The League positions at this stage of the season don’t generally lie and I think the top 4 at present i.e. Wigan, Warrington, Saints and Huddersfield will start to pull away from the others who have shown themselves to be quite a bit short of top notch team standards. The exception to this is Leeds, who seem to be recovering from their poor start, I was particularly impressed with their performance against Hull at the weekend. They should now start to overtake most of the clubs above them and move into the top 5. There is always the chance that another club or two may make a late season surge like Wigan in the past but I don’t think any of them have the squad capable of doing that this year. I Think it would be quite easy for us to lose to any of these top teams and it just shows the value of the good start we have made to the season which has given us a fair bit in hand over the others. I don’t want to be disrespectful to the remaining clubs as I think it is likely that the top clubs will lose to clubs outside the top level, but this always happens on a exceptional basis and indeed we have already achieved that distinction against Bradford. What distinguishes a top club from the rest is that slip ups don’t happen very often.

I think the difference to recent seasons is that there has always been a gap between Saints/Leeds and the rest, now IMO we have 5 breakaway clubs which makes for a much more interesting competition. The big question in my mind would be have my view of the top 5 clubs reached the level achieved by Leeds and Saints in the past or have the clubs evened out at a lower level. I suspect the latter but have a feeling that we have more improvement in us this season despite being top of the League.

I am looking forward to finishing the first half of the fixtures and the match ups from teams seeking revenge on us in the reverse games later in the season, not something we have experienced for some time! I can’t see us being quite as successful in the second half of the season – too many good teams with points to prove, but as I said earlier we do have a fair bit in hand, and other top clubs will lose as well so I think we still have an excellent chance of finishing top of the pile.

Anyway, enough of my unstructured ramblings, just my thoughts on the season so far and what may happen later. What do others think?

Pre-season, I thought Hull would be up there too, but they appear to have done what we did for so many years - in other words, buy a bunch of 'name' players, mainly has-beens, and optimistically expect an average coach to glue them together into a cohesive whole.

It doesn't appear to have worked, as it didn't with us.

It rarely pays off basing the cream of a squad around new imports, even if it does its short lived. Hull need fitz+ogre+long to be fit or they are sunk IMO. Bradford seem to be doing Ok although i think this is more down to the quality of lynch and langley than orford and co.

Thankfully the new regime here realises that a quality Youth system should be what you base a modern RL team around not imports which it is at best a 'hit and miss' affair

Wigan proved for most of the last decade that short term (i.e we'll win it next year) strategies don't work. Thats what Hull are trying to achieve because Long, Fitzgibbon, Horne and others won't be around in 2-3 years time.

Agree Leeds will be the ones to come through to the top four.
I suspect they'll beat Saints on Saturday as they looked very good v Hull.

Any of the clubs in the top four at present are capable of beating each other if they are the form team on the day. Below that and it would be a shock result if any of the others were to get a win against the current top four, with the exception of Leeds.

Injuries will play a part as they always do. How Leeds missed Sinfield!
We have had ours and coped well despite the difficulties. We did well to win at Saints with Phelps, Coley, Riddell & Hansen missing from our starting 13. I know Saints had players out but it was still an excellent win given the injuries we had.

Add Leeds to the current top four and that will be the "group" at the end of the season.

I think Leeds will storm through the field and finish in 2nd place. Saints and Warrington will be 3rd and 4th but not sure which way around and I
think Huddersfield will end up 5th. I had a vision it was us and Leeds in GF and in challenge cup final

still cant get the niggling feeling of a leeds v wire final

Nah. Fancy Wigan v Wire myself.

I just really want us to finish top and give ourselves the best chance! Both finals will do me nicely! We would surely win at least one!

Lets take one game at a time though!

Think it*s going to be a Leeds v Wigan final this time...

Wigan v Leeds

i cant bring myself to think that far ahead. There is far to much rugby to be played in the mean time

I was just going to say that. You see sides often have good regular seasons and then fade away when the lack of squad depth begins to tell. Huddersfield last year for example had a poor play off effort. Hull KR did little either. A good regular season doesn't always convert to a good play off run.

Wigan's problem may be making the play offs very early then stuttering about waiting for those games to come. That'll be a test if it happens. That may happen to Warrington as well, they have very little postive play off experience (think they've only ever won 1 game) and that might tell in September.

Then the Cup Final might get in the way of Grand Final attempts. That perhaps buggered Huddersfield last year? Far too early to call. Injuries, suspensions and desperation will all play a part. Squad depth will end up proving pivitol. I think we are already proving to be OK in that regard. Not sure St Helens for example have that luxury. If Eastmond went out long term for example, they'd have no chance!

Way too early to start getting ahead of ourselves.

That said we are looking good. Mentally much tougher.

Fully agree.

Quins.
Friday.
Smash em!