I agree, think warrington & wigan will battle it out for the next few years. Closely followed by saints....rhinos, catalans, giants, fc & kr will fight for 4th place.

When they are put out against each other man for man then I have to agree with the Wire fan that says I wouldn't take any Huddersfield player ahead of ours. I would take some Huddersfield players into the Warrington squad but I think head to head our best against your best, I reckon our players have the edge in every position.

Yes maybe people are always a bit biased towards their own players but we won 11 and lost 2 of our last 13 games; Huddersfield won 4 and lost 9 of their last 13 games. The last game Huddersfield played was against us and we won 47-0. So it's not unfounded bias from Wire fans to say our squad is stronger.

I would say man for man warrington have you. With brough being the exception if he can be bothered.

But that all comes from past form. Everyone will be a few months further on in their careers. Knocks and bumps are part and parcel of the game but in the end they take a toll on a player. Cunningham at the end was not the cunningham of 5 seasons before, even if he was still better than most.

The point being past form and talent do not tell the future. No one would have predicted Wigan only needed to change the coach and add Deacon to win SL. So you can run into the next season with the same side and a fresh attitude and turn things around.

Games arnt won on paper this player is better than that player etc, lets just see how it all pans out.

Just hoping we dont go down the pan,- and pick up some silverware!!

Yeh look at Batley in the cup. They nearly pulled our pants down

The point that i was trying to make is that the top six teams have relatively strong squads and each 'big' game is affected by injuries and what team each club can put on the field at any one time.

Also the referee can affect a game as we saw in the Wire play off game, sure Warrington were far the better team and would have won anyway but Gansons 'reffing' and interpretation of the rules on that night helped Wire more than us. A week later he reffed using a completely different interpretation at the play the balls.

In Huddersfields case we had to field a severely weakened team at Castleford in the Cup Q/F and our tank was empty late in the season when it came to the play offs. In an odd way all Leeds early season injury woes meant that they got fresh players back for the challenge cup and play offs hence on hindsight they went into the business end of the season probably the freshest team of all the top eight.

The fact that in the close season or towards the end of the season Robinson, Brough, Lunt, Fa'alago, O'Donnell, Crabtree who were our big players all had operations and some will miss the first few weeks of this season tells its own story for me. Also despite the 'appalling' performance against Warrington 0-47 and being on the verge of a 'flogging' at home to Leeds with 20 minutes to go we still nearly managed to come back from 10-32 and were within a dropped pass of levelling the game and Leeds were hanging on at the end so somewhere deep down we proved we had character which is the difference in a tight game between the top teams.

One final Xmas wish a big 'nasty' prop which would further enhance our squad with the Simpson money !! now please not later in the season !!

We all want a prop. There are just none available of any quality. Takes a long time to develop a prop hence clubs starting to look to the championship in tony tonks and chris hill to fill their ranks. In the past we raided the NRL for these props but the new federation rules has stopped this.

our starting 17 match anyone....so much is down to injuries now

we have a spare 'quota'/non fed spot so we could take an NRL forward

its not going to happen we are going to go with what we have, changing out style of play this year with a mobile pack and giving the young props a chance

if all fails then maybe we can then dip into the nrl market for a forward

This issue is you may have the space in terms of a federation spot, but do you have the space on the cap? The NRL budget is massive now, so it's not as simple as finding an NRL prop. A prop in the NRL may make more money being a water carrier each week than he could being in the starting 13 week in and week out in SL. So although the federation ruling came in to stop teams filling up on overseas via passports and EU rulings, effectively the change in $/£ and the new NRL contract may have lead to the situation where we can not fill up teams on overseas imports any more.

I think we had space on the cap, but not on the fedaration ruling, we've been looking for a prop and some said we where within touching distance of one but he chose elsewhere.