But at the end of the season, you actually play the team that won the final. Where was Hopoate, one of the best players in the NRL? Furthermore, doesn't your argument show a flaw in any final? Why should any side perform all season, only to lose the chance of being a champion when they're tired at the end? If we're to claim it a match between the 'world's best sides', then it should be the sides that won them their respective championships. Would last night's result have been different if Manly had Hopoate, or Robertson? You never know, but you would if it was played at the season's end.

Either way, if they don't play it at the season's end, it should be done during the season so the Aussies can at least be fit for it.

Hopoate isn't around for the next 2 years. He's gone to be a Mormon Missionary!

Hmmmmm, I think Sally was upto his usual trick of laying out a little bait and waiting for a bite...

His argument was one that many Wire fans were using when we got dumped out the play-offs by a Leeds side that bore little resemblence, form-wise, to what they had been for the 27 game league season.

Exactly.

Well played Leeds. A champion side over the last 5 years and one which we must seek to emulate and better.

that is the problem, as i was debating with an aussie mate, whilst the format is still as it is, the SL team 'can't win'.

would love to see another world club challenge type think, I think we as a league would go slightly better than last time but on a level playing field we'd find it hard playing the NRL teams

Wrong. No default about it. Wire were magnificent all regular season and rightly won THE LEAGUE LEADERS SHIELD. Our competition is such that the winners of the GF are crowned Champions. We only played by the rules and won the right to be called CHAMPIONS by timing form to coincide with the important games in the season ie the CC and GF.

I'm sure Tony Smith and his staff will learn from last season and make an even better attempt at earning the right to be called Champions. I think that the Wire team last year were the greatest team not to win the GF in SL history. Good luck this year (runners up to the Rhinos?).

I wonder if we have been overrated, or overrated ourselves.

It's not as though we ran away with the league title, we finished one point ahead of a Wigan side which won't go down as one of the all time greats, it was a Wigan side that had patchy form.

I reckon the greatest SL team not to win the GF is between Wigan of 2000 and Saints of 2005, both those teams finished 3 points clear at the top, and would have probably beaten our team of 2011. I know we had a good backline last year but that Wigan side for instance had Radlinski, Robinson, Renouf, Connolly and Dallas as its backs.

I don't think you were overrated. Your points difference showed the huge gulf between you and Wigan in second.
On top of that you played a much more attractive brand of rugby than anyone else.
Behind that Saints and Leeds struggled with injuries for much of the season and were never in the running to top the league. There was however a touch of 'greatness' about the way they finished the season.

Wire were by some distance the best team over the course of last year. I don't think this qualifies as 'all-time' greatness though...I think you have to win plently over a longer period of time to earn that title.

(and I think you're probably right about Wigan 2000)

Well for points difference we had the biggest ever in SL. The other two teams to finish a season with points differences over 600 being Bradford in 2001 and Leeds in 2005 (who didn't even top the league!).

I think the accolade we can claim, is that out of any team ever in SL, Warrington in 2011 were the best at steamrollering a side when we had control of the game, a lot of teams last season got demoralised when they were playing us, and we went on runs where we scored off every set or every other set. Other great teams in the past have gone into second gear when they were ahead, but Warrington were merciless, even right up till the playoff against a strong Huddersfield side, we smashed them 47-0.

Against that, the other reason why I'd hold off on talking up our greatness, was that last year was not the strongest in terms of competition. Go back to say 2005 and you had a superbly consistent Saints team, a Leeds team probably at its peak under Tony Smith in terms of the quality of rugby it was playing, and a Bradford team that was an absolute juggernaut at the end of the season, plus you had Hull being strong under John Kear, it was a very strong league at the top. Last year Wigan and Saints weren't quite what they were, Leeds were badly out of sorts till the end of the season.

Warrington finished 4th in 2005, but if you transported last season's team to 2005 I wonder if we'd have finished any higher....maybe nudged the Bulls out of 3rd, but I don't know if we'd have won the league. Actually it would have been interesting to see if Tony Smith's Warrington of 2011 were better than Tony Smith's Leeds of 2005....it would be close.

A great team can only be crowned "A great team" if they win trophies. Sport is all about handling the pressure, the occassion and holding your nerve......as well as having the skill.

The skill alone will help you win on a sunday afternoon in front of 8,000 fans to claim 2 points......

To win trophies - the previous needs to be achieved.

Thats what IMO Leeds need to do to take themselves to the next level, learn to win when they are under pressure at the big occasion of Wembley in front of 80000 fans, it's something Warrington did well but Leeds for all their fine record in other games, have seemed to fall short when it really counts. Lets hope that before the golden generation of Sinfield, Burrow, McGuire and all retire they can emulate Warrington's feats and become a great team.

Early frontrunner for post of the season!

I may be an absolute heretic here, but I want Leeds to win the CC this year, and would possibly even swap that for being Champions again. Thankfully they aren't mutually exclusive (although the double is getting harder IMO).

Just on standards, as somebody who watches NRL and SL, I'd say that SL was getting a bit stale in 2008/09 - quite possibly reflected in the quality of the GFs in those two years. Thankfully Wigan, Wire and to a degree Huddersfield have improved significantly whilst Leeds and Sts have probably stayed about the same standard.

The real problems with SL are the absolutely dismal quality of the bottom 4/5 teams, and - unforgiveably to me - the way far too many sides fall apart completely when they go behind (including Leeds last year vs Wire at home). As Tony Smith said, that doesn't help anybody. You do see big scores in the NRL, but nothing like as often as SL. There seems to be a real lack of pride in performance at some teams - or should that be every team? - every now and then.