Joeys were the only undefeated side in 2022 and claimed the outright first XV premiership however coach Greg Thompson said he thought the season was a lot tighter than the final competition ladder suggested.

A year on, just four players return from last year's premiership side and Thompson is predicting an even tighter competition in 2023.

Overview with Greg Thompson: 

“Things are coming along nicely. It’s obviously earlier in the year compared to what we’ve been used to and we’re probably not completely settled on our best side just yet, but I think we got enough out of the trials to be competitive in the early rounds,” first XV coach Greg Thompson told Rugby News. 

“We had our camp up in Tamworth and that was really good again. We don’t have a huge number of players back from last year and we had a good No.8 who just got injured unfortunately and will be out for a while.