We should mock St Helens at our peril. We were lucky to beat them by 1 point at home the last time we played them.

But a little less lucky the previous three times.

To be fair it was their 'cup final'

I don't remember us being particularly lucky. And I think we are past the point where they can lodge an appeal against the result.

I’m not so sure, think they are currently considering a 16th letter of protest against the 2019 CCF result. Probably likely to approach Trump and Musk to see if they can ‘cancel’ Robert Hicks.

I think you all know what I mean. For all their poor form last season, their worst season in a long time, we beat them by a single drop goal at home in the playoffs.

It shouldn’t have been that.
We allowed them to hit the strap early and get a match wining lead on us.
The comeback is what defines the superior season over Saints.
That effort to beat Saints in the second half, likely affected our next match vs KR.
We ought to have beaten them comfortably, we faced them fatigued.
Our LL and GF was effectively erased not by Saints, kR or Wigan, but by ourselves.
Resting players in a very winnable game v Wigan the week before the CC, and then our last chance with Vaughan’s poor discipline vs Leigh in a game we ought to have put 20 on them.
We must finish 2025 top 2 minimum. 3rd position imo is a failure.

This cost us #1 spot, the LLS and a a home game playoff to make the grand final - then we went and lost the CC Final anyway. I hope we have learnt the lessons and focus on the league points this year. I could not care less about the Challenge Cup.

Realistically we need to finish #1 or #2 to have a real chance at the big prize. This is why I am worried about the usual wire slump when we come back from Vegas.

It is a worry that we play the newly promoted side the week after Vegas, they'll probably be rubbing their hands together at the idea of claiming a scalp. Like you I don't give a stuff about the Cup anymore, even if I enjoyed my day out to Whitehaven, Wembley is very much a "been there, done that" experience now and I haven't enjoyed it as much the last few times (regardless of results!). What concerns me this year is how we will grow, with very little progression from last year as far as the squad goes, it has to be a mentality and coaching improvement. Sadly I don't see us reaching OT. God I hope I'm very wrong.

This is absolutely not down to the RFL. I’m a huge critic of the RFL on all sorts of things. But this is a -up entirely made in Salford.

They hid their financial problems last season to ensure that they wouldn’t be replaced with the img rankings. Then, when there was no way of replacing them, they effectively held a gun to the RFL’s head by demanding a £500k advance immediately or they’d fold and leave us a team short in 2025. When the RFL granted that, it was with conditions. The main one was that, as Salford’s income was way below the salary cap, they could only spend up to that income. The idea was to prevent them folding halfway through the season, and force them to offload some players to reduce the wage bill.

Salford then played a game of chicken where they refused to sell players, because they believed they had a takeover coming which would provide them with a sugar daddy to meet the wages shortfall.

Then last week, they announced the takeover had gone through, but the RFL, having been burned by their dodgy finances just weeks ago, demanded to see the proof, rather than just take Salford’s word for it, and until that proof was provided, the restriction stayed in place.

This is where Salford really jumped the shark into immature petulant amateurism. The £1.2m limit which the RFL had imposed was still enough to allow Salford to field a competitive team. They actually played a competitive team just last week in the Cup. They absolutely could have played the same side this week. But they *chose* not to. The RFL did not force them to play this side. Salford chose to. They could have had a much stronger side out there, but they chose not to. This seems to be entirely because they were trying to once again blackmail the RFL into dropping the restriction with the threat of this embarrassing TV spectacle.

So let’s not allow these pathetic shysters to offload responsibility for this shambles to the RFL. Their financial problems are their own fault. The restrictions are their own fault. The failure to clear those restrictions before the match was their own fault, and their team selection was an unnecessary act of petulance demonstrating utter contempt for Saints and for the game.

Not a serious club. They want to act like ridiculous amateurs, they should play in an amateur division. Boot them out.

A poster on Redvee, he has got that spot on for me.

Rfl have to take responsibility for allowing this shambles to roll on and affect the league.

The whole league is distorted now for the season with this blow out score.

Also a PR disaster on TV.

No wonder the clubs want the RFL chairman out.

Surprised you got the f word past the censor.