Two years ago we finished third and lost to saints and catalans. Last year we finished 5th beat Crusaders, beat warrington and narrowly lost to saints we were 19 minutes off the grand final. This year we have finished fourth we have lost one and have to play leeds or catalans. In fairness two years ago we reached the Challenge cup final and played extra matches.

The point i am making is we looked shattered two years ago, last year we were full of running and this year we look shattered again. However two years ago we had injuries to key players and suspended Mason and Moore this year we have injuries to key players.

So has playing players injured to try finish first or second and bringing them back early from injury mason, brough o'donnell fa'alago for example caused further injuries and ultimately led to us arriving at the business end of the season shot and with major players missing?

Earlier in the season we beat anyone and everybody Warrington twice, hammered St Helens at home, Hull away leeds away Hull KR away hammered catalans, at halifax. So apart from wigan we have beaten all the top 8 teams.

So would protecting Robbo, sorting out Lunty, giving players extra time to really recover from injury have made a difference? we will never know but it provokes an interesting thought process.

In such a big squad we seem reliant on certain players they don't play we don't play! last year we had a smaller squad but looked fitter happier and and played far better in the latter half of the season!

Any more thoughts down this line ??

A big squad , largest in super league, but nb did not have faith in the ability of the lower ranking ones. Hence over dependency on main men. Next year we need fewer squad players but higher quality 'replacements'.

If you agree with the above, it fuels the debate of who's decision it was/ is on what players we sign...Nathans or the board etc

It should be Nathans , as it is obvious this year he did not think some of squad were good enough, and that seems waste of sal cap.

Just for the record, last year we had around 6 players out injured for almost every game of the season. Hardly a match went by without a serious/semi-serious injury. We used to go on about how other teams had their injury situations highlighted but we never got a mention.

for me its a combination of things this year, injuries have definately had an effect, an over zealous trainer also seems to be a significant factor from what ive heard from certain players at the club and also too much quantity and nowhere near enough quality in the squad, we should do what saints do and have about 22 top class 1st teamers and fill the rest of the squad with young lads trying to break through. On a different angle on finishing 4th cant for the life of me see what benefit you get for finishing there, tough away match at the minor premiers followed by a tough match at home against a side who have played the lowest ranked side left in surely no real benefit in that for me.

Catalans result last night speaks volumes. They bust a gut to avoid finishing 4th.(Home loss to HKR to clinch it). Hit the play offs with an "easy" home game, go away next week with a 50 pt win under your belt to a side that got beat this week. Got to be a better route than ours.