Nothing is ever a certainty in the NRL, but seeing the Raiders back in the finals for the first time since 2012 is the closest thing you will get. The Raiders showed some great signs of improvement this year and were only denied a top eight berth by a lousy record at Canberra Stadium and several close losses. Coach Ricky Stuart has been rewarded with a two-year contract extension after an outstanding recruiting effort. Gold Coast Titans playmaker Aiden Sezer and English international Elliott Whitehead add class to a side already brimming with attacking brilliance. They're probably a year or two away from being premiership contenders, but the Raiders are building a solid foundation. Plenty for fans to get excited about.

The superb form of Raiders five-eighth Blake Austin at the start of the 2016 season will be too much for NSW coach Laurie Daley to ignore. Needing an X-factor to get past the all-powerful Queensland team, Daley will pick Austin on the bench for the series opener before injecting him into the starting side for game two. Don't be surprised if Daley also calls up Austin's Raiders teammate Aiden Sezer to keep their sensational club combination at the representative level.

Eager to send Matt Toomua, Stephen Moore and Joe Tomane off with a Super Rugby championship, the Brumbies will launch a late-season surge to reach the finals yet again. After winning their first finals game at Canberra Stadium, the Brumbies will fall to their arch rivals the Waratahs in Sydney to come up one game short of reaching the decider. The Wellington Hurricanes will go one better than last season's grand final loss to the Highlanders to take out the title and keep it in New Zealand. Robbie Coleman will have a breakout season at fullback and will earn his first Wallabies jersey in the mid-season Tests. Moore will put aside the distraction of his messy departure from the Brumbies to again lead the Wallabies to victory in The Rugby Championship.

So yeah, I've got a crystal ball, but not even that can track the multitude of possible outcomes for the year of Nick Kyrgios. There's one version of 2016 which results in Kyrgios realising his mountains of untapped potential, contending in the grand slams, winning his maiden ATP title and reaching the top 10 by the end of the year. There's the other version where his blow-ups, off-court antics and media scrutiny take its toll and he ends the year searching for his game. We all genuinely hope the second scenario doesn't come to fruition because he's got the game to challenge anyone in the world.

Cricket Australia will finally come to its senses and realise there is a greater demand for Test cricket in Canberra than there is in Hobart. Manuka Oval will host its first Test match when Australia take on Pakistan under lights in December. This happens after another sell-out crowd for Australia's One Day International against India in January. Huge crowds pack out the first day of the Test and leads to the Tasmanian premier making a public apology for ever doubting Canberra's cricketing credentials. And Tony Harrison? He can go and cry to those "fat-cat bureaucrats" that he sooked about.

Melbourne City marches into the W-League grand final undefeated, only for the girls from Canberra United to stage a remarkable second-half fightback to claim back-to-back championships. Lydia Williams and Michelle Heyman go on to play a major role in the Matildas qualifying for the Olympics where they reach the semi-finals and win the bronze medal. Canberra's success leads to the cash-strapped Central Coast Mariners doing a deal to bring an A-League game back to Canberra Stadium. Unfortunately, the crowds stay away for a bunch of no-names and a bland scoreless draw, leading the FFA to claim they were right all along in denying Canberra an A-League team - conveniently forgetting it's still the biggest crowd of the round.

After the star-studded San Antonio Spurs lose to Andrew Bogut's Golden State Warriors in the NBA Western Conference finals, Canberra's favourite basketball export Patty Mills teams up with Bogut to lead the Boomers at the Olympics. The Boomers surprise the pundits when they knock out the highly-fancied French team in the quarter-finals with Mills getting one over his Spurs teammate Tony Parker. LeBron James and co stop the Boomers in the semi-finals, but they get on the podium with a last-gasp Mills buzzer-beater to win the country's first medal in men's basketball.