As the calendar flicks over into a fresh new year of sport, The Roar readers are lucky to have an exclusive look back at the five sporting highlights of 2012, many months before they occur.

April – Masterful Day at Augusta
A year after an Australian sporting hoodoo was smashed by Cadel at the Tour De France, another curse was broken as Jason Day took a memorable two shot victory in the US Masters. At the place of so much heartbreak (thank you Greg Norman), the young Queenslander went one better then his 2011 runner up finish, taking the lead on the third day and holding off a determined finish by Rory McIlroy to become the first Australian to wear the famous green jacket.

July – The Queensland Reign Continues
The loss of Darren Lockyer failed to slow the Maroon momentum as the Cane Toads wrapped up their seventh straight title over the hapless Blues, dedicating the victory to the memory of Arthur Beetson. The series was in the balance until the 79th minute of the final game when Jonathon Thurston calmly slotted a penalty goal awarded after NSW hooker Michael Ennis retaliated to some nasty words by trying to punch Billy Slater in the back. Blues coach Ricky Stuart admitted to being disappointed but supported the under siege rake claiming: “Mick is an Origin player, he has great passion.”

August – Sally Triumphs in London
The heat, semi and final of the Women’s 100m Hurdles each featured ten 84cm high hurdles. The contenders knew that if just one of them is taken less than perfectly and at full pace, their Olympic dream was over. To the delight of the entire country, Sally Pearson flew over all thirty of them like a blonde pony-tailed jack rabbit and won an incredible Olympic Gold Medal in World Record time. The only disappointment for dedicated fans was when her post race interview fails to reach the spontaneous elation seen after the Beijing Silver Medal.

October – North Melbourne wins the AFL Flag
In front of an enormous crowd at the MCG, North Melbourne won their fifth premiership and first since 1999, delighting their fans with a popular title. The other big red ball news was that the GWS Giants entered the competition and many thousands of words were written describing their wonderful successes or total failure, depending on the writer’s preconceived point of view.

November – Alonso Youngest Triple Champion
After five long years driving the wheels of inferior machines, Spain’s Fernando Alonso found himself in a Ferrari that was clearly the class of the field. He duly delivered a season of metronomic consistency winning ten Grand Prix and becoming the youngest man to win three World Driving Championships, breaking the domination of Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel. Towards the rear of the grid, Perth’s Daniel Ricciardo impressed in his first full season and made everyone a lot less worked up about Mark Webber’s good, but not great results.

What else!

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to recap England going out of the European Championships on penalties, Brisbane Roar’s domination of the ACL, the expanded Rugby Championship with Argentina joining the fray or the spectacular falling out between Nathan Tinkler and Wayne Bennet.

Are there any other exclusives you can add?