Similar to B McD, I am hoping to still win the GF this year. I am going to get a team together involving Peter Beardsley as he is a rugby league fan, and I have met one other person who likes rugby league since moving to Scotland. So that is 3 of the required 17...

In all seriousness though, he really needs to stop saying those things as it is making him and the club look and sound more ridiculous each week. He'd be much better saying the aim is to try and grind out a win or two, rather than to win probably like 12 games in a row like they would now need to even make it slightly possible. They haven't won more than 1 game in a row so far, have they..?!

You can't do that anymore though.

Before Leeds can start thinking about winning a game, they need to be contesting for longer parts of the game. All looks a long way.

So talks about a Grand Final place are absolutely mental.

If you win every single remaining game (15/15), you will end up on 36 points.

Last year that still wouldn't have got you into the top 4.

You can still get 500/1 for you to win the GF. Frankly 5,000,000/1 would be far too short a price.

I know McDermott has to be seen to be remaining positive and believing in his team, but come on Brian, do yourself a favour.

Look it's perfectly plausible to believe that having just won 3 from 15 a 15 from 15 could be about to happen - starting at Warrington on Friday.

Leeds' Regular Round record V Warrington at the Helliwell Jones under McDermott of played 5, won 0, drawn 0, lost 5, avg score Warrington 28 - 14 Leeds is testament to that belief.

Can you win it from 12th then?

He needs to accept you lot are now in a battle to stay up. Gotta try target 10th for that extra home game. Playing the likes of Leigh Bradford and fev away with say widnes and salford and suddenly that middle 8s has an ugly feel to it. I know you have players to come back but losing becomes a habit and a tough 1 to get out of.

Who'd have thought we would have been aiming quite so high at the begining of the season ..... 10th at the moment looks just as far away as McDermott's claimed legitimate aim for the GF

There comes a point when it would be more comforting to hear people at the club start talking about survival. Banging on about winning the comp, top 4 or even top 8 was OK up to about a month ago, but recent results ought to lead to some public recognition of the state we're in.

McDermott's post match interview ended with a '3 or 4 wins away from 8th'. Without some huge points difference swing it's looking like it's the latter figure but it's only the 4 wins away if the other clubs all trying to make the eight all lose. Leeds could win a game (however unlikely that appears at present) and still be the same 4 wins away. It's out of Leeds' hands already and rightly so with a 3 from 15 (3 from 17 all comps) season to date.

Agreed. I said weeks ago re the top 4 that as soon as you're in the world of having to use maths to prove you can still do things, you're on a loser. Particularly when the maths ignores not only results to date (which are generally the best guide to moving forward) and actual form. To make the 8 we must be pretty close to needing a bizarre set of results from all other teams as well as winning close to all our games.

Yup. The Salford Widnes game didnt help Leeds at Magic as someone was going to pick up points and move further away.

same goes this week with the Salford Wakefield game and the Widnes Huddersfield game. More moving further away.

Leeds need to be open now and concede that the objective is making the Top 8, it should be about finding better form and get in some better shape for the Middle 8.

This is a point often overlooked.
As the bottom team, if you win a game you are only actually 'closing the gap' on the teams that lose, which is only half of them!
To make the top 8, Leeds are going to have to overtake Huddersfield, Salford, Hull KR and Widnes (if the table stands as it is at the moment). These teams are involved in 4 games against each other, which means that 8 points will be shared amongst them. As such, in reality Leeds are much further behind 8th place than the table suggests.

Leeds' awful points difference puts them in reality on 5 points on the league table.

Unless we get a couple of 50 point wins against fellow-strugglers...

Why is everyone looking at me like that?