Next year has the potential to be very good.

Warrington and Wigan will be up there, as will saints as they always are. Hull have the squad and will take good experience from this year to push on. You would expect definitely Leeds and most likely Huddersfield to reverse their blip of this season and be back challenging, Catalan would be up there now if they didn't only play for half a season, and cas have established themselves as a top 6 team now and can trouble anybody when they want to.

Genuinely 7/8 teams who should all be challenging for the top 4 next year.

Hull KR and Salford, both had 31 games to avoid relegation, not one, Hull KR "cock"ed it up and therefore go down.

I agree apart from Hudds. I think their issues may run deeper and last a bit longer but will just make the top 8.

Wakey are still on very shakey ground with Chester in charge (trust me).

Leigh might surprise everyone and make the top 8 but probably won't bother the top 4.

Salford are still living on borrowed time. Money talks to bring in players, but who wants to play in front of empty stands?

I'm not saying they didn't deserve to go down. I dig only at the marketed game that is the million pound game.
Yes we all know the score but the million pound game will not last long... It's a ploy to entertain but it'll do more damage than not. As soon as somebody has a breakdown they'll scrap it.

I posted days ago that the MPG was a device created to help a Champ side get promoted. The RFL didn't have foresight that Leigh (or another team) might get auto promoted leaving 2 SL sides in the MPG. Only 4 sides have competed in the MPG and therefore only they can comment on what a ludicrous concept it is.

Promotion and Relegation are needed, but not this self imposed circus created by the RFL.

I don't know how you manage to cope.

Well done to Salford & commiserations to Hull K.R.

As a neutral I thoroughly enjoyed that, yet I can still hardly believe K.R. lost that game.

Indeed.

The game has a duty of care to its employees, therefore the creation of stressful MPG working conditions which stimulates mental health issues among players has to be discouraged.

It is clear that the solution would be to create an environment where all games become totally meaningless and stress-free.

No no, the Rfl didn't have the foresight to see that two super league sides, with many years of greater funding and advantages over championship teams would be so dog that they would end up in the million pound game.


When the middle 8s were unveiled, it was giving the championship clubs the illusion that promotion was available.

You've ed it up for yourselves.

Wakey are in no real trouble with Chester in charge, and with the addition of Kear into the coaching mix I'm sure they'll do just fine. They were hit badly with injuries later than other teams but for the back half of the season had around 11 starting players out just as other teams were getting players back from injury.

I've got to say that even though we were in the MPG last season, I still love the structure, it shows rugby in its rawest form where passion and belief are as important as skill

And those saying that the RFL didn't have the foresight to see a team automatically promoted are talking twaddle, the competition is set so that a championship team who finished in 1st/2nd stands a slightly better chance than the SL teams who finish in 11th/12th due to the additional home game when they've all been reset to zero

I agree. Although even if it wasn't the best ever, anything was going to be better than the old top 8 playoffs with convoluted "qualifying playoffs" and "elimination playoffs" where you could lose against someone one week then beat the very same team the week after and knock them out. I think the Super 8s have produced much better finishes to the season and we've had some absolute belters with closely fought games going down to the last minutes.