Doom and gloom merchants are out again

Wane said Sam will be another 6-8 weeks, surely not! Sam just been asked on BBC and he said he's running better now and is about a month off but doesn't want to rush it.

Really nasty looking arm injury for Sarginson in the NRL yesterday. The injury jinx follows you around!

After today's game SW has said Williams, O'Loughlin and Leuluai are all in contention for next week. That would be a real bonus if they're all genuinely fit!

Yep, and no new injuries from today's game!

That must be the first in a while without injuries!

Keeping everything crossed we can get the likes of Tomkins, Bateman and Gildart back before the cup game but that maybe optimistic.

Some of the comments on here are a bit doom and gloom, but then again it's the same every year, especially last year. Don't understand why we can't win a SL game in May, it's Magic Weekend next week where we have a great record and some bodies back, then Saints who at the minute are very low on confidence followed by Wakey at home.

I'm not saying we will win them all but don't understand the overly pessimistic comments. I strongly believe by the end of the year we will be there or there abouts.

If you are ever feeling full of beans, and unbearably chipper!!! This is the place to come to bring yourself down to earth with a bang..

Yeah, can't disagree with any of that. Frankly, we won't play Cas every week (and whether they can maintain their good form remains to be seen), and there's nothing special about the rest of them.

I think everyone will feel a bit more optimistic now we know Williams will be back, Lockers and Leuluai could be back and Sam Powells injury isn't too bad.

Last week it seemed like there was every chance we'd go to Magic with Gregson and Joel Tomkins in the halves. They did a manful job yesterday but it wouldn't win us a game at superleague level.

It's a big couple of weeks coming up. Get a couple of wins and we're bang in contention.

These next two games against Wire then Saints are massive in terms of our chances of making the top 4. If we lose them both, we could only afford to lose two more games through the rest of the season, with Castleford, Hull FC (twice) Leeds (twice), Warrington and Saints still to play against.

Last season Saints came fourth with twenty wins and ten defeats, but Cas were in fifth place with fifteen wins, a draw and fourteen defeats. Cas were also in fifth place in 2015 with a record of 16 wins and 14 defeats.

I had thought along the same lines as you, that we can only afford to lose 9 or 10 games to get in the top four however we need only be better than fifth place by a smaller margin than in the last two seasons. All of which is a ham-fisted way of saying that 12 or 13 defeats might still be okay.

I hadn't looked at it that way before actually, I feel a bit more confident knowing it might only take 33 points. 9 from the next 17 is very manageable even if we lose the next couple.

I'd be very surprised if 33 points is enough to get anybody 4th spot. You'd need one of the current top 4 to lose 10/11 of their remaining 17 games for that 33 to be good enough.

4th place has finished on 40 points last year and 38 the year before. Thats the kind of numbers teams should be looking at realistically.