Meh. who cares. Next season is a different format. Why are we judging this seasons placing on next seasons format? So we wouldn't qualify finishing 6th? Well I never! Of course we'll have to improve to get in the top four but this season was still the old format so wasn't that important overall. Has any of the top 6 fielded their best possible side every game? Maybe Saints with their horrendous injury list (I don't know for sure) but Wigan,Wire, Cas etc have rested players.
We know it's a flawed system but it is what it is. It has hopefully been addressed and next season we will see games taken more seriously. If not, then we can judge but I can't see us fielding some of the sides we have this season.
Now cue all the desponds bemoaning the lack of opportunities for the youngsters half way through 2015! You just know it's going to happen!

Leeds -
Played 26
Won 15
Drawn 2
Lost 9

Of those 9 losses all but 2 (the recent Wigan game & Wire away) have been by 6 points or less.
Saints away 14-10
Wigan @ Etihad 18-14
Warrington away 24-6
Huddersfield home 22-24
Wakefield away 16-14
Bradford home 14-20
London away 40-36
Saints home 12-13
Wigan away 21-6

Our win/loss is roughly similar to Saints and Wigan last season.

We've won the cup and done pretty well in the league, a more competitive league than for many years.

The point is we have only had to finish in the top 8 these last few years which we have always done. The fact we haven't been in the top 4 is meaningless as that was not a requirement. BM has been able to rest players for the semi and final knowing that if we were to lose, which we did, we were still in the playoffs.
It is unfair to criticise BM for playing to the rules.

It doesn't matter how they got on at all. They are a much smaller club with less resources. We are one of four or five clubs who are expected to win it. Castleford fans expectations will be no more than a semi. They reached that cup final for only second time in 28 years. They exceeded their expectations regardless, and despite that they have out performed us in the league and outperformed any expectations they possibly could have had, despite resting players more times in the campaign than we did, yet resting players is apparently why we had a poor league campaign.

A club like Cas picking up a league leaders shield is a much bigger achievement than a club like us winning a Challenge cup, regardless of the value of each trophy.

I will repeat again, but for a very lucky last minute win against Catalans, we would be one point, one point, in front of them, the seventh placed club. Would anyone really say Catalans have had a good year?

It wouldn't even have taken as much as we have done in previous league campaigns to have finished top, let alone top two. Yet we end up the sixth worst team over 27 games. That is poor.

Haven't you got any houses to haunt?

If Cas win the LLS, and I hope they do, it will be a big achievement given where they were when Powell took over just like it was for Huddersfield to win it. However, I bet Huddersfield have more ambition now than to win the LLS in the current format. Fair play if you win it next year under the new format but at the moment it is a token reward IMO unless you back it up with a GF win.

Had it not been for dubious video reffing calls at the end of the hudds at home and wigan MM games we would still have a chance of top spot.

This is exactly what I was talking about with scrapping the barrel for excuses. That is no disrespect honestly, but it's just spinning things.

Look at the wins also, there has been a lot of close ones there too. We are the worst attacking side in the top seven, and by some difference. It is for that reason, and that reason only, why you have the list above of close losses.

Just out of interest. Had we lost the cup final, what are the thoughts then? Would they really change to that degree over one match?

For anyone concerned about Leeds regular season record under McDermott, it's worth pointing out that the win/loss record against the top clubs during regular season SL games under his coaching tenure is as follows...

Played 34
Won 8
Drawn 2
Lost 24
Win Ratio 23.5%

Given the higher number of fixtures against the top clubs under the new structure, along with having to finish top 4, that win ratio is going to have to improve beyond recognition in order to reach the play-offs. There will be far less latitude for coasting against whipping boy SL rabble. The club culture of tossing it off throughout the regular season can no longer apply.

Do you think if we'd had that format this year leeds would have finished 6th? Honest question.

Late defeats at Saints and Wakey as well or is he only counting the games we win?

Who are you including as top clubs and what is our record against those same teams in playoff matches.

Exactly, expectation. Castleford were not expected to have a chance to reach or win the CC Final. Leeds were. That's the whole point, the focus toward the CC. Cas players were not being asked all year if they could finally win the missing piece, they weren't asked if this was finally this year, they weren't reminded of past final failures, they weren't reminded they were running out of time to win it.

Leeds were.

Like you've just highlighted, if Cas didn't win the Final then it can be thought of as an achievement just getting there......the Leeds players didn't have that same luxury. They lose and this Leeds team & CC failure are always mentioned/linked whenever this team is talked about in the decades to come. Thus the differing mindsets as the year wore on.

They've been way too occupied with targeting CC success according to all the self-appointed apologists in here, so much so that games against Bradford and London had to be sacrificed for the other great cause. So how on earth could they have finished higher than 6th under the new structure? And that doesn't even take into account the much tougher fixture list to negotiate.

But they are two completely different clubs with different resources.

In football would the excuses be the same for the likes of Chelsea, Man U, Man City, had West Brom had better league campaigns?

You are using an argument as if they were at the same level, when they are not.

Those expectations you talk of, are for five clubs only. Only two of those made the semi, and only one the final.

William Eve

Bitches about the CC not being the treasured competition it once was and people not caring about it and only being concerned about Sooper Dooper League instead.

Cries then when Leeds rest players in the league to give them a better chance of winning CC, and people celebrate it over league placings.

Priceless