I must say ,i am half expecting one of either Saints or Wigan to get to Old Trafford. Saints who have been woeful for most of the season or Wigan who ,like previous seasons,have been ravaged with injuries until the time arrives to up the ante.

imagine most peoples reations if sts or wigan won the gf and were classed as champions..it really does take the pee..the sooner we go to 1st pass the post as champs the better..now i hope cas go on and win the end of season knock out

I dont get the constant moaning about the winners of the grand final not being worthy champions....

If the storm don't win the NRL grand final this year no one will demand the rules be changed because the league leaders haven't ended up as champions for the second year in a row.

They were league leaders last season and 3rd place sharks beat them in the grandfinal. No one in Australia thought that was unfair in the slightest.

And if it happens again they won't question the format they'll question the storms big game mentality.

But if Cas don't win our grand final you can bet people will start petitions and Facebook will melt down with people being outraged. .....

And the reality is the Aussies don't suffer losers like we do... their attitude is if you've lost you weren't good enough... tough... get it right next time..
Our mentality is different if cas lose they'll probably get nominated for team of the season as a reward for a great season and the real champions will be cast as a pantomime villain

I'd quite like Leeds' back line and some forwards from Wigan/Saints/Hull.

I didn't say cherry pick, I said swap the full squad.

Because in all fairness us Brits are more used to top of the table being champions.

I dont know how you fix it but its demeaning to the team that as been the most consistant all year.

The Challenge cup is contested by all Rugby League, the Grand Final in its current format by the top 4 in SL. Both are essentially knock out competitions, but we call the Grand Final winners SL champions.

I think what you call whinning is just other peoples questions.

Lineham, Hughes and Brown we appalling, we had a chink of light from Atkins, Russell, Ratchford, Hill, Westwood and Savelio the rest were bang average as was the effort put in by the team. The most important thing was the two points and we got them.

I fear for the next opponents of the Catalan's the RFL will ensure they stay up, if the end up in the MP game god help their opponents!

The difference between the two leagues is a mentality but structure makes it so.
In the NRL there are many games where they might only play a team once in a season. SL plays all home and away to create balance. Just one game screws up the creditability of champions....Magic. scrap it now and give it a seprate 9s structure comp instead.

Absolutely no doubt that this season has been dire for rugby watching.

It wasn't that long ago i wouldnt have dreamed of missing a match on the TV. This season i started turning them off very early, which progressed to not watching them altogether.

Only games i am watching now are warrington ones and games with Castleford in.

The entertainment is low, the standard even lower.

Not that I give the "fixing" theory any credence at all, but if they are going to fix matches how about making sure they are entertaining while they are at it! Keep us on the edge of our seats, with every game going down to the wire. We could have a team dressed all in black that everyone hates (ignore that, we've already got that but in Cherry and White).

Agree. That's what we all sign up for from game one. It's the structure the SL clubs themselves vote for. It's sport. Fans can't complain if it doesn't follow their script.

On the NRL, they have more teams, so making the playoffs (and the top 4 for a "better" run), is tougher (rather than 8 out of 12 in SL).

The NRL has a higher depth of quality throughout the league - when you hear the aussie players talk about the difference, they often say that in the NRL, it's a high intensity week in week out, there are no easy games, but SL has a mix of stronger and weaker teams.

If we had that in SL, Smith couldn't rest/rotate players against a "weaker" team, you can't take the mentality of "it's fine as long as we finish top 4 or 8" into games.

So making the playoffs in the NRL is a big deal which is why I guess from then no one really begrudges the ultimate winner, league leaders or not, they've earned it.

NRL have the balance right between league and playoff importance, and it's seen as one whole competition, rather than us over here who kind of views SL as two distinct parts.

Fair enough. In truth there a very few players from our squad that I would be upset about losing. Namely

Ratchford
Hill
Currie
Atkins
Hiku
Clarke

Well i hope someone at the club realises that there can be no half measures with these games & that keeping our foot on the gas & scoring points is important . HKR are breathing down our necks & Widnes have a better scoring difference but with less play off points. Any slip up could be a disaster.

I was comfortable after the the first 2 wins (arguably our toughest 2 initially looking at the fixtures). However after Fax gave us that much resistance as a team who wouldn't expect to make the MPG, London and Fev both away are now looking like real potential banana skins.

In reality we'll probably win comfortably, and be way out of the woods before we play KR, but we can't go into those two games with the attitude and intensity we did with Fax.

Did you not listen to Tony, they are entitled to be flat for games like this. You can't seriously expect them to give 100% in every match?

1 Halifax finished 3rd not 4th
2 turned over London, Fev Hull kr Toulouse to make the top 4
3) This was a weak fax squad (Sharp Banned, Calhane injured, Heaton who as scored 6 in last 2 pulled out Friday. etc

If we had been full strength I think you would have lost. Fax V Catalans for the MPG

Notice how the issue is never preparation, skills, effort, structure, personnel. No that's all perfect it's always a "force majeure" reason.
The poor snowflakes were a bit flat, that's all. Let's hope they are not too flat for the remaining games.

See you do listen to Tony. They've trained well all season so it has nothing to do with prep. You can't however, train to work with championship standard referee's and flat performances. Thankfully though, it sounds like we have had a wake up call, good job really, we'd have had a rubbish season if we carried on with displays like that.

No one said they didn't


They also lost to London, Fev, HKR and Toulouse in their other games against them, and you then lost to HKR in the first game of the 8s, so what's your point?
Fax were probably the form Championship team coming into the 8's, and were perhaps unlucky with the fixtures, but I still don't get your point?


This I agree with - I was genuinely impressed with Fax's defense, and general play in attack, nice offloads etc.
But the MPG game? No chance. All 4 SL teams plus HKR too far ahead in quality. The MPG game will be another all SL encounter, with HKR safely promoted.

Why.. If we beat Catalans, fev London and keep Leigh close then should see us make it on PD.

This fax team conceded the least points in the champoionship and we always get written off just like you lot expected a 66-0 hammering of us on sat but instead were lucky to leave with 2 points.

A lot of 'ifs'.

Sure, we all thought that we'd put some points on you as we'd just stuck 50 odd on Catalans and thought (hoped) that we'd kick on after a season of misery and it's new territory for us so apologies if we got giddy with our predictions. Your 'mate' Norman Bates didn't disagree with our summation either, but, fair play to your defence and general play that has been acknowledged by many on here.

Whether we were "lucky" I'll leave that thought with you and wish you well for the rest of the comp

Indeed I didn't.



I think if we had our full team out on Saturday it would have been VERY close, but I can't say we would have won a nobody knows that. With a bit of luck we could potentially end up with 6 points and be pushing somebody, probably Catalans, close. Somebody did say earlier on this thread that theynpity who has Cats next and as ever it's us, at least that should allow us to shout fix at another e ref.

I'm not sure what is wrong at Wire and Cats as on appear they have really strong squads, guess it must be coaching!!!!

Onward and upward and we may be seeing you again next season, in the middle 8's if you don't change something.

You've got to hope that changes are afoot, but, if we play you next year I hope it's away in the Challenge Cup as I fancy a day out

.

Good luck and if you 'feel the need' carry on predicting by all means.

You're forgetting who we had out on Saturday. Add Clarke, Currie, Westerman, Cooper & Crosby into the pack with Gidley in the halves and it wouldn't have been close no matter what team you put out. Even with our current coaching issues.

are you saying the game is rigged..how dare you..agree with me