Hill - no pre season
Ratchford - no pre season
Sandow - left pre season (unexpected)
Brown - no pre season (with us)
Patton - rumored personal issues
Currie - out injured most of season
Crosby - extreme personal issues
Dwyer - fall out from 2016 and subsequent form dip
Hughes - extreme unexpected form dip
T King - repeat injuries

Have we been through a perfect storm?

Keep hearing/reading people ask what is so different between 16 and 17 seasons with such little change.
Could it just be that we have suffered some horrendous bad luck over the past 8/9 months which has left us so imbalanced through the season rather than any fundamental club issue? Particularly points 1,2,3 and 4 sprinkled with the rest.

Probably not a popular post but its an alternative view. No, it doesn't answer the questions about Russell and Hughes continuing as first choice but can't deny we've have some bad or unfortunate luck.

Yes we have had some bad luck. But if this season was all down to what is stated above, then how does that explain the decline since 2013?

2016 was a poor quality season for the league overall, and we happened to start very well and build on that confidence with the spark of Sandow, who was unplayable for the first two months. You wouldn't normally see that quality in Super League these days, and I hope Ben Barba doesn't do it for Saints.

What's needed is a fresh start. We could have the best pre-season ever before next year and we'd still probably not have the spark (despite the quality in the squad) to finish in the top four. Although for some on here that would be classed as a success based on the fact we finished higher than 2017.

I was just about to say similar to what easyWire said; I think last season was us overachieving due to the treble winners from the year before imploding, Wigan and Cas having loads of injuries and Hull taking their eye off the ball after Wembley... overall we've been on a decline since the 2012 GF. We managed to challenge the year after but I dot think we were anywhere near the side from 2010-12 even in '13. But then in the four years since then we've been consistently average for me. Last season I wasn't particularly impressed with our style of play or number of high quality performances yet we were a Ben Currie and Ryan Atkins reach away from winning the treble ourselves - that doesn't say much for the rest of the league last year.

This season isn't the bad one, it was last season that was the anomaly

Your squad is rubbish. if you go back 5 or 6 years then pretty much every club in SL would have taken most of your 1st choice 17 players and it would have improved their team. Now, there are maybe 3 or 4 players in your squad which you could say the same about. The landscape has changed and throwing money around just doesn't work in the current climate where astute player sourcing and assembly of a decent squad rather than a couple of headline players is the key to success. cas have been the masters of this under powell and he has turned average players into quality ones and brought together a squad where the team is better than you'd expect given the individual players in it.

Your recruitment has been poor which allied to smith's hands off approach and the growing influence of the completely useless agar (where are his 2 former teams now?) which is the real perfect storm at wire.

I'm amazed that someone as obviously astute as moran has allowed his club to decline so dramatically

You missed out Cooper being a massive let down this season too.

We're about to come good. We will make 8th spot on the last game. Then we will win in the final. Now then Wire Men let's be having you!

YOU ARE CUCKOO
Ninth on 18 pts
A drubbing at Wakefield and another at The DW.
This has been a season to forget, roll on 2018.

Of course throwing money around works: how many players who play for Cas Hull and Salford have been bought? And they're the top three sides this season

We have to survive the threat of relegation first! Let's forget 2017 once top-flight status is assured and a new coaching structure is in place. So probably not for a few seasons.

Really good point, there’s definitely something in that. I look forward to them all proving everyone wrong next season. Defo sick of all the moaning, looking forward to the middle8s and some close games against opposition of a similar standard, we’re not good enough this season for the top 8.

I do also wonder how many people, who live locally, have witnessed a number of our players out and about, not exactly behaving like professional athletes, like I have, this season.

If results had gone our way, would anyone care?

Good luck to all of them, I’ll be back next season no matter what.

Always raises its head when teams are doing poorly on the field. The players were out in Stockton Heath plenty last season, never really got a mention, just because they are losing games, you can't expect them to turn in to hermits. As long as they are sticking to club protocol in terms of when they can and cant go out there shouldn't be an issue

I often wonder why professional sportsmen have the need to drink alcohol during the season. I bet you wouldn't find real athletes having some beers in Stockton Heath a week before competition. Sinfield never touched it during the season. As for cocaine use - crazy

I agree although Rugby of both codes more than most sports I can think of seem to view having a beer as part and parcel of the game. Whether that view has changed in RU since they 'came out' I've no idea?

Plenty of footballers go on nights out, they just go to the places the plebs cant afford or aren't on the guest list so see nothing.

At same time, nothing to say the sportsperson is drinking alcohol on night out. Many people don't.

there's having a beer and then there's having a beer. Professional sportsmen and women at the top of their game know where the line is and they have the personal, in-built motivation and desire to succeed that means they never cross the line.

However, some people need keeping on the straight and narrow to allow them to fulfill their own potential. Having a team full of these folks is a recipe for mediocrity and failure (the drinking culture model). Having one or two questionable characters (usually the most talented) is usually OK as long as they are managed properly by strong leaders. (see Lee Briers).