I'd have to agree with Brett Kearney, we need 5 wins. We should beat Widnes, Wakefield, Castleford and London. But where will the other win come from?

What you seem to have done is made the assumption that it is not possible for us ever to win against anyone but the cellar dwellers. Well, if you were right, then we would still finish either 8th, or 9th, depending on points difference! So even then we might only be out of a place on the narrowest arithmetic, and even even then, just one unexpected result from now to end of season involving our main competitors could still easily see us in the 8.

Personally though I find the perpetual doom and gloom assumptions to be as defeatist as they are inexplicable. Sure we are not in form, though we are seriously weakened, but we can also play well, already have 7 wins, have good players who will soon be back, and are not likely to remain in our slough of form and results permanently.

It's not that long ago since we drew with Leeds and thumped Huddersfield, so unless you are such a confirmed pessimist that you convince yourself that never can we ever, even possibly, get a result against any of the top-10 again, you must admit we have an extremely strong claim. My spreadsheet is designed to help such uber-pessimist depressives convince themselves.

If we continue playing the way we are, we will not beat any of the teams above us, as we are simply not playing well enough. We didn't come close to Wigan, Warrington, or Huddersfield last time out, and were beaten by a Saints team on bad form too.

However, I remember a match in 2011. We were playing very poor rugby at the time and our season was going nowhere, until we trashed Huddersfield 36-0 at Odsal. No-one saw the result coming. Similarly, last season we went to Wigan and beat them, and this season we beat Huddersfield to end their unbeaten start to the season. I am not expecting anything like that to happen in these last few rounds, but if it does, and we pull of a shock result, then we should make the 8, assuming we beat the teams we should beat.

There are a number of teams around us, and I suspect some of those aren't going to win every game they think they are going to win either. Lots of water to pass under lots of bridges and plenty of games before the end of the season.

Our next 3 games are Widnes, Wire, Wigan all the W's think should win at least one of those, any guesses to which i think, Leeds also may do us a massive favor by playing Widnes on monday, just wonder how much that draw could hurt us.

Its our remaining games after that Hull at home, wakey away, catalan at home, cas away, london at home and the giants at home.

At the least 3 of those are winnable, but we should be able to at least beat two from hull, catalan and hudds with them at being at home, but we do play Hull the week after they got to france and we have had a week off.

COYB!!! So at least 5 wins, 10pts going to be tough.

The odd surprise never goes a miss.

The key is that we take the points from the 4 games everyone seems to think are bankers - Widnes, Wakey, London and Cas. That wont guarantee a top 8, but it will maintain the pressure on the other contenders. However at risk of being labelled one of FA's uber-pessimists (or realists as they are more commonly known) the main risk to our playoffs chances is that KR seem to be in good form, and after being robbed at the Magic Weekend they will certainly going for FC when they next meet - so I have KR on 26 points

Making a sensible argument about one of our top-8 rivals is hardly being an uber-pessimist. The uber pessimists are those who, because we have had a bad run, decide we are irredeemably crap, and are unlikely to ever win again, except against irrelevant tailenders.

Trying to argue that we WILL not make the playoffs due to future "good form" by KR is not being a "realist" at all, it is pure speculation. I don't especially see KR having a fantastic run to the playoffs- do you really? Whether yes or no, the concept of "realism" has nowt to do with it. It only would, if we all agreed that barring very unlikely contingencies, KR are as good as in the playoffs. Why do they seem so crash hot to you? Last time I looked at the table, they haven't been.

That said, I need to labour the point, again, that this thread IS NOT ABOUT whether you, or I, "think" we will make the playoffs. I'd just like you to honestly feed all your predictions into the spreadsheet, and then tell us what that produces!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our best hope is that KR are over come as they play catalan, saint, wigan ,wire and leeds all away, that leaves them with then 4 home wins.

I have done a spreadsheet with what i think and we will either scrape it by 1-2 pts or if we carry on screwing ourselves over we will miss out by 4 pts.

So what you're saying is you want us to guess how high we'll finish in the table then?

But yes, I am trying in effect to get people to make what amounts to an educated guess, but that's because plenty seem confident they can predict what we will and won't do for the rest of the season, yet seem very reticent in predicting what every other club will do. So I though a "forced" educated guess, but about EVERY fixture, not just our own.

I can't be bothered to fill in the programme, but looking at the tables there is a clear top 8 in quality, I think all as I suggested pre-season, with a group below of 4. Of that sub group Bradford are in decline, Wakey looking good against a dire Salford, Cas improving & WIdnes fairly consistent. I don't know who exactly is playing who but cannot see any of the lower top 8 losing more than Bradford. So 9th or 10th with Wakey.

Thanks for the prediction that is exactly the opposite of what I want. If you can't be bothered, then so be it, but as it would only take a couple of minutes max, I can't see why. You could have done half of it in the time it took to write the above!

I looked at it a few times, decided it would take me an hour to work out how to do it, so decided a quick post would suffice. I trust my post more than your fancy dan programmes. I've written my message on my PC screen as well, just in case you manage to delete it when i am proved correct.

Edit - if I'd bothered to expand the screen I would have seen you had helpfully put the fixtures down the right hand side. That does weaken my argument somewhat.

It holes it below the water line, but never mind that now, I'd assumed that in Ilkley, everyone's computer screens were at least a metre wide. Have you fallen on hard times?

I still can't fill anything in so am giving up again & agreeing I was right form the start. I could get the butler to do it I suppose - are 21 year old Polish babes good at IT? =#FFFFFF(who cares).

They're VERY good at it, at least that's what I've been told.

My ancient PC has a nervous breakdown when I try and open FAs spreadsheet.

My prediction means the table would look like this;

Wigan 45
Wire 43
Hudds 42
Leeds 37
Catalans 34
Hull FC 31
Hull KR 30
St Helens 26
Wakefield 23
Widnes 20
Bradford 18
Salford 16*
Cas 16
London 9

* 2 Points Deducted

These are all guesses but i've got Bradford only winning one more against London at home. Saints to draw with Hull, win 4 and lose 4. Rovers to continue good form and win 6 of 9 but lose games away against the big 3 (Wigan, Wire & Leeds)

The thing is, if we really did only manage to win one more game, then we wouldn't deserve to be anywhere near the playoffs, Cummins would be sacked and there would be demonstrations calling for OK's head

Absolutely, it would be 'unacceptable'...

Indeed, as well as a disgrace. And a joke.

I think we will win between 2 and 5 games depending on whether we can find some of our earlier season form.

yeah but the cold reality of the spreadsheet is you have to call each result. No dithering!