These are the latest relegation odds from betfred, London 4/11, Huddersfield 5/1, Leeds 6/1, Hull kr 8/1, Salford 10/1, Wigan 100/1

We are now third favourites for relegation, if London keep picking up wins the other clubs near the bottom are going to start to panic.

The Easter weekend is absolutely massive for all clubs at the bottom of the table. All clubs will be looking at the fixtures thinking they are games they can win and be targeting 4 points, anyone picking up 4 points will suddenly be in the top half of the table. Anyone picking up 0 points will be in relegation panic mode. Huddersfield and Wigan have the advantage of a game in hand. These are the crucial fixtures.

Huddersfield v Cas
Wakefield v Wigan
Leeds v Huddersfield
Saints v Wigan
London v Catalan
Hull v Hull kr
Hull kr v Warrington
Huddersfield v London
Wakefield v Leeds
Salford v Wigan

Are these two massive must win games for Leeds?

You've done it now. What is our success ratio for your must win games? About 20%? Hudds could win all 3 and be well out of it soon. London are our target for mine

Unless things change which at the moment seems unlikely, it looks like a dog fight all season between us and London. Huddersfield are no pushover. Just hoping London’s super League enthusiasm will wane. Not certain if they have a good size squad if injuries take toll. I never thought we would be in this situation again.

Salford seem to be in reverse at the moment.

Of our first 10 games, 7 have been away from home. I didn't think we'd win any of the first 4 but we beat Salford. At home we were beaten by a better Wakefield team, should have beaten London and won against Castleford. The away defeats to Catalans and Hull FC wouldn't be a surprise in normal times and the HKR loss, though very disappointing, not really a shock result. The team will get better and results will start to go our way. I'm confident that we will not be anywhere relegation at the end of the season.

The expected turnaround won't "just happen" though. We saw in 2016 and again last year that just sitting around waiting for things to improve doesn't work. 2016 we turned it around but last year the team if anything got worse as the year went on.

Is a home loss to Huddersfield enough for Hetherington to sack Dave? If not - how many games will he give him?

Yes let's see some signs of improvement

No don't think it is. I think hes got 3 games. Lose them all hes got to go I'm sorry but he has. Club should be thinking about options just in case already.

We certainly can't wait too long or who the coach is will become irrelevant.

Agreed

Let’s be honest the powers at be wouldn’t let Leeds be relegated. It’d turn into a 14 team super league.

At some point we have to go back to licensing.

The point of (or at least one of the major reasons for) the salary cap is to spread the playing talent and make the league more equal than it would be.

Eventually you reach a point where the salary cap combined with P&R is actually weakening rather than strengthening the league because it’s already evened out the quality so there’s relatively little difference. At that point if you relegate a club and promote a new one you’re weakening the league not giving a new club a chance as P&R is supposed to do.

For instance if the bottom NRL club were relegated and they were replaced by one of their 2nd tier clubs I don’t see how anyone could view that as strengthening the competition.

So eventually once the competition has been evened out by the salary cap we have to get rid of one of either the cap or P&R.

That's not quite what happens though is it? If a side is relegated most of their usable players end up with other lower table clubs including the promoted side, meaning almost the same set of players just at different clubs.

Whilst the cap may be aimed at levelling the playing field, its never going to because the gap between 'big' and 'small' clubs in financial terms is enormous. Even in the supposedly more equal NRL, some teams are just bigger than others, and from a commercial perspective far more important - the Broncos dwarf every team in almost all financial dimensions (in some ways the gap is even bigger here because its hidden by the TV deal which enables all clubs to get close to spending the full cap).

Failure to recognise these disparities is a mistake. I still think it was a huge mistake to let the Bulls fall out of SL and end up where they are. They didn't get everything right, but they could bring crowds that are just a dream for most SL sides, and if we're being honest SL lost something when they went. Replacing the Bulls with the likes of Leigh or Widnes isn't like for like in anyway at all, regardless of how 'fair' it is. Even in a player development sense they were immense - half the Brits in the NRL came through their Academy.

Given the current setup and teams in SL and below, there are really only 2 teams P&R helps - Leigh and Widnes. If the game was purely about financial strength it would be a continual yo-yo between them Salford and London. If we moved back to franchising Toronto, Toulouse and London would all stand a much better chance of getting in than through P&R, assuming they have the initial financial backing required.

I agree the players end up going to the newly promoted side but then you’ve just massively hit one clubs infrastructure and planning with relegation whilst the new club has a lesser infrastructure naturally because they were in a lower division. So it’s weakened the league and the sport.

There’s an argument for P&R when one club is so significantly worse than the others but when it’s close between 3 or 4 clubs then it’s just weakening the league.

I agree the cap can’t fully even everything out but it at least stops rich clubs stockpiling players and gives poorer clubs a better chance than they would have had.

But I think we have to move back to licensing. Just licensing done better than the last attempt. And then stick with it. We need to say we’re going with licensing for 15 years and then review after that.