Currently sat at work on a very long and slow night shift, and thinking/speculating about how the remainder of the season will pan out. Once we resume after this weekend's break, the season will effectively be into the run in towards the business end of matters, entering the final third of the regular fixtures.

To this end, I've been perusing all the remaining games (not just ours, but everyone else's as well) and taken a stab at some long term predictions (I did say it's a slow shift at work). Whilst allowing for the fact that attempting to predict nine rounds of SL is slightly hazardous and not exactly an exact science, I've arrived at the following final table come the evening of Sunday 8th September.

1. Wigan - 47
2. Wire - 41
3. Hudds - 40
4. Leeds - 37
=5. Cats - 34
=5. F.c. - 34
7. Sts - 27
=8. Bradford - 24
=8. rovers - 24
10. Wakey - 21
11. Widnes - 18

I've arrived at ourselves in joint 5th alongside Le Cats with our nearest and dearest joint 8th with Bradford. These positions being decided by points difference (possibly not good news for the r+w).

From our perspective, I have us down to lose away to Wigan plus one of Hudds/Bradford/rovers leaving us with a final points tally of 34 which should leave us in 6th at the very worst. As far as August's derby goes I'm hoping and praying that we turn up to play in a least one of the encounters in 2013, without recourse to outside influences (i.e. the video ref).

Of course, if the table above does come to fruition then we could be bracing ourselves for Play-off derby pt2 .

In all fairness we tend to do ok at Craven Park.

I can inform you that we won't win the cup but we will win next year because I'm going this year and probably not next. Sod's law and all that .

I certainly know that feeling.

Looking at your list I'm guessing that, give or take the odd result here and there, we've both arrived at roughly the same conclusion (as I suspect most people on here probably would).

Too difficult to work out all this stuff, far too much will hinge on who does well in the cup, how interested Wigan will get once the title is nailled on and wire tie up 2nd.

Just look at last year who would have predicted the colossal collapse of Hudds or Wakeys great run in at the end of the year.

Think the OP's table wont be a mile off but I expect Saints to have a better run in then predicted.

Think it could be a year when finishing 5th is a better option then 4th.

You are absolutely right, the amount of variables which can/will affect 9 rounds of games makes it an excercise in random probabilities. I chiefly did this (and subsequently posted my conclusions) simply to pass away a couple of hours at work. Life isn't too bad when you are essentially being paid for posting on an RL forum .

If we take the current table as the starting point, then I reckon you, me and just about everyone else will have most teams going up/down a couple of spots at best. Obviously it's nigh on impossible to factor in runs like Huddersfield & Wakey had last year which can significantly alter any predictions this far out from the end of the season.

It stopped me from getting too bored yesterday evening which was the object of the exercise. Too much time, too little to do and all that .