We were a lot worse in 2016 & despite the hype we beat the Championship top 4 comfortably. Id still back us to beat Salford & Widnes aswell.
HKR would be the toughest game & we've beaten them twice without getting out of 1st gear albeit with a bit of luck.

Will finishing outside the top 8 cost us financially?
I was under the impression all Super League clubs received the same amount of central funding.

Over on the VT some seem to believe you get an extra £50k for every position in the league. That would mean we will get £400,000 £350,000 and £300,000 less than the other big 3 clubs in Saints, Wigan and Warrington. Can anyone confirm if this is the case?

If true, that's madness. Outside of prize money (which should be awarded for finishing top/higher), central funding is surely more needed by the teams at the lower end to try and improve the league going forward. See NFL draft.

It wouldn't surprise me were we to win the semi. Logically, wire are in a better place than us but there still seems to be a bit of fragility there.

I maybe wrong here but 8th gets nothing extra then its 25K not 50K extra on each place above so nothing for 8th, 25K for 7th 50K for 6th etc not sure about the finalists though.

You are mixing central funding and prize money - they are separate things.

CF is the same for all clubs (well, actually, not Wakey, who have a financial penalty for poor facilities), and prize money, which is based on league position.