If you were able to take 4 teams to play at the end of the season in the play off from the Super League, who would yours be?

For me it would be:

Hull Kr
Salford
Wakefield
and
Widnes?

Also, who do you think the bottom 4 WILL be?

For me its:
HULL FC
SALFORD
WAKEFIELD
CATALAN

Definitely hoping for Catalan away. I'm keeping some of my holiday money specially for the occasion. The away game in Perpignan is one of the biggest things I'll miss from SL, so my fingers are crossed.

Can't see it being Catalan with then signing Carney.

I think bottom 4 will be Wakey, Hull KR, Widnes, Cas

Obviously this is based on the squads as they stand, accepting that some clubs will be strengthening further before February.

However, having said that I think the bottom 4 will be, in order

Widnes
Hull FC
Wakefield
Hull KR

Widnes will cruise through the middle 8s comfortably beating any Championship side.

Hull FC have a bit of quality but look short of senior players in the middle. Even so, barring serious injury crisis will come through the 8s in my view as it's a tough ask to go to the KC and win.

Wakefield look hardworking with decent depth, a coach who seems to have galvanised them.

Right now Hull KR look very vulnerable. Massive turnover of players including 1,6,7,9 with no new 1 and 9 signed as of pre-season training, rookie coach, light in every dept and just signed Ryan Bailey.

Learn your history.........Widnes never beat Leigh.

Any team that finishes in the bottom 4 - especially the bottom two are going to be beatable by a team who can hit their straps on that one day. We don't need to beat them all - just the other championship teams and possibly one SL team if that team also loses to the other SL teams and us. That will give that team about 6 points when we have at about 8 points.

I really can't see Salford being anywhere near the bottom four. Their starting team is a match for any in the competition.

But that only means we finish 4th in mini league and they finish 5th. We'd still need to beat them again in playoff match.

Yeah, one way or the other we'd need to win two middle 8 games against SL opposition and, of course, beat all the other championship clubs too.

7 weeks of 4 matches with 2 points available = max of 56 points up for grabs. 5 wins gets 10 points. That should be good enough for third and automatic. four wins should be good enough for the £1m game, possibly even less if the top two sides total 26 points, thats nearly half the points gone already.

The numbers are easy, the points - given that its like 7 cup games - rather more difficult!

Sounds easy....but as you say, 7 cup games!!

That's the main reason why I hope we rotate the squad during the qualifying stage. We don't just need to keep the 'first choice' 17 fresh for the 'business end', but we also need the rest of the squad to be fully match fit and ready to rock 'n' roll in the case of injuries. With the probable exception of the halves we can do that as things stand and assuming the pre-season games confirm that the newcomers are as good as their youtube videos...