The last two seasons in particular were particularly heartbreaking, with back-to-back preliminary final departures.
The common rhetoric heading into 2025 is that they might well have only been one big-name forward away from glory, but Addin Fonua-Blake's arrival wasn't able to drag the club over the line, and instead, simply served to stretch the salary cap.
That might seem harsh, and it's certainly not a knock on Fonua-Blake's performance, but the Sharks are now in a squeeze to retain talent without a premiership to show for it.
That said, they come into 2026 relatively settled, although Fitzgibbon has plenty of youth at his disposal, and may well elect to fire some changes throughout the course of the campaign.
Here are the selection questions for Cronulla heading into 2026.
1. A wing fight before Mulitalo returns
The Sharks are in a somewhat fortunate position, even though Ronaldo Mulitalo will miss a sizeable chunk of the 2026 season after injuring his ACL late in 2025.
That is because they have two first-grade ready suitable wingers.
Even more than that, the duo - Sione Katoa and Sam Stonestreet - are fairly obviously fighting for a single place once Mulitalo does make his way back into first-grade, and even more importantly, probably a single contract.
That may well sort itself out before kick-off, but for now, the Sharks have made no indication which player they would like to keep, while the obvious route is that one of the first-grade capable outside backs will leave the club at the end of 2026.
That creates one of the more intriguing inter-team fights throughout the first half of 2025, and with the Sharks likely to be finals bound again, it could well determine who is on the park, and who is forced to watch on from the sidelines come September.
Stonestreet may well be regarded as the future of Cronulla, but the fact the club only signed him to a single-year extension during 2025 for 2026 may paint a picture about exactly where they stand - and it's murky.
Sharks’ biggest challenge – in my opinion – is to start using the decent youngsters that they have, and not to keep them frozen out of the first team unless there are long-term injuries.
That means that they do not develop and the coach feels he has to re-sign existing first-team players (usually on higher pay).
Cronulla is short of cap space for this very reason.
Their problem is essentially a coaching problem, not a training/player/effort problem.