the thing is, we werent that entertaining for the majority of the season. we had a good run from april to the middle of june and since weve been decidedly underwhelming. oh well.

So as an outsider, if you had the choice, would you rather start 2013 with this years team or the one you have ready for next year?

I haven't voted for one of the options as I don't think they are the only ways a club can manage the season. Warrington have had a season very similar to ours, very consistent and entertaining during the league rounds but they have won the CC and may yet win the GF too. I would rather have had a season like theirs where we were consistently good and backed it up in the games that mattered most (much like our seasons in 2010 and 2011).

We have had seasons where we were poor in the league but good in knockout games (barring SFs unfortunately) under Noble and they were dire, getting to a final wouldn't have made them or the rugby we played during them any better IMO. I would just have been annoyed that we didn't bother to try until the end of the year just as I was without winning the SFs in those seasons.

The defeat at Widnes early in the campaign (and probably the subsequent criticism from some fans) seems to have gone a long way to dictating the course of our season. Up to that point SW was stating that he would rest players in readiness for tough games later on (IIRC he had stated that not resting them and going all out in all games was a mistake Madge had made) to prevent burning out as happened in 2011.

After the Widnes game although he said he would rest key players again he very rarely did and slipped into the approach of going all out for the LLS. Again the squad got burned out and we dropped off in the last portion of the season and did not have enough left when it actually mattered. Tony Smith at Warrington learned from the same situation and after falling away and getting nothing but the LLS in 2011 he adapted his approach, and still got a high league position and at least one trophy this year. Hopefully SW will also learn from this year and not repeat the same errors next year.