Warriors: Team Preview

Following a poor recruitment year in 2009, the Warriors will be hoping their biggest acquisition, Brett Seymour, is worth the risk given his chequered past and adds quality to their ever-lingering problem in the halves. The off-season singings were rounded out by two unestablished NRL players in James Maloney and Jeremy Latimore, which puts the onus on the returning Warriors to pull up their socks after perhaps the worst season in the club's history to finish 14th last year.

What has to go right: Seymour looms as the key figure but he'll require quality around him to send the Warriors back to the promised land of the top eight. The forwards need to recapture the mongrel that has made Mt Smart such a daunting proposition in the past, and the safety-first football that saw them finish second-last in points-for last season could also do with the heave-ho in favour of the 'Warrior ball' style of old.

What could go wrong: Controversially stripped of the captaincy in what looms as his final season, Steve Price could go one of two ways - fire up and bow out on a high, or lose motivation completely. Price also has a heel injury that will force him to miss the first few weeks of the season, which is bad news for a club which has traditionally struggled without its talismanic prop.

Nightmare headline: Seymour slips up again

Sportal prediction: 13th