just take Walmsley out and they look very beatable...

Like in 2018 when he broke his neck and we finished top of the league and arguably should have won it if not for limit capacity for choking in big games under Holbrook? (Something people often forget in saying Woolf Saints look weaker than Holbrook Saints?)

Walmsley gets the flashy runs no doubt, but as others have said, it has always been built on previous momentum built by Makinson, Grace, Naiqama and Percival, who invariably make good yards and momentum flying into tackles 1 and 2.

Walsmley is very often the cherry on top rather than the whole pie. That’s not to say he isn’t an important player to us, but it doesn’t necessarily change us missing him.

Since I’m here, it’s also a mistake to suggest we were particularly lucky with injuries over the course of 2021. It’s something that’s banded about quite a bit but conveniently overlooks us missing Fages and Bentley to season ending injuries, and us having injuries to almost all of our important players throughout the year at one point or another. Welsby was our top attender last year playing in a multitude of positions to cover various injuries in the backs at any given time. It’s because he has really progressed, along with the likes of Dodd and Batchelor that it feels like we’re full strength so often.

Saints recruitment next year is also made us a bit deeper. Lussick backs up Roby, Bell backs up Knowles which were two pain points for us last year when they were injured. We don’t have Welsby covering the backline any more but Josh Simm is the forgotten man of Saints and Hurrell is a wildcard in cover. We have Norman whose supposed to be the next best thing at prop (at least according to the fans calling for him to get game time over Amor and LMS) and who knows where Sironen comes in since Mata’utia and Batchelor will be our starting back towers. And we have a plethora of experienced kids now (Wingfield, Foster and Davies have SL experience from last year either in our team or on duel ref/ loan with Leigh and Salford).

How is this a Saints thread all of a sudden?

We know they are a great team and still the team to beat

Nah, they're poop, it's just that everyone else is poopier

Speaking of which,what happened about the WCC in the end? Just fizzled out? I fear for the future of the fixture, the Aussies really don't give a damn about any of it.

shock/horror Stains fan (magic superbeetle) instills us with how great they and arguably they should have won the 2018 grand final as arguably Morgan Knowles is the best player in super league apart from Walmsley or is it another Stains player.

I honestly think Wigan will have a great season and will be up there to win a cup or 2.

Sounds like they were well up for it but our friends from over the hill bottled it.

Definitely - Penrith and their leaders are the epitome of open mindedness on international RL competition . . . . . .

As a Hull fan I have both dread and optimism.
Our halfbacks are great, on paper , but as we all know they have both appalling injury records, and age does nothing to assist that , at their stages in their career's. If they stay fit, with the addition of Evans, we should do better than last year. A big blow is Scott Taylor's recent foot injury, which is a 12 week rehab apparently. He has played injured and unfit as a result, for 2 seasons and many fans felt it was time for him to go, but he has trimmed down to a match style physique and would be a great rotation prop, if fit. So we have injuries already but our new Fijian hooker will be a revelation, if training and the odd You tube clip is anything to go by. Satae and Sao are as good as most props in SL, Jake Connor is a real talent, but can he shine when the inevitable injuries bite our 6 and 7?
Could be our year, but my gut feeling is that Leeds, Saints and Cats will be top dogs, with Wire, Wigan, HKR and Hull fighting for 4th.
Just hope Covid doesn't disrupt things too badly and all players, officials and us fans stay safe and healthy.

A lot depends on whether French comes back and is fit and if Field turns out to be a good player. Otherwise we are in the same boat as last season with all our attack going through one player, Cust instead of Hastings. TL is past it and Powell isn't good enough on attack which is why French and/or Field are important. The coaching team can play a part here and if it's obvious there are issues with these two I'd expect them to act rather than make them automatic selections. Same goes across the park really. I am hoping to see some assertive coaching dealing with any issues rather than trying the same thing over and over if it's not working. If the coaches do that we are already in a better position than last season.

I don't think Cust will try to be drummer, lead violinist, trumpeter and conductor. Hopefully that will allow other players to do their jobs particularly not having any of the kickers caught on the 4th tackle.

I don’t think our problems were solely focused around Hastings trying to do everything tbh. I think it played a part for sure but when you’re playing a junior pack against grown men each week you’re in trouble. We were totally unorganised in attack, we had nobody willing (or being instructed) to do any running off the ball, so dummy runners and support play became redundant. The players generally looked totally at a loss regards what Lam wanted from them.

There’s plenty to work on but I’m confident a lot of quick fixes will have been implemented in the off season and even if we started with Hanley at fullback, Cust and Tommy in the halves and Powell at 9, I still think we’ll see a real upturn on anything we saw last season.

From a solely attacking POV, I don’t think I’ve seen a team have a worse season pound for pound than ours last season. Even teams who have gone through seasons winning hardly any games have averaged more points per game than we did.

Things can only get better.

For me the return of French is massive, if he can come back and be close to his form of 2 seasons ago we’ve got a chance to compete, imo our starting 13 still looks a hell of a lot weaker than both Saints and Catalans and also weaker than Warrington and Leeds, what we do have is the strongest depth though. I’ll be fairly happy if we make the top 4 and play some attractive rugby.

I think Wire look weak in the forwards which will cost them the chance of being a genune threat for trophies. I reckon Wigan have a decent chance of finishing above them.

I think the the likelihood is we will be scrapping it out for a top 5 spot.

That on paper maybe doesn't look like an acceptable return however I think we are in transition this year and the improvement should be judged by on field performance not just league position.

Saints, Catalans, Wire, and Leeds I think will all be scrapping it out with us and I expect a much lower spread of points between 1st and 5th spots than in other years.