Extratime.ie Reporters Season Predictions 2016

It's a mere 48 hours until the kick-off of another SSE Airtricity League season and, with election season just about over (for a few weeks at least), we've managed to squeeze one final drop of democracy as we polled the Extratime.ie team for their predictions.

2016 sees 20 teams contest the Premier Division (12 teams) and First Division (eight) – and for the first time since 2011, we have all the same teams we did 12 months previous, which makes predicting final placements somewhat less of an uncertain process than it has been in recent seasons.

In all, we received 30 submissions from Extratime.ie's writers and photographers, which we ran through the most powerful and sophisticated number-crunching software that came bundled for free with the laptop, and the results are nothing if not illuminating.

PREMIER DIVISION

The Premier Division welcomes Wexford Youths for the first time, while Finn Harps are back at the top level following a seven-year absence, and unsurprisingly neither has been tipped to take the top honour by any of our writers.

Three teams have been tipped by at least one of our correspondents to win the league, and it's no great surprise to learn that those are last season's top three, though the order may confound some as the clear preference is for last year's runners-up Cork City (17) ahead of champions Dundalk (11) and Shamrock Rovers (2).

14 of our 30 respondents tipped Finn Harps to occupy last place and the automatic relegation spot, ahead of Wexford Youth (9) and Longford Town (7), while Town (9) are deemed most likely to contest the relegation play-off.

Mercifully, just one of our contributors predicted we'll have to make use of our patented Points Deducted column in the league table at some point during the season, but that information will have to remain classified.

FIRST DIVISION

The First Division is set to be ultra-competitive following the relegation of two big clubs, Limerick and Drogheda United, to a division already home to two of Ireland's most successful clubs, Shelbourne and Waterford United.

Limerick were the near-unanimous pick to bounce back at the first attempt, with 21 of our respondents tipping Martin Russell's side, while nominations for UCD (5), Drogheda (2), Shelbourne and Waterford United (1) suggest there'll be plenty of drama in the season ahead.

At the bottom of the table, last season's bottom-placed side are favourites to repeat the trick with 15 nominations ahead of Waterford (10), Athlone Town (3), Cobh Ramblers and Shelbourne (1) – Waterford and Shels achieving the impressive feat of being tipped for both top and bottom spot.

Do you agree with the predictions of the Extratime.ie Team? Let us know by tweeting us @ExtratimeNews or by commenting on facebook.