Given our failure to pick up points against Hull KR, Widnes and Salford and our next games being Leeds, Wigan, Wire, Saints, Huddersfield and Catalan can anyone realistically see us now avoiding relegation? I hate to be pessimistic but unless something fairly drastic changes with our squad or another team in SL then I can't see any other result other than relegation right now.

Should we be looking now to entice some of the better players from the Championship? Would some of those players look favourably on the opportunity to play some SL this year before helping us rebuild in 2015? As things stand I expect our squad will be picked apart and we'll be well behind the likes of Featherstone, Fax, Leigh etc who will have a stable core of players.

Thoughts?

Inevitable now!........The Bidding wars ran on too long! Minus 6 points start! No winnable games in the short to long term. We either need better Players or Better Coaching. If possible both, a couple of quality assistants for Franny to get the best out of what we have! I still suspect too much to do and too little time to do it now.....

Well, I can see Wakey probably picking up three more wins this season.

So, if there’s no movement on the point’s deduction, do you think it’s possible to claw back another six wins?

For a start Wakey at home is practically a gimmie, London too, so that’s just four more, it’s not that far from the realms of possibility.

We can avoid the drop, but we need to team to play at 110% in every fixture.

Unfortunately, I don't think the players played anywhere near to their full capabilities yesterday.

I'm actually looking forward to the next few weeks, the top teams (bar Saints and Leeds) don't look anything like previous seasons, and a good win will do morale the world of good.

We should be looking to win all home against the likes of Widnes, Hull KR, Wakefield, Hull FC and Catalan.

If we can win a couple of away games such as London and a couple of others, we might just avoid the drop.

Can the players play at such a high level, week in week out? That's the problem in my opinion. They will give everything in 1 game, then play at such a lower level the following week.

I would be surprised if Wakey don't get at least one win in the next 6, whereas i can't see any wins for us. You get at least one win in that period we could be 8 points behind you. Injuries are going to be crucial, we're starting to get some back and looking on paper a good squad, but it's what you do on the field that counts.

It's certainly possible. All it takes is the odd couple of shock results against the likes of leeds etc who you would have had down as losses and to start winning some of the other winnable games and suddenly safety is well in sight.

It depends also heavily on the results of wakefield.

London are down. Catalans, although have only 2 points, they should gradually move up the table as the season goes on. Apart from that all other teams except wakey are picking up points.

If wakey start upsetting the odds it will be incredibly difficult for bradford. Remember a few season ago wajeys season was petering out into nothingness then they suddenly went on a run and went from near the bottom to in the playoffs, so it's possible for either bradford, or wakey to go on a similiar run and pull themselves to safety.

I'm still looking at the play offs.

The Dragons are now on 4 points after todays victory over the Vikings.

Yup, they'll move up the table as the season goes on.

You don't have much to worry about; after wathcing last nights Wakey "performance", they were dire, and they look doomed.

We are going down,last night proved that

Yep. I think it's pretty certain now. Baring a miracle. And I don't believe in miracles.

It's up to the Players now, play every game like it's your last and show everybody what you can do. Don't wait until the last few games! Unless Green and Co come up with some magic beans there will be no Fairy Tale ending.....

Still believe what I said when people were calling the Salford game a "must win", and that is, that there are lots of bridges to cross before the end of the season and we'll maybe lose some we thought we might win, and win some we thought we might lose.

It just needs, at some point, us to find some form and have a good run of games and these tend to be self-perpetuating. Cas, who many thought would be relegation fodder, have had one early doors and are now already safe - even if the wheels fall off and we [ican[/i do something similar during the season. Whether we [ido[/i, of course, is the question, I guess.

But, we can now independently TEST what you REALLY think!

I have re-done last year's prediction table, which with any luck you can access here: [urlhttp://tiny.cc/1m58dx[/url

The editable version is here: [urlhttp://tinyurl.com/ltoa2se[/url
I have left my predictions in so your first job, after you have laughed at them, is to delete all the numbers and then start afresh. Alternatively leave them in and just change the ones you disagree with.

All you do is put in where you think the points will go in each remaining fixture.
So the first line is Hull KR v Hull.
If you think KR will win, put a number 2 in the box under their name on that line.
If you think FC will fin, put the 2 in their box
If you predict a draw, then put 1 in each box.

By the end of the spreadsheet, you will have predicted the rest of all games, without knowing where it will all end up, and at the bottom you'll find your ACTUAL predicted final league table. Which could be what you now think - or could be something completely different.

Here's mine:

St. Helens 54
Wigan 44
Leeds 41
Castleford 34
Widnes 30
Warrington 28
Hull KR 27
Salford ** 24
Hudds 22
Hull FC 22
Bradford 18
Catalans 16
Wakefield 10
London 2

Interestingly, it works out that
a) we will not gather in any league points for quite a while, so will appear rooted at the foot;
b) in the end, we may evade the bottom two relatively comfortably.
Let's hope that I am some good at preditions. Or else just get tigertot to do it and then we can know for sure




Now, there are some house rules. I DON'T CARE if you think my predictions or any of them are wrong, optimistic or whatever. So please do not bother telling me. The reason is, the predictions do not actually make any jot of difference to what will actually happen. Instead, if you make predictions of your own, by all means justify or explain them. But don't try to wind other people up by slagging off anybody's individual predictions. It's a bit of fun, and either enter into the spirit of it or I'd prefer you didn't bother.

I'm just curious to know where other people arrive at, by doing the same whole-season prediction, cos I think it's interesting.

We have to beat London and Wakefield again for sure, but even then we'd only have 2 points. Somehow, we need to beat a couple of sides that are higher up the table, or we are doomed.

Could we go through the whole season and end up with a -2 points!!

But, if all we beat was London and Wakefield, we would comprehensively and definitively thoroughly deserve to be relegated?

I think we're getting ahead of ourselves if we think Wakefield at home is a 'gimme'

You can bet your bottom dollar that Wakefield are going to target that game as a 'make or break' for their season. As things stand it could be the difference between them being pulled back to being only 4 points ahead of us, or stretching it to an 8 point gap.

It's on June 1st BTW. Six games before that one - and I'm struggling to see where we are going to pick up any points in any of them frankly. That makes the Wakey game the archetypal 4 pointer, if ever there was one....

You could make the same argument about our game away to London in some ways, although being the last match of the season it could be academic anyway....

I was hoping for a win over Salford & then possibly catching a fatigued Wigan on Easter Monday. Have to say I'm not optimistic we will win again now for quite a while and I think that defeat may have condemned us to relegation. Although knowing the Bulls they tend to do the opposite of what we expect so will probably beat Leeds and Wigan next week.

I think the person who suggested that is a Wakey fan being mischievous - he's had quite a few posts on RLFans but isn't a regular on here, which maybe suggests that anyway.

If we lose against Wakefield at home we're down, it's as simple as that. With the cushion they've got they really don't have to worry. If they put their season on that game it effectively wipes us out.

Nobody fancy my prediction spreadsheet, then?

Saints 52
Leeds 49
Castleford 38
Wigan 36
Warrington 34
Hull KR 31
Hudds 28
Widnes 24
----------------
Hull 22
Catalans 20
Salford 20
Bulls 10
-----------------
Wakefield 8
London 0

Not sure there's much point in me doing it, FA.

My trouble is I'm overly optimistic. Which translates into my seeing fairly inconsequential events as significant reasons for the natural order being overturned. I'll see a top side having one of their seven internationals apparently 'carrying a knock', and the fact we, at that point in time, are in the unusual position of having almost 18 fully fit players to choose from as a sign that we just 'might nick it' - so I'd probably put us down to win the lot, just to be on the safe side.

Also, as I said earlier, I believe, in general that you tend to lose games you banked on and also win some you consider pretty unlikely, so it doesn't really work for me. Mind, even I'm having trouble finding the 'bankers' this season.