Personally I think the eights are done & dusted for part one.

The conundrum for me is who'll finish where. Cas & Leeds will make the top four but as to where the other six will finish, I couldn't call it.

Of the bottom four I think Catalans are the most at risk, there just seems to be no fight in the squad, maybe their new coach can rectify the malaise.

Ask anyone that has watched SL over the last 15 years.

Or how about asking people who don't support Wigan, Saints and Leeds?

Yes your right but I was saying before today's result, mathematically Warrington could still have caught us if they won all remaining 6 games and we lost all remaining games. Same with Catalan

after this weekend's games the top 5 like they have qualified. saints and wigan look likely but no means certain (saints v hudds 'extra' match looks more important now, and wigan need to break their losing run). looks more likely to be 4 of widnes, leigh, wire, hudds and catalan, but as mentioned above always the intriguing possibility of someone else getting dragged into it

And Wire, Huddersfield, London, Bradford, Hull KR, Catalans and Widnes?

The current bottom 4's points differences are very bad compared to Hudds, Wigan & Saints so that acts like an extra point they need to make up. Widnes and Leigh have done ok the last few weeks to pick up a couple of wins but think they've left it too late to escape.

Warrington and Catalans look broken ATM and tough to see them doing better than Hudds in the remaining games. If Catalans get a new coach in ASAP it could shake things up. Even if they don't avoid the bottom 4 these two teams at least need to find a bit of form to take into the Middle 8's otherwise it'll be a lot trickier than they think. You don't yet how the fixtures will pan out and if you get one of the harder ones first up and lose it will definitely add pressure and nerves.

I can't really see Catalans and Warrington winning 4 out of the 5 remaining games to escape the demotion to the middle 8's. Leigh and Widnes would need to win 5 out of 5 and thats not going to happen. Saints and Huddersfield have improved a bit and should win a couple more games to get near 20 pts, likewise Wigan who will have some players back from there injury crisis.

Leigh's next 4 games are all against the teams around them , albeit all away , Widnes,Cats,Warrington then Giants , we feel all are potential wins , 18 points could be enough this year IMO

In 2006 Hull reached the grand final. They were beaten by a St Helens side that many would regard as the greatest in the SL era. The Hull side of 2016/17 is imo superior to the 2006 vintage yet last year we didnt make the GF and currently sit 4th.

Its a different style of rugby these days, alot of people don't think its changed for the better, and they may have a point. The quality however hasn't fallen. Thats just something the fans of what were top clubs like to trot out to make them feel better about now being mediocre.

Are injuries affecting SL more than in the past ?

I doubt it. Hudds only need to win 2 of 6 to get to 18 and have a much better points difference.

You could pick up a few wins and enter the Middle 8's in decent form though and you know what that competition is all about compared to some of the others so I think you could be fine getting through it.

I'd say definitely so. In the last 3/4 seasons nearly every team has a bad patch with up to 7/8 first teamers missing chunks of games. It simply wasn't like that 10 years ago, you might have gotten maybe 2/3 teams with really bad injury runs.

Catalans remind me of Salford last season, they seem in total free fall, and all the top teams in the Championship are going to be going into the 8s in great form, and they seem stronger than the top 4 of last season. I'd be very worried if I was a Catalans fan.

Agree with this. I have sympathy with the argument that it's not as good to watch as, say, 10 years ago but I'd very much disagree with the argument that the quality has fallen.