Saturday marks four weeks until the start of the 2022 Shute Shield season and after the longest break in history, it couldn’t come quick enough.

Some coaches believe there has been more intra-club recruiting this summer than any season before, which makes for an in intriguing opening month of the competition.

The beauty of the Shute Shield is that you can never really know how each team is shaping up until the first team lists for the season are released.

But based on the Chinese whispers spreading around Sydney at the moment, we’ve picked out a handful of games from the opening month that we think are worth getting excited about.