By BRETT PAPWORTH, Eastwood president

This year has been just plain weird. Would we even get a rugby season and would we be any good?

We lost premiership winners Lagudi, Doumbos, Snowden, Neale, Piukula and Allen to retirement, and Pama Fou and Tayler Adams to professional contracts, which was a fair chunk (about 1000 First Grade games) of experience gone.

Bart Picone suffered a season-ending injury in our first trial at Drummoyne, and we lost Michael Icely and Lachlan Shelley mid-year to season enders.