As the curtain goes up on another action-packed season of winter sport, so dawns a new era of  coverage.

Tomorrow’s Maitland Mercury will contain a free souvenir poster featuring the Maitland Pickers rugby league team and its season draw.

You’ll get complete coverage and post-match analysis in Monday’s Mercury but, from this Saturday, you’ll get even more online.

Final-whistle results can be accessed at www.maitlandmercury.com.au across the weekend and you can view a live-stream of the Real NRL match-of-the-round, courtesy of BLive, by scanning the QR code on the front of today’s Mercury.

This Saturday’s round one livestream is a replay of last season’s Real NRL grand final between Cessnock and Wests.

Online readers of the Mercury can also look forward to video highlight packages from Maitland Blacks and Pickers games, courtesy of BarTV.

Our award-winning photographers will continue to capture the action and atmosphere and compile galleries for you to view, tag and share through social media.

It won’t stop there. Plans are also afoot to stage weekly sports blogs, hosted by Josh Callinan, with regular guest bloggers.

The expanded print and online ­coverage is not confined to the football codes. The Mercury will be bringing sporting posters to mark the year’s two biggest sporting events – the World Cup in Brazil and Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Our online presence will enable the paper to offer new and exciting ways to cover sports for our readers, while maintaining our commitment to bringing you the best local coverage.