From a forwards perspective we've lost Ellis and brought in/back Paea and Hadley, plus will have expected more than last year from the likes of Fash and Masi, so in the round that's not unreasonable squad management IMO. I don't believe any club has acquired a forward of Ellis' stature recently, he simply can't be replaced like for like in the current market. The big damage is losing Watts unexpectedly mid season; arguably a long vs short term decision but even for next year I just can't see a player of his quality to become available and in the short term this has been compounded with injuries to Hadley, Houghton, Sika, Minichiello and Fash, plus Bowden playing jabbed up. On reflection to go away to the champions-elect who've only lost one game and keep it respectable, with Faraimo also missing and losing Talanoa during the game, was not a disastrous outcome.

In isolation the loss isn't a disaster but when added into the previous 9 games it's a worrying continuation on a trend. When was the last time you watched us and thought we'd played to our best for the full 80 minutes? Probably the semi final at donny last year for me.

Way too many games where we make too many errors, lose concentration (don't get me started on kick offs after we've scored), miss too many tackles, give away too many penalties or fail to turn pressure into points.

I do think we've missed a golden opportunity in 2016 and 2017 where most of the other "big" clubs weren't at their best to really write the current squad into the history books. We could have won the double in both seasons IMO as we had the best squad in the comp for those 2 years

Need a comfortable win at Widnes to settle nerves.

Sadly I see another struggle 'a la Salford' - our attack is pedestrian & unimaginative. Fonua a huge loss as well as Ellis & Watts. Too reliant on individuals breaking line.

Can't see a top 4 spot after 23 games, especially given current crop of injuries.

Radders not the Dadders certain people make out? I dont think so. Hes a good coach who will go down as a great because of the Wembley double but imo hes taken this and HIS team as far as he can bit like Tony Smith did with Wire. Too many bad things have never changed in his tenure and i see a slow decline from us now

I agree and you've kind of backed up what knocker was saying . Radford deserved every chance to put a gf challenging team together , but I think every single person this forum would agree , he needs some help , i.e. Attacking coach , it's been plane for everyone to see for seasons now , same attacking problems no matter how good a squad we have

Plus if you take out Kelly from the attack we have nothing and thats even more concerning

... although only wigan and saints have scored more tries than us.

In fairness this tends to be your default mindset. Didn't you say a couple of years ago that Pearson was killing the club and things would get worse?

Fair enough, although cas would need to score 19 tries and leeds 7 to catch us up today.

Another boring stat - I reckon our starting 17 have missed 38 games this season, that averages nearly 4 per game.

Cas 3 games in hand Leeds 2 , I'm not convinced our attack is the 3rd best in the league, especially when you look at who most of our try's was against

Didn't you say we was going under and we wouldn't even have a team

I think the point is the perception that we are clueless in attack and rely entirely on Albert Kelly to score points is not borne out by facts. If you want to bring in who we've played against so far that further weakens your argument as we've played Leeds, Cas, Wigan and Saints away, so to be one of only 3 clubs with >200 points is not too bad. Kelly has scored 3 of our 35 tries so far this year and has fewer assists than both Sneyd and Shaul.

I said we were at financial risk, which was the case (and remains so if we can't be self-sustaining). Fortunately the Faithful continued to back the club following Adam's rallying call, and with the galvanizing impact of Lee Radford here we are, back to back Wembley winners and cash in the bank from Australia. Who'd have thought it?