Why?
1. You finished 12th last season
2. You have a new conditioner who hasn't proven anything yet
3. You don't have exactly a great deal of youngsters being developed to a high std within your club, so one year older doesn't equal improvement over and above any other teams youngsters = parity.
4. Don't rate your coach
5. Injuries will happen every season, that's pretty much a gimme, what if other clubs have a better season injury wise this year than last? Again that means parity.
6. You don't have a big squad with little depth.

Think that about covers it.

FWIW I don't think you will finish bottom. I think you're marginally better than Salford and I don't think your a million miles from most other SL teams. Nobody knows which teams will really fire this year so as a Wakey fan I'm not underestimating anyone.

Purely on paper and due to a year away HKR look very weak on paper to me - when a player like Addy is a big loss then you're lacking imho. That said I can guarantee they will beat us in the first round





Your biggest weakness for me is Betts, I really don't get how he survives as a coach.

Not sure where you are getting the idea that Widnes aren't developing good youngsters. They have a pretty good academy

He said a great deal to a high standard - Most SL clubs are producing 2 or 3 that play regular and are to a good standard. Are Widnes ahead of the rest of SL? A genuine question as im not familiar with any apart from Matt Whitley.

Some good feed back thanks.
From our academy I'd say that at least 6 will be in our match day 17 at any point this season
Craven
Gilmore
Gerrard
J Chaplehow
Whitley
D. Walker

Plus we have Ince, Johnstone, Chamberlain and T Chaplehow who are pushing to start, Ashall, Farnworth and B. Walker who prob need to be drip fed into the side this year. So not too bad.
Would any of them get into any other SL Side? I cant answer that but we did have to tie down D. Walker to a long contract.
From our inclusion into SL our board made the decision to bring through our academy players with a bit of experienced pros around them. Last season our experienced pros were dropping like flies so we had to throw the kids in at the deep end. Most held their own which was good to see but the intensity of most games against seasoned pros told in the end.
For most games last year we had academy lads playing at 1,2,3,5,6,7 and 9 with only Runciman being an ever present. no side in SL could cope with having to do that and it told in the end with us finishing 12th. come the middle 8s when some of our players started coming back we improved thus enabling us to finish above Hull KR, Catalans and Leigh.

Some of them are nearly 27, when your referring to youngsters been another year older i thought you was talking 18/19/20/21 - Unfortunately although i do like to see it there is no reward to having a team of homegrown players.

To answer your question as a Wakefield fan i wouldn't have any of those players in my squad over what we currently have although i do think you have 2 really good prospects in Whitley and young walker at Hooker who i think will develop into top players from what i have seen of them.

TBF there are so many unknowns this year who knows what is going to happen? Which is why i don`t usually keep my predictions to myself, because im way out every year

Which should be good for your lot next season!

IMO Widnes have a decent junior setup and will eventually reap the rewards. That said I think it will take time. Most players don't start to really mature until the mid 20s and if you have too many in at once they can get bad habits and too used to losing. Looking at the Widnes squad they haven't any big names that stand out so I can't see them getting many wins versus the top 8 sides. They will be in the bottom 3 with HKR and Salford I reckon.

Has anyone changed their predictions now that the friendlies are done and most clubs have their team sorted out?

Not to the extent that I can be ar$ed re-hashing it. I might have Hull (1st) a bit high and cas (5th) a bit low but hey, all the others are probably wrong too.

Hull (will win the league but will finally lose a cup game)
Cas (despite no Zak I still think we are a good side and a few players will wanna prove a point with how terrible they were during 1 game)
Wakefield (Tom Johnstone top try scorer and MOS contender)
Saints (good side but think we still lack consistency )
Leeds (might take Leeds a while to get up to speed with a new half)
Warrington (improve)
Huddersfield (will surprise a few)
Wigan (end of wane?)
Salford ( unknown quantity)
Hull KR (will smash a few at home)
Catalans (McNamara)
Widnes (sorry)

If I was to base it on the couple of friendlies I've seen I saw mostly what I expected from Hull and Rovers given the squads both teams named, but I think Catalans could struggle. They couldnt get any momentum going against a Hull reserve pack. Hull coasted through the game in 2nd gear. That said its only a friendly and the conditions were grim. So I will wait until a couple of proper games have been played until I revise anything.

Leeds
St Helens
Castleford
Hull FC
Wigan
Huddersfield
Catalans
Warrington
Wakefield
Hull KR
Widnes
Salford