Yes ask Bramley - well bust before GH prolonged their life for 4 years longer than they would lasted otherwise. Playing on ground that Queens would be embarrassed to turn up on!!

Hey leave William alone, he makes a good point about Hunslet. They were thriving before Leeds & duel reg came along and were constantly matching the likes of Fev at the top of the Championship as one of the strongest teams below SL level...............oh wait!

I'd like to come up with something different, but unless they have a change in circumstances and boost their squads, it's hard to look past Wakefield and London.

Bit surprised peoiple are mentioning Hull KR> I think they're getting their act together off the field with some work that looks like long-term planning, and I think they will be close to making the 8. Probably vying with Salford for the last spot.

Their first season without Michael Dobson, be interesting to see how they run without him.

Fair point. But they have signed a scrum half with a bigger rep than Dobson in the NRL, and personally would have said Burns moved himself into the position of higher contributory factor last season.

Hard act to follow though.

Sounds like London is pretty unanimous, though i think they'll put up more of a fight than most think. Tough one for the second team but wakey, bradford and possibly cas without chase could struggle

London definately then its a toss up between Cas ,Wakey and the Dulls so depends who has the worse injury list or if the Dulls players get paid!!

Cas will do a lot better than that. They have a decent squad, and one of the best coaches.

Don't you think Leeds will be near the bottom

If we suffer further financial problems (possible) or have an injury crisis then I’d say we’d be in the mix for the drop. However, if we manage to keep the existing squad together and get some good luck with injuries then we’ll be nearer 8th or 9th than 12th or 13th. We have cover at halfback for the first time for a while and 4 bona fide decent props.

IMO London are faves for one of the bottom 2 places. Wakey I’d say are in the mix. Further afield I’d say Widnes are possibles if they don’t improve. While Cas should do alright now they’ve got a decent coach it’ll be interesting to see if they have the quality to improve much on last year a lot rests on Seymour and Finn. If they don’t do well it could be a difficult season.

So teams are going down at the end of this season? How is it working if they are dropping it from 14 to 12? Presumably just the bottom two go and then no-one comes up until the end of next season (2015)?

No, why, do you?

No

London & Wakey definitely!

Hmm, while I would not question the actual possibility that Wakefield are probably going to be in the mix the fact that you think GH will engineer Wakefield's demise is quite laughable... which club did we play in our biggest SL home gate of the 2013 season again? Oh, that is right, the regular rounds don't matter & GH doesn't care about it or the 8k worth of extra tickets & walk-ups he pocketed!

I opined earlier that GH wouldn't want to lose Bradford from SL from an income POV, therefore my guess would be that the other club to be relegated (sacrificed) will be Rhinos de facto dual-reg club Wakefield because it's between those two IMO.

I said nothing about GH deliberately engineering Wakefield's demise. I merely indicated that history teaches us that any club entering into any kind of relationship or significant dealings could well end up in a far worse position and fighting for their survival as was the case at Bramley, Keighley and now Hunslet. Some may believe Wakefield have nothing to worry about given KH's current role there. She was also one of the directors at Bramley just prior to them being wound up which could well be mere coincidence of course in a [i"being in the wrong place at the wrong time"[/i kind of way.


Last season the biggest home gate for Leeds was against Wakefield... 18,837 compared to the 16,604 in attendance for the Bradford home game. But you know as well as I do that the attendance for the Wakey game was a fluke on a day of extreme warm temperatures and a sultry warm evening which tempted more people outdoors than usual.


Leeds attendance for the home game against Wakefield in 2012 was a meagre 12,272 which was the lowest of the season. Even the Catalan (Att: 13,282) and London (Att: 13,109) games attracted more.

But you know as I do that the low attendance in 2012 was the fluke caused by playing on a Monday night having been rearranged from Leeds' earlier WCC appearance.

Games vs Wakey @ Headingley in SL in last 10 years.
2013 - 18,837 - Friday
2012 - 12,272 - Monday
2011 - 15,511 - Friday
2010 - 13,869 - Saturday
2009 - 15,643 - Saturday
2008 - 17,647 - Friday
2007 - 16,654 - Friday.......19,776 - Friday
2006 - 13,597 - Friday
2005 - 18,257 - Easter Monday.....17,619 - Friday
2004 - 15,629 - Sunday

Average of those 12 games = 16,275
Average, excluding that 2012 game = 16,640
Average of those on Friday night = 17,091

Maybe we just happen to always play Wakey on sultry warm evenings



If you listen closely you'll hear the sound of William's agenda dying a slow death.

Of course I knew that which is the reason why it was important to demonstrate the agenda behind Inflatable Armadillo's highly selective attendance by countering it with an equally selective attendance from the previous season.


The attendance was 18,387


Or maybe we just compare the attendances for all the Rhinos home games against Wakefield and Bradford instead?

Leeds V Wakefield Total Attendance (Regular Season 2004 to 2013) = 194,861 from 12 games.
Average Attendance = 16,238
-------------------------
Leeds V Bradford Total Attendance (Regular Season 2004 to 2013) = 266,386 from 14 games.
Average Attendance = 19,028
--------------------------
Difference = 2,790
--------------------------

Leeds V Wakefield Total Attendance (Regular Season Entire SL-era) = 269,564 from 18 games.
Average Attendance = 14,976
--------------------------
Leeds V Bradford Total Attendance (Regular Season Entire SL-era) = 441,909 from 24 games.
Average Attendance = 18,413
--------------------------
Difference = 3,437
--------------------------


I'm quite certain that the sound of GH's agenda would be a preference for Bradford to remain in SL rather than Wakefield from a maximisation of revenue POV. Especially when one considers the extra 3,437 paying spectators through the gates at Headingley on average, which... if we conservatively estimate an average spend of £20 per person on tickets, beer, food, programmes, etc... would equate to an extra £68,740 in takings per home game.

The Wakey attendance last year was also inflated by the huge numbers of kids (and presumably parents) attending as part of the half time 'entertainment'. I can't remember what it was exactly but there were literally hundreds of them.

Yet you described it as a fluke, when it was much nearer the usual average than 2012's attendance......so no you didn't know really, you jumped in and got caught out.





Whilst checking the other fixtures I stupidly just went with the number you posted in your previous post for 2013.....you wrote 18,837. Should've known by now your tendency to get your figures wrong.



Sorry we must've all missed this sudden death loser-gets-relegated Grand Final match up between Wakefield and Bradford that you've randomly created in your head. Didn't realise one of those 2 were guaranteed to go down with London and that the likes of Widnes or Castleford were safe from the drop.

Some people really do have some f-cling boring arguments.

Agree with Bullseye, If (and it's a big IF) we can keep our Current squad and avoid any more financial cock ups we should be safe. Any clubs from Wakey, Cas, Widnes, London and us could go down.. Relegation can bring the best out of teams. I personally think London are gone (though I just have this feeling they may stick two fingers up at everyone and pull off the mother of all escapes) I also think Wakey may go down as I still don't rate Agar as a coach and their half back situation looks bad. Widnes I also fear for, they need to be more consistent, If continue to have some embarrassing performances, they may not get out of jail by getting victories over the smaller teams as they are fighting or their lives. I like the look of Cas. My wildcard to go down is Hull. They've not made any "stand out" signings. They have two very young inexperienced half backs. Will they crumble under the pressure? Radfords an unproven coach. Watch this space.

I think your well wide of the mark there

They will finish in the top 8, probably between positions 6 to 8 IMO

It looks like London and one other.
The one other IMO will be between Wakey and Widnes.
Bradford seem to have a decent squad to get around 9-10.
At Cas, Powell will sort out their defence and if they can have a season light on the injuries front they should be ok.
Wakey look poor, Widnes's pack is light and they don't have a No8 in their squad. No no1 either but Hanbury will be fb with Brown at 6 and Mellor 7. Widnes's problem is their pack and defence. When their defence have an off day they really do get belted. Betts has a job on his hands to keep them up.
BTW why did London, Wakey and Widnes vote for relegation?

On paper it has to be London, however they have got a lot of talented players on loan thetre, if they click they could surprise a few teams and scrape in at position 12. Wakefield have serious problems as do Northern, they have not solved there debt problems and it is likely other clubs will make raids for players like Samatt.