2015 finds the teams of the NRL South at a collective crossroads. Their dominance of the turn of the decade is no more, but is a new era rising?

At the start of this decade you would look to the NRL South to find the favourites for the NRL premiership.  At the time, the Melbourne Storm and St George Illawarra Dragons were the benchmarks of the competition, and many predicted the Canberra Raiders to emerge as a new powerhouse in the nation’s capital.

How times have changed. The Storm have made the finals for the last four seasons, but have not won a single post-season match since they raised the Provan-Summons Trophy in 2012; the Dragons faded fast down the ladder following the departure of coach Wayne Bennett; the Raiders have fallen off the radar after repeatedly promising and failing to deliver; and the Cronulla Sharks have had to manage the on-field demands of the game for the past two seasons with the ASADA peptides saga hanging over their heads like an axe waiting to fall.

Needless to say, the NRL South consists of teams champing at the bit to shake off the dust of disappointing seasons past and rise to their full potential.

But can any team legitimately challenge the Storm to claim the conference title?

The Sharks, wooden spooners in 2014, have put the ASADA investigation behind them and approach this season with optimism in the air. But there is a lot of ground to make up, starting with the Raiders, their conference rivals, at Remondis Stadium in round one.

The Raiders won their last three matches of 2014 and in doing so escaped the embarrassment of receiving their second wooden spoon in the club’s history – but they still weren’t much higher on the ladder than the Sharks. This is a team with a lot of rebuilding to do, both on and off the field. They need to determine what it means to play and win “the Raiders way”.

The Dragons are another team at a cultural crossroads. They have some great talent in the halves and in the outside backs, but they need to expel the mediocrity that has plagued them for the last three seasons. And with Brett Morris leaving over the off-season and Trent Merrin announcing he will be leaving in the next one, there appears to be more questions than answers for the Dragons. The job doesn’t get any easier in round one, when they host the Storm at Jubilee Oval.

So with three of the four conference teams in rebuilding phases, will the Storm claim the South for the fifth consecutive year in a cakewalk or by the skin of their teeth? Either way, all signs indicate it’s theirs to lose.