Ian Millward [url=http://www.sportinglife.com/rugby-league/news/article/480/9137865/wolves-and-saints-to-dominatethinks[/url we'll finish fifth and struggle without the players we've lost. In his opinion we over achieved last season and if we win anything this year it will be a massive achievement.

Between this nonsense, the renewed optimism of the St Helens fans, the reports coming out of our camp about preseason and new players I really can't wait for the season to start.

For me we'll be right in the mix for trophies but given the WCC might not finish as high up the league as we otherwise could. Wigan, Leeds and Warrington are the only teams with any significant trophy winning experience and I think it will take a lot for anyone to break these teams hold on the silverware. Despite St Helens' signings and Huddersfield's recent improvement I'm not sure they've got enough to get them past these teams.

Oh, and Garry Schofield tipped us as the best team this year in League Express.

The policy of tipping the season's success based on league position is meaningless. Last time we finished 4th and won the double; Leeds, as we have been told time and time again, won the big one twice from 5th.

Agreed that's why I talked about teams trophy chances and it was more Millward's assertions that we overachieved last year and would be outside the main contenders this year that I thought were daft.

Having said that, Millward's logic seems flawed as he is saying that the untried Wire youngsters will push them to the top, yet the Wigan kids who have won 5 of the last 6 titles, will struggle.

Millward tips us to lose almost on a weekly basis in that column. What's more worrying is Schofield backing us, he's obviously trying a reverse psychology tactic!

For me there are 5 main contenders in us, Saints, Wire, Leeds and Hudds with two dark horses in Hull FC and Cats. It's difficult to put those 5 in order because they all have big question marks. We don't know how we'll get on without Tomkins and we don't know our best left edge combo (plus we've got a trip to Sydney), Saints are still a half back short IMO and Walsh is being hyped-up before he's played a game, Wire don't know how they'll get on with without Briers, Morley and Hodgson, Leeds have got a quality backline but are the halves and forwards good enough to allow them to be utilised effectively and Hudds have still got to get rid of the playoff bottlers tag.

To be fair, Walsh is being hyped up due to his performances last season. Anyone voted 7th in the Dally M rankings is doing something right.

Yeh I keep reading that, and he may well be an excellent signing for you. But we've seen so many bigger name Aussies come over here and bomb, I just think some of the hype for Walsh has been a bit premature.

joint 7th with 3 other players. so basically ranked in the top 10 players which is still good. But wasn't tim smith ranked highly the season before he came to Wigan? Some reason he thinks there will be less pressure playing for Saints maybe he will be wrong.

I'm not sure if Tim Smith was ever a top 10 NRL player to be honest, I genuinely don't know.

With regards to the comment about pressure, he was referring to the pressure from the media and the publicity that RL players have over there. He won't have that same problem here.

Regardless of how well saints do next season, there won't be the media attention there is in aus, which is what he doesn't like. Seeing the first couple of interviews with him, I can see why.

You're right in that for every successful NRL signing, there are probably 2 or 3 bad ones. I think most Saints fans are realistic in terms of expectations with Walsh. He has the ability and the credentials to be in top 2 or 3 half-backs in Super League but it may take him a few weeks to settle in.

If he replicates his form from last season in 2014 then he will make a big big difference to us.

Wonder if Brett seymour would agree.