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.

That's what I thought initially be AUOP makes a valid point, 40 and 38 points was 4th was loads of room to spare, we don't necessarily have to be 4th with loads of room to spare, just 4th by 1 point would do

We should still be targeting 1st never mind settling for 4th.

No team will want to finish first if we finish 4th.

Wrong, Saints would

Boom!!

Do people think Bateman will play at Centre while Gelking and Gildart are out?

Any news on Sam Powell?