Well considering those SL sides also have to play each other then in the context of this competition their's still easier and trickier games.

Hudds have the 3 'unfancied' Championship teams next up in a row.

HKR go away to us, away to Salford and home to Leigh in the next three.

A difference clearly. Granted that means HKR then have some of those 'unfancied' Championship teams later on but you don't want to potentially go on a run of defeats and have to play catchup in such a short format. As we've seen at Leeds, winning games can build momentum and become a habit so if Hudds can win those 3 in a row regardless of the strength of the opposition it's helpful. Do HKR want to face Leigh potentially on the back of consecutive away defeats? Would Leeds have beaten Hull and Wigan recently if we didn't get a couple of wins against Salford and Wakey beforehand? Probably not.

If we assume due to the format the league is effectively in 2 halves, super league half and championship half, then finishing 5th means you've finished highest out of the fellow championship teams.

I'm not sure how else you would suggest working it.

Do HKR want to face Leigh potentially on the back of consecutive away defeats? no of course they don't because they dont want be losing consecutive away games. But it does it matter that it is Leigh or London or anyone else in that game? not really.

Hudds might have 3 championship sides in a row, they might win them all, that might give them confidence to for the remaining 3, it might mean they coast. They might lose one or two and that easier run suddenly becomes a harder one.

This is the easiest run of fixtures and SL club will have this year, by far. Whatever order they come in, its not getting any easier. Youre just making up possible circumstances and then pretending they are a consideration but they don't exist anywhere outside your head.

Of course they exist, it's clear as day. Of course any run of fixtures in this Middle 8 won't be as hard as facing Wigan, Warrington and Hull in consecutive weeks but in the context of the format we are currently they are differences.

No doubt it's just you once again still sulking that this format was introduced in the first place.

Would've you have preferred our first game to be way to Fev or away to Hudds? I know which one I'd prefer and I know I'd rather get off to a good start and not put ourselves under pressure to catch up.

i couldnt care less. It really makes no difference at all. This is our easiest run of games for years. If we dont win the 5 or 6 we need to finish top 3, we arent going to do that because the games were played in a different order.

And yes, id rather get off to a good start, id rather we had a good finish too. How much better of a start would putting 60 points on hudds have been.

As for this format being introduced, no comment from you on attendances this year i see? The gates should be massive on the back of last year shouldnt they? Surely we havent seen a fall this year again? Good job we have seen the 15 sell outs we should have seen this year, as well as the 5% increase in attendances...............ooops

But massively unlikely as you well know. We play that game against Fev and we win 9 times out of 10. We play Hudds away and maybe we win 5 times out of 10.

Dismissing the order of the fixture shows a complete ignorance to the importance of momentum, confidence, putting pressure on others by being ahead in the league table that happens in sport.

And the original point was about Hudds, who are on a 3 game losing streak now and as we've seen this year with Leeds, snapping out of a losing run makes life much harder.

Most concede we played ok vs Warrington in the opening round this year but we lost. Put a number of other lower teams in and we probably start with a win and who knows what a difference that could've made. Also post WCC away to Catalans and Wigan, again could've had an easier fixture list and who knows what a few wins behind us could've done for us.

Saints are now on a 6 game winning run beating Wire and Wigan, but do they do that without having those much more winnable games vs HKR, Widnes, Wakey and Hudds first?



No because no one has mentioned them or provided any information on them.

Aww, everyone was doing so well in ignoring Williams troll posts. Now you've answered he will be on here all week.

Yet Salford have just beaten them by 22 points and have 1 less SL club left to play than us. So who has had the better start us or Salford? Or we can just make up the amount of times a club would win in hypothetical games that wont ever take place.

Or that those things don't matter when you are playing your easiest run possible.

But then they could have lost that game to Leigh. or London. or anyone else and then it would be worse. Or they could have put 40 on Salford and gained confidence that they wouldnt have from squeaking passed Leigh. Your 'theories' only work when you look back at results that happen, or invent situations in your head. It makes absolutely no difference and provides us with absolutely no useful information.
I have literally no idea what would happen in this alternate reality that you are inventing.

I dont know, i dont know what would happen if we lived in a differently reality. You evidently do, let us know what its like in this universe you have invented.
You were adamant they would rise, you put a lot of time and effort in to vehemently arguing they would and telling us the reasons why. Were you not intrigued as to whether or not you were right?

ill help you out, you were wrong. They are down. Again.

You really are ridiculous with a complete and utter basic lack of sporting knowledge if you think results would be exactly the same if played in any order.

You complain about me doing hypotheticals that we might beat Hudds 5 times out of 10 if we played when in your previous post you were saying what if we beat them by 60. Hypocritical by plenty.

As for attendances, we are 1 week into the 8's starting.

Yes, I was providing you with other things that could also happen to highlight that your made up results were simply made up results with a wide range of alternatives also available in this new reality of yours. Either that fairly simple point went massively over your head or you really don't understand hypocrisy.

Aaah so you want to wait until after the 8s. I'm sure when they are lower we wont be seeing Leeds being in the middle 8s as the excuse for the fall (even though that is a feature of the system, not a bug)

Are you making an attempt to engage William in serious debate?

I have some jelly you can try nailing to a wall instead, might be more fruitful use of time.

.... is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon -- it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory

Just on crowds, Leeds' home attendances are likely to be a bit embarrassing, but its great for Fev to get 6k+, and the others we play away will hopefully get a similar boost. When you're running teams on shoestring budgets an extra £10k+ via the gate is enormous.

We only play london and Fev away of the lower sides. The Hudds away attendance will probably be terrible.

Im not sure an entire season of lower attendances followed by a 7 game series of lower attendances can really be justified by 1 or 2 decent-for-lesser-clubs attendances. The maths just doesnt work out.

The best supported team in super league (again)

Report regarding Delaney injury out today and was a dislocated knee cap and reptured bursa so guessing we won't see him again this season. Give Keinhorst more chance to play.

I hope so

And increase the chance that we might see Stevie Ward feature. Back in full training now and said today he believes he will feature before the season ends.

Excellent news about Ward.

Back in time for the home fixture against the extremely dangerous Batley Bulldogs hopefully.

I can't wait.

If ward doesn't return for the London game then he should definitely for the Batley game two weeks later.

I would be seriously staggered if Leeds don't put 100 on Batley when the teams meet at Headingley

It won't be 100 but how many we get I suppose it depends on hard and quickly they put their foot. First half vs Fev, whilst they gave it a fight I thought we showed a bit too much respect by keeping it down the middle and seemingly going for completing sets. If we'd have spread to the centres earlier in tackle count could've had a couple more in the first half.

Also IF we get 50/60 up they might be a case of feet up and eyes towards Hudds the following week. Taking certain players off to protect them and disjointing the lineup.

Leeds should be looking to use the Batley game to rest and rotate the squad a bit ahead of the final two fixtures.

Win the first four games and even with a few changes they should still be good enough to see off Batley. 10 points would be enough to avoid the MPG, based on last year. They can then go out and play with a bit more freedom in the Huddersfield and Leigh games.

Flip side to that is that we beat you and Salford and its more or less job done. Not sure what confidence taht rout of Batley will have done us, that could have been a lot more than the score it ended.

Points difference for us isn't great tho. I think using the lower league teams to try rest a few is OK but it might also be good to try get some attacking plays set up.

We have been woeful at scoring or even really creating scoring opportunities all year, good chance to be more clinical and gain confidence in our offload and wide running skills that worked so well last year.