I'm only an occasional poster but read the forums on a regular basis and think the hysteria of how"bad" we are this season has got out of proportion - I have been guilty of the same sadly but I think it's all purely down to frustration of falling short of our (unreasonable??) expectations. By the way I don't think it was unreasonable to think this was OUR year!
So to put things into a bit of perspective of how far we've come;
Remember when
A win over Huyton, Carlisle, etc was greeted like a cup final win
A crowd of 500 was an increase
The club teetered on the brink of extinction
You never thought you'd see an international player in our team again
A 30-40 point loss was thought of as a moral victory and a good result having expected worse.
Cas running a cricket score in (90?) against us
We were the Barracudas!!
You looked at the team and said ""who's he?" and how many times?

I'm sure others will have loads of memories of the lows - which means we should be appreciating these "highs" more than we are - and yes to win something is what we all want and I'm sure it will come - and if it doesn't - remember some of the above and keep on smiling!!
Old Trafford anybody?

Well said Gazza! If it wasnt for consecutive injuries to key players and players like grix trying to fill the void whilst carrying knocks himself then am sure this slump would have been more like a blip.

The biggest difference is expectation !!

There were lots of highs though too.. beating a star studded salford side 20-3 in the cup a malcolm branch hat trick , holding an even better salford side 0-0 at fartown in the cup, beating saints 17-15 with frank davis and ken loxtons classic move baffling them twice.... Adrian Rushtons long range drop goal to beat Fev (then a good side) 18-17, the famous 9-6 10 man v 10 man win over Wigan when Tony Johnsons career was almost ended with all the head shots he took and many others difference was then they were more rare.... more downs than up.... I missed very few matches home and away in the bad days too... Huyton blackpool Borough mansfield Marksmen Kent Invicta Runcorn Highfield but I enjoyed it no less as support is forever..... the thing i hated worst was the Barracudas song and dance before the match bloody awful !!!!!

I remember only too well the dark days when a win or even coming within 20 - 30 points of the opposition was a bonus in front of a crowd of 200 -300 at Fartown.
At least present day we can go into a game knowing that if we lose it will have been a close game.

In recent years, remember when we beat saints (32-20?), it seems since that day it's been up up up!

ah but ken davy wants us to be the best team in super league

whats been served up in recent months by the giants is rubbish, good job ken has his sights aimed high unlike some fans who will just settle for the oh so nearly

but were not allowed to talk about nostalgia or the dark days ...!

Ken said at the most recent forum that he wanted the Giants to be the best team in Yorkshire, then when we are established as such, who knows what we will be capable of?

Hes in good company then --no sweat !

Some of us have wanted that since we were!!(some having posted above !!)

So --onwards and upwards!!

and hes said that this objective has been achieved now.. (radio leeds interview a few weeks ago)

so its onto the next one of being the best in super league in the next 5 years

I for one am not falling for that one this time.

let's be happy over the next 5 years with a top 6 finish and a quarter-final appearance in the C/C.

That's expectations set so none of us can be either accused of getting carried away or expecting too much.

The ones with the so called inside info won't be able to post how we are getting to the players with our negativity and expectations of thinking after Brown's 3 years in charge we may have actually won something.

Lets not forget his contract runs out at end of next season so come June/July we will have all the will he wont he stay saga all over again and a dip in form.

Sorry if anyone thinks I appear negative but need a trophy to gee me up again, when was the last proper trophy? SL/Championship or Challenge Cup?

It has been far too long when the likes of Wakefield (championship 1966–67, 1967–68, C/C 1962–63) and Castleford ( C/C 1968–69, 1969–70, 1985-86)have won either major trophy more recently than us!!!!

Not trying to be negative just realistic, the above are facts and to be Yorkshires no1 team will need silverware, cos if you ask anyone at the moment they would still say Leeds, shocking as they have been this season.

We as fans may not deserve better but I am damn sure Ken Davy deserves so much more after the money he has pumped into the club, not sure if he will get his wish in the next 5 years though?.

spot on..

careful though your going to upset a few posters on here

Sorry guys although I do agree with a lot of this if we finish 4th this year we will have gone 3rd, 5th, 4th in the last three years. So top 4'ish is now the standard set and we have achieved this with all the said blips....

I posted before the Cas match that the CC should have been our goal this season I still maintain we 'blew' it at Cas but would have murdered Leeds in the semi if they had played as poorly Cas snatched defeat from the 'jaws' of Victory.

In effect the two trophies on offer if you discount the 1st place hubcap... are both knockout tournaments one with an open draw the other the equivalent to the seeding at Tennis. Top teams get an advantage but can still go out....

To win the CC you can play three championship teams and two superleague teams of any position or many other combinations thereof.

In the play offs you have to in theory to beat one or both of the top two teams one of them twice to win it. The CC is hence the most possible trophy for us to win.....

However had we won the games away against four of the bottom five clubs we would have finished 3rd this season and unless the 'Wire' pull a rabbit out of the hat sunday we will play wigan whereas 3rd we would have played 'Wire' and on this seasons meetings with only LOD out and with Morley and Westwood out I would take us to win one out of two at Warrington as I believe we will improve again over the next few weeks and get close to earlier season form...

not sure how we just gonna turn the early season form back on just like that, is there a magic switch somewhere?

As for beating Leeds in the semi's I don't think we would have been realistic, we couldn't beat cas as they wanted it more, so why would we have beaten Leeds?

Same in play offs, watching Hull tonight destroy Cas and Hull KR winning away in France, 2 things we failed to do!!! We may struggle tbh, might scrape a home win but god forbid if we have to play away anywhere!!!!

We probably have the worse form of any of the top 8 teams currently, injuries can not be an excuse cos we have the biggest squad and every other team had to deal with the same issues.

It'll come good, dont worry...