One read of this forum and I’d say hardly any fans are ‘counting their chickens’. If anything there’s plenty of acknowledgement it will be a tough league this season.

We do need to display some confidence though. Confidence with caution is how we should be.

I do. But I think we have a further advantage, or at least we do if our new owner is as good as his word. We have the ability to strengthen the team in the last third of the season, the business end as they say, and it's a lot easier to get quality players to join a full time squad than a part time one.

If we fail it's our own fault, all the balls are in our court.

That’s the Leigh way. They started the season with a top quality Championship side and finished the season with a mid table SL quality side. And a lot of spare players that they loaned out

Quite right. You can put a list a mile long of why we could win any game/cup/league BUT the single item in the negative list is that this is Wakefield we are talking about, the modern day perennial big stage bottlers.
The preparation and continued improvement of the off field fabric of the club will be our salvation.

I'd narrow that to top three, I'd be a bit disappointed at lower than that. Not in terms of play offs placings or IMG, but for the general momentum at the club, and the feel good factor. Without that, I don't think SL via the IMG route alone will be enough to get people to buy into the SL dream as much as we'd like, or at least not at the start. Basically it would suit the doomoungers, who will say that we are not there by right, and we could do without that.

Finishing top and winning the play offs may not be vital to us getting a SL place. But for the players, the club and especially the fans ,it would be the far superior outcome.

You are right, the battle for promotion is off the field mostly, but the points for the Grand Final win are pretty important. We could really do with those.

And would help with the promotion of the team in terms of support the year after too.