And on the flip side, down the years local rivals have not done bad taking on players deemed dead wood at Leeds.

Whilst in one aspect true, if Wakey are £450k UNDER the cap that works out at and average of £22,500k per player for your top 20 players. That’s a significant amount that they wouldn’t ignore if they could be getting near or more than that elsewhere from a club that can afford it.

Why is everybody underrating last year's Challenge Cup winner?

Possibly because they let one of if not the most influential player in Drinkwater leave and have replaced them with Matty Smith. Also they don't travel well.

Because they've never played well for a full season. In fact, many years they haven't played well ALL season.

I really like Catalans but they haven't recruited well so far, their "best" 17 IMO is average and as previously said they have never consistently performed all season. Fantastic achievement in winning the CC though.

Full Back – Sam Tomkins

Wing – Jodie Broughton
Centre – Brayden Wiliame
Centre – Tony Gigot
Wing – David Mead

Stand off – Samisoni Langi
Scrum Half – Matty Smith

Prop – Sam Moa
Hooker – Michael McIlorum
Prop – Remi Casty
Second Row – Kenny Edwards
Second Row – Ben Garcia
Loose – Greg Bird

Because whilst their SF and Final performances were very good they came in a several week purple patch, will need more than that to make the top 5.

Points wise I think to get 5th teams are going to need around 32/34 points at least. That’s probably 10-12 home wins and 5-7 away wins.

As always injuries will play a big part on where teams finish, who gets how many we can’t predict.

1&2 St Helens & Warrington

Very open for the next lot imo.

3 - 9 Cas, Wigan, Leeds, Catalan, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Hull

10 Hull KR

11 Salford

12 London

It's very open for the coming season, and the rule changes may help to make it more so.

You didn't name a full 17, which is misleading because they have a strong bench, with Julien Bousquet and Kenny Edwards coming off it.

The team, based upon Steven McNamara's past choices, is more likely to be:

Full Back – [iAntoine Gigot [/i

Wing – [iJodie Broughton[/i
Centre – [iBrayden Wiliame[/i
Centre – [iDavid Mead[/i
Wing – [iLewis Tierney[/i

Stand off – [iSamuel Tomkins[/i
Scrum Half –[i Matthew Smith [/i

Prop – [iSamuel Moa[/i
Hooker – [iMichael McIlorum[/i
Prop – [iRemi Casty[/i
Second Row – [iBenjamin Jullien[/i
Second Row – [iBenjamin Garcia[/i
Loose – [iGregory Bird[/i

Interchange: [iJulien Bousquet, Antoni Maria, Kenny Edwards, Jason Baitieri[/i

Reserves: [iSamisoni Langi, Alrix da Costa[/i

That is not an average team but a very impressive team, worthy of at least a top five place.

Because I've never met a poor bookie and they have Catalan at 16/1 to win SL, the 7th longest odds.....below Saints, Warrington, Wigan, Castleford, FC and Leeds.

I also think they will be nowhere near the Play-offs because Catalan lost 5 from 7 in the S8's, or if you prefer, Lost 17 from 30 with a win ratio of a mere 43%for the entire SL & 8"s campaign 2018.

See....that's a statistical evaluation based on their form last year as well as the predictions of the Bookmakers across the UK and not a blind and constant inane effort to wind up the English by someone who is not French pretending to be French and bigging up anything that isn't English.

Catalans had a divided season. First half they were awful. Second half they came good, very good. One should look at the more recent form, not the form over the entire season.