There will always be huge margins in the points differences of the clubs at the top of the league, compared to those at the bottom.
The real story of the season and perhaps the main reason for threads like this, is the performance of Leeds Rhinos.
If they had carried on, where they left off last season, we wouldn't have this thread but, they have flopped quite spectacularly.
Saints, under Cunningham are just not firing.
Their squad, on paper looks very good indeed but, Cunningham just hasn't been able to get them to preform as a team.
If you look at Cas and to a lesser extent, Wakefield, they have a coach, who has his team performing way ahead of expectations and Powell is getting close to the maximum possible from his squad.
Cunningham, Anderson, McDermott are getting nowhere near the max from their respective squad's and this has people saying the quality of SL is dropping, it simply isn't the case.
Instead, we have 3 or 4 of the top clubs who are being very patient (rightly so) with under achieving coaches.

With the current structure, although there is the potential of a Championship club gaining promotion, this is less likely to happen with Leeds and Huddersfield included in the Middle 8's but, it will certainly add some interest, when the games come around.

Warrington playing crap on the magic weekend may be a blessing in disguise.

When our bar is part-time RL or a bit part league like the eredivise the game is already lost. The game is managing it's own decline and has managed to convince a certain section of the fan base that this is not only unavoidable but acceptable

You are stating that the decline of Dutch football from the 70s to now is something we should aim for. We aren't even hoping to stand still anymore

Wakefield are making more errors and conceding more penalties this season than 10 years ago.

Agreed.
With our sport being so far behind NRL and Union, in terms of revenue, a small increase in the cap wont do very much at all.
Having said that, the RL PR machine is totally non existent and it's important that we at least put what we have into the public eye.
We are far too insular as a sport and although the tag line "rugby league, the greatest game......." is positive, the only people that see this are current RL fans.
Sky, despite being the sports main sponsor, do very little to help and as far as the national media is concerned, we don't exist.

Well I'm a Cas fan and have said for two years that the standard of SL has fallen. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the brand of rugby we play; I expect to be entertained and I am, but take away my club allegiance and is blatantly obvious that the standard has dropped. Yes, we've got better and others have got worse, but you only have to look at how poor saints and Wigan (and let's be honest; they're awful) and the fact they are still competing in the league highlights how poor the overall standard has become.

No, l'm saying we have to adapt to circumstances and be realistic. As we and other competitions have had to for many decades.

We can flap about, moaning on about how somebody, for some reason, probably incompetence, has failed to find millions of pounds in extra revenue, without giving more than the vaguest or most unrealistic indication as to where it might be found. Or we can accept the reality that the gap to the NRL is currently unbridgeable and develop a model that works for us as well as possible.

Which isn't to say that we shouldn't strive to be successful, just that our potential for revenue generation is significantly lower than the NRL's, for a whole host of reasons, most of which are not the RFL's fault.

The game is the master of its own destiny. I've said it before and I'll say it again. What terrifies people in this game isn't that the NRL and RU are unreachable scares them is that they are. Everything is excusable while NRL and RURAL are some far off monsters operating under different rules but those excuses stop ringing true when we remember that they are not only reachable but beatable.

Our potential is limitless, the only limits are the ones we put in place then blame for our lack of growth. If we do what we need to do growth will come and we can be the biggest rugby comp in the world. Others have shown us the changes that bring growth. The game over here is still refusing to learn, insisting we are different and can't do what works elsewhere

So what are these mystical changes ?

Agreed.

Soccer (Football League/Premier League) and RU have grown and have promotion and relegation (last football play-off for promotion at Wembley on Sky now) (Bristol RU was full for their promotion play off last week). We need a few more years for our Super 8s, Magic weekend and Summer Bash to bed in and grow, just like the Old Trafford Grand Final event has done.

I'm not saying everything is perfect. I agree we have huge potential and hard work and vision is needed to fulfil it.

But I sometimes think people forget how things used to be. Leeds (around the time of the water splash Wembley final) and with that great team struggled to average 5,000 crowds. Now they get 15,000 even though bottom of the league. Old Trafford was full for the World Cup Final in 2013 (Aus v NZ). Didn't we get less than 10,000 at the World Cup Final at Headingley in the early 1970s (even though we were in it)?

More penalties maybe, more errors than 2006 the year we stayed up after a lst day win against Cas - think not.

11.6 errors per game in 2016
10.6 errors per game in 2006