Whats unrealistic about his predictions, that could easily happen?

Easily? Not impossible I'll admit. He could not resist the opportunity to egg FC's prospects and diminish KR's. Only to be expected I suppose. Wishful thinking at this stage as actual evidence to support the prediction is hard to come by. Most of the teams in the lower half last season have on paper improved their squads for 2015 and I think it is more difficult than usual to predict the final outcome.

Looking at FC supporter's predictions last year saw a very wide variation but no one said 4 from bottom. Supporter's of other clubs were far more realistic and accurate. KR fans are excluded as they also tend to be overoptimistic about how high we will finish and how low FC will be. Surprisingly accurate in the case of FC however.

That's a better post and maybe the word "Easily" I used was over the top, but to suggest he is on something for a reasonable guess is over the top from you

Saints
Wigan
Catalan
Wire
Leeds
Rovers
Hull
Hudds
Salford
Castleford
Widnes
Wakey

That's my prediction but I don't think you'll have an awful lot separating Leeds in 5th to Wakefield down the bottom in 12th. This season has the potential to be the most exciting on record.

Il keep saying it.

Leeds will not make the top 8 this year!

By the sounds of it after reading on here, Shaul wouldn't be a massive loss with Naughton standing out big time during pre season. Westerman the same with Abdul waiting in the wings, as you have mentioned. You guys lose Paea for a good spell and God knows where your go forward is going to come from, Ellis can't do everyone's job!

Keep on saying it, doubt many will agree with you, don't forget to re post on this thread come he end of the season!

my turn then

Saints
Wire
Wigan
Huddersfield
Leeds
Les Cats
Salford
Cas
Rovers
Fc
Widnes
Wakey

Catalan could be brilliant or there usual selfs, Carney cant wait to get back to Aus already. Wigan haven't replaced Blake Green, Leeds another year older, Giants are solid as usual. Saints look stronger but untried coaches. Cas im not sure what will happen there. Salford I think could trouble the top 8 this year. For Hull and ourselves it could be a season to soon

Always welcome of course, but why do posts on here by Rovers fans far outweigh posts on the Rovers board? Serious question. Clearly there's an upturn following the hugely significant result on Sunday, I'd expect nothing less, but do you really need to come on here to talk about SL finishing positions? Why are is this board so compelling and your own so bland and traffic-less?

We come on here 'cos we can



Obviously that's subject to behaving ourselves. The Rovers board has always been quieter than here, probably due to most Robins using 'tother forum. You'd miss us if we didn't pop across.

It's a difficult one to call this year but I feel Wigan will be the team that finishes top after the frustrations of last year. The teams from 5th down are miles away from the top 4 (no matter what we all feel pre-season) and it all comes down to squad depth before the end of the campaign. All the mid table teams could finish in any position depending on injury luck. I think we (fc) have a greater depth in our squad than the teams I put below us. It's a long, long season.
I've never ever seen a prediction by a KR fan that puts us above them or a match score where we win (no matter who we are playing!)



ps: £1 a tablet if you want some?

Top 8 and the dobbins getting relegated would be nice but I'll settle for top 8 and couldn't care less were the rest finish
Fwiw the bookies probably won't be far off

Rude.


They're handing out knighthoods to Chris Chester on there. Literally wading through the slavver of all the "mouth-watering"

I find it strange how sad t*ts on here have registered on the other Rovers forum, how do you explain that one?

Keep your friends close but your enemy's closer

Are you kidding? Lurking is such fun, like that clown with the windowsill painting.

If Radford can sort our obvious deficiencies..discipline, going to pot after a few personnel changes plus the thing he was trying to make a point over in Portugal(winning when under the cosh) then we could make top 6. We have some quality players but Radford has to ensure he doesn't fall into the same mistakes of last year.
If players don't perform or can't follow/execute a game plan or their targets within a game have to be told in no uncertain terms and he(Radford) figure out why and what needs to be done to ensure things constantly improve. his head scratching of last season and not having a clue what to do as he so often said won't cut it.
Get a great start in what is a really tough start and that could settle us and give us confidence for us to show what we can do..start badly and we will be behind the 8 ball and chasing tight games which forces errors due to panic( and it happens all the time).

Wigan
Saints
Catalans
Warrington
Leeds
Salford
Rovers
Hull
Hudds
Cas
Widnes
Wakey

Big call for Huddersfield there. Wouldn't disagree with the shape of it though.

Wigan
Catalan
Saints
Warrington
Leeds
Salford
Hull
Hudds
Rovers
Widnes
Cas
Wakey

Aside from Wigan, Saints, Cats & Warrington I think the rest (aside from Wakey) are a omplete toss up as to where they place.
We do have a good squad but not great..yet. I've said we need another prop in lieu of a back & I think that could be one of our sticking points unless the younger props really start to show their mettle. Mini is going to be pivotal for us, more so than Westerman and Ellis I feel & Syned I hope can replicate his early season form from last year. I'm still not convinced by Pryce & I'd rather have JA in there but let's see.
The reality is that we could be anywhere from 5th to 11th, I just hope to god it's closer to 5th.

As for Hudds, I just have a gut feeling about them, I predicted last season they would go off the boil after their LL trophy and they did, they scraped third and scraped a fair few wins along the way and when it came down to it they got absolutely mullered by Wigan and lost to what was a bang average Cats side (on the day) at home. I just feel that they'll fall further away (hopefully) below us. I think Salford are much improved as are Rovers...but it's all conjecture.
What I do know is that we have a really really tough first 6 fixtures, that could make us or break us, let's not kid ourselves, we could easily lose all 6..not only would the fans be on the back of the team & the coach, the players would be under increasing pressure every game from there on in..and under pressure we have being shown to crack, give cheap penalties, switch off and revert to pants/panic rugby. That is why I was passionate about the failings to address the psychological aspect of the players, it's so massively important, why watching a video in Portugal just isn't enough, you can have all the skills in the world but if players heads drop & game plans go out the window & panic sets in your furked
Despite what people might think of me I want us to succeed, I really really do, if Radford gets us winning & back to the top 6 (because less than that is a failure in my eyes) I'll be the first to say yeah I got it wrong (from a coaching POV) I hate watching us implode and seeing heads go down & decent players go to shat. I hate seeing issues that crop up time & again that bite us when there are solutions to try & straighten them but don't get addressed & as I said Radford's head scratching last year was extremely worrying.

We can make top 6, but will we? My table prediction says no on the balance of probabilities & guesswork, that's all it can ever be right now.

Great post. If we lost the first 6 I wonder whether Pearson would act. He's set so much store by Radford and the long game. Key for everyone we get off to a good start.

Or not to panic and get behind them if we get off to a less than brilliant start?

Think I jury's will dictate where some teams finish,which teams have the best and biggest squads.

This is going to be one of the hardest to pick of all. There don't appear to be any runaway brilliant sides and with London gone no horrendously bad ones either. There won't be many games at all where a team performing below par will get a win and unpredictable factors like injuries to key players are going to have a huge influence. There will be one team who will surprise like Cas did last year (hopefully us) and one which will disintegrate (hopefully the dobbins). Leeds will be interesting to watch, there's enough talent there to beat anybody but they are aging rapidly and can they survive the weekly grind. Salford are a time bomb, a side with grade A tools like Hock, Chase and Patterson in it could implode most spectacularly. The only sides I can see not making the 8 are Wakefield who just don't appear to have enough depth to get through the whole season, though I would still expect some impressive one off performances from and Widnes, who were very lucky to get there last year, haven't improved much and their plastic abomination of a pitch is losing its fear factor for visitors.