You was saying ?

It's got to be a result of most clubs tightening their belts a bit and not paying crazy wages for overseas stars. There's definitely a lot more homegrown players playing for their clubs which is a good thing of course. It depends what you prefer I guess...do you want 12-14 teams spending daft money, increasing their quality but obviously decreasing their stability or do you want to see it how it is now?

Interesting point above.

I've checked our record since winning the opening 9 games.

We've played 11 games, won 5 and lost 6 (including a cup game).

Very inconsistent form and it is difficult to know what Saints side we'll get these days. Have we simply dropped off in games to save energy for the end of the season or have injuries affected us and we've dipped in form? The Wigan game and Leeds game earlier in the season suggests that we do have the quality & mentality to win big games, but we show no real consistency (then again, nobody has really).

Interestingly enough, Kyle Amor played in just 1 of those games which was Leeds in the cup when he wasn't fully fit.

We have Bradford (h), London (a) & Widnes (h) as our next 3, 3 of the kindest fixtures we could face and a chance to build some winning form going into the end of season games where we face Hull (a), Wakey (h) Leeds (a), Wire (h) & Hudds (a) - tough games there, so our consistency has to improve if we want to finish top 2.

I have my own spreadsheet at work where I have split the season into 3 sections 1 to 10, 11 to 19, 20 to 27.
For the rounds 11 to 19 involving the top 4 teams of Leeds, Castleford, Wigan and Saints, results wise we have faired better:-

Leeds 4 lost, Castleford 4 lost, Wigan 4 lost, Saints 3 lost, the main difference is that we have not lost to Leeds, Castleford and Wigan in this period whilst our challengers have.

I reckon if we get 2 wins from Leeds, Huddersfield or Warrington then we will be top 4, the players state of mind in the playoffs will be another matter.

If we win 2 out of those 3 games we'll probably finish 1st or 2nd.