But, I'm finally done. I'll come back on here in 10 yrs and we can discuss how the board are wonderful, Fitzpatrick is a w*nker and how the 2034 GF win is surely a given now we've coaxed Bevin French out of retirement.

A break may well do you some good. You have clearly reached the point where there is no joy in watching the team (it has certainly been tough at times), but more importantly can’t see any positives at all. Hopefully performances over the next couple of years encourage you not to stay away for 10 years.

I tell you what's weird, look back at the season on paper - and I stress, on paper - and it really doesn't look that bad for long periods.
Superb win against Leeds to start, then an away win over a fancied Huddersfield. A gutsy comeback victory against Salford, then a win at Craven Park, which is always tough. A home win against Leigh, which looks better now than it did then, a 38-0 win at Castleford, an away success at Catalans.
Anyone who says 'we had a good start but we had easy fixtures' is underplaying it a bit, I think.
Sadly, our confidence never recovered from those back-to-back defeats against Wigan and Saints. The following game we played Wakefield at home, when Wakey were at their lowest, and we struggled to a win. Then a few weeks later the McGuire situation happened and the wheels just fell off completely (including somehow losing that Challenge Cup quarter-final at Wigan).
The nadir was losing 42-6 at Wakey, which made Powell's position untenable, and the following week we were poor again at home to Catalans. But after that, the performances and results did pick up a bit. We should have won at Leeds, did win at Hull FC, thrashed Castleford (yeah, I know, big wow), won at Huddersfield and gave Saints two hard games.
But now, getting back to what I said at the start about the season not seeming that bad on paper. The truth is that even when we were winning, most of us could see that we were still not good enough to be contenders, and that's where this club has to judge itself. Despite those positive early results, we have ended up mired in mediocrity yet again, and the sense of apathy that seems to have settled over most of us fans should be a huge concern to the club. It's galling because the league is so poor at the moment, we don't even need to be that good to be contenders. Saints are a rank average side this year and were there for the taking but we couldn't do it.
Do I have optimism for next season? Hard to say at this stage. I am more intrigued than anything, such is the gamble with Burgess. I hope it pays off, obviously. But as ever with Wire, it's the hope that kills you.

An awful lot has already been written about the Powell era, and I don’t really have anything new to say about it.
The Chambers era has showed that we capable of playing “steady” rugby. The eternal optimist in me sees that as a good building block for next season. Interesting that we have 2 former centres on the coaching staff. Quite what will change as a result remains to be seen. What is undeniable is that we have offered little attacking threat from centre this year with SR and my bete noire PM.
I know many on here don’t like plucky defeats, but given where we were when DP left the 2 games against Saints hint at green shoots of recovery and that’s how I see it. As ever it’s the hope that kills, but as Wire fans would we be without it?

Excellent post. I'd only add that I was never confident, before, or during, those games against Wigan and Saints, even when we were in front. The victories at Catalans were never built on, as they should have been the bar in performance level that we ought to have strived to reach in each and every game. The truth is that our performance levels over the season, just weren't any where near consistently good enough.

Sometimes you just have to look at stats ... which takes away emotions. The obvious ... we didn't perform as we'd hoped. We finished 6th rather than 11th in 2022 above Toulouse. It really was much worse in 2022. This season we finished above Leeds, Hull & Huddersfield ... who spend the same as us & had equally high expectations as Wire. Let's look forward to next season when we will, once again, have some new bodies.

you'll be back in pre season, you're a junkie, like the rest of us, you can't stay away from it.

That's an excellent observation and where I am at I think. I am only tied to Wire due to nostalgia and happy memories from times long gone of watching with my family and mates.

Perfect way to summarise 2023

Indeed. I'd like nothing more than to give this shower up but it's never going to happen, season ticket might be a thing of the past but I'll be coming back. Hard as it is I'm weirdly glad I support Wire rather than the Celtic/Rangers - Wigan/Saints easy passionless life.

If we do finally win it it will compare with the wonderful 'Sunshine on Leith' scenes Hibs fans experienced after their Scottish cup win.

We'd never be leaving a GF early if we were about to win.

The trouble is for us that we will still have to many mediocre players next year who have left the side down this season and are simply not good enough.

Ratchford, Drinkwater, Kasiano, Currie these 4 will all be starting next year which corners me greatly.

Can't see Ratchford starting, Currie simply won't be allowed to come up with such heartless displays with Burgess in charge and I'm praying we ship Drinkwater on or, at least, put him below Hayes in the pecking order. Kasiano can still be a dangerous weapon if used correctly.

Highly likely none of the above will happen though and mediocrity will reign again.

This is why I'm not optimistic for the next couple of years. The situation now is a long term rebuild we can't just turnover the squad in one season like Powell did. We messed up by signing a lot of players who we now would rather be rid of.

This season has seen some poor quality right across the board.
That’s why we were able to still finish 6th!

That is why I’m as hopeful as ever for 2024, the only team building and buying well other than ourselves, is Wigan.

To be fair I think Hull KR have done a decent job with their recruitment for next year.
And if Salford do manage to sign Brodie Croft that would be an improvement.