The air is ripe with humidity so bad your clothes stick on you five minutes after having a shower and just getting up from the lounge to get another beer makes you sweat.
Which means that the footy is only a couple of weeks away, yeah baby!
And which also means the dude that runs your footy tipping comp thinks round one of the NRL is still months away and so has not organised the annual season launch – where he collects the fees from those taking part.
But some of us footy fans love this time of the year because our team is on equal footing with every other club.
We haven’t won a match yet, but we haven’t lost one either so we’re every bit as good as the other 15 teams we’ll be fighting for the NRL premiership.
The downside to all of this is that it is also the time footy experts – in other words people who have jobs in the media – get to publish their top eight for the coming season.
Here in these spaces, we’re stuck with just a Top 5 – maybe one day we will afford the space for a top eight column.
But when you think about it, how many teams that finished sixth or lower in the NRL have gone on to win the big one.
Exactly.
Top 5 it is then and here are my selections, for what they’re worth.
1. Cowboys. The current premiers always go close to winning the minor premiership before fading out in the finals.
2. Bulldogs. They will bounce back from what was a disappointing season for them. They always do, the Dogs of War.
3. Penrith. They’re due, the Mountain Men, this could be their year in my book.
4. Parramatta. Yes, the slippery Eels to round off the top four.
5. Wests Tigers. Which makes it three out of three for Greater Western Sydney in 2016.
Grand final prediction: Bulldogs versus Wests Tigers, and I will put $1,000 of your money on Tedesco and Co to win the GF.
a nice optimistic, pro WTs bit.