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.
10. Refereeing remains under microscope
Refereeing has, unsurprisingly, continued to be a talking point - and a disappointing one at that - throughout the course of the 2023 campaign.
Most weeks, the rhetoric coming out of each round was that the refereeing standards simply weren't good enough, with consistency being the buzz word that continued to fill most of the air time.
The NRL's head of football Graham Annesley often was forced to talk for over half an hour at each Monday's footy briefing, with most of the time being spent on decisions. Some were defended, a lot were criticised.
It was a storyline that plagued the season as much as any other, and come 2024, the NRL must continue finding ways to improve the standards and consistency of officiating.
