Super League 2012 predictions....??

Quote: SmokeyTA "Whilst you are right in that this years squad is better than last years, i think that goes for a lot of clubs who are in the bottom half. The way i see it, Wakefield have two problems, firstly they have recruited a lot of players, obviously something they needed to do but that will mean a squad which is much less settled, less chemistry in attack, less structure in defence. Its always the way when there are large turnovers in players and that will affect Wakefield more than others.

Also, the bottom half of the league is much stronger than it was last year and the top half deeper, Wakefield have improved, Widnes have a better squad than crusaders did, Salford will be more settled and London have signed some real quality. What we will see is the clubs at the lower half all taking points off each other with the difference being the points the can take off the bigger sides. However whilst the bigger sides have used games against the lower sides to rest/blood players its not something they will do because the top sides will all be taking points off each other and cant afford to risk a loss against the lower sides so i also think we will see fewer points taken off the top teams by the bottom.

That means that if Wakefield click and get a few early wins on the board and can be consistent against the teams around them and that middle section of the league (hull fc, hull kr, Huddersfield, bradford) then they will be up around 8 with a few games to go and can look to squeeze in. Unfortunately for them the opposite is also true, early season there is Widnes who will have been building towards kick off for three years, promoted teams almost always play above expectation first game, Hull KR would probably be favourites, Bradford could easily go either way, Hull, Hudds, Warrington, Catalans would all be heavy favourites against Wakefield, London away is rarely easy, Cas derby you cant predict, before what is always a tough game against wigan. Wakefield could very easily lose their first 10 games without playing particularly badly, at that point you are pretty much a drift and done for the year.

You generally need 13 wins for play-offs, which means you need to be looking at 4/5 wins in those first 10 games, that looks a tough job for Wakefield in my opinion. I think they should be realistically looking for 10 wins which will put them about 11th.'"

Where's the evidence that a new team will take so long to gel well enough to be competitive? I know it will take a few games for combinations to build and for understanding to reach a level where it works well on the field but I think you seriously overplay it.

I don't see where the teams around us are that much better than they were last year, London have a couple of potentially good recruits but there's also a long tradition of NRL forwards massively under delivering so there's no guarantee that Londons star signings will be anything special.

The rest of your post just describes the nature of every sport that uses league tables to determine who the Champions are, oh hang on a minute, we have a five week mini league to determine ours.

Without being rose tinted and over optimistic I think we'll finish between 9th & 7th.