Our games also matter to other teams. Imagine how Cas would feel if we give Hudds a beating in a few weeks, and imagine how we'll feel if the King brothers and Sandow have good games because they feel a bit less pressure and start to settle into the side after that.

FTV your post takes me back to the 80's 90's & 00's when I considered beating the Pies a good season. oh! Yes Pies and Saints in the 00's. After when the Gypies were pretty Shaat, without Meninga.
I'll call it a good season then when we beat Pies on Friday, if we don't.....SMITH OUT!

spot on mate..its our own fault we are in this mess,not just because we lost last night but losing at home to cas hull hudds. losig away to hudds kr widnes..hopefully next year some of the players that are still here may realise this..

Sky may ultimately sort something out. They call the shots and all they want is marketable games that attract viewers and advertising revenue. This year it's us, Hull and Cats to be cast adrift, next season there will again be 3 possibly 4 clubs in the same boat.

Our home games against Cats and Hull will look very poor on TV.

I would favour, League Leaders Shield awarded to table toppers after regular season. Then teams start with top on 8 points, 2nd on 6, 3rd on 4 and 4th on 2. 5th -8th on 0 points.

Every minute will matter to Saints when we play you at the end of the year.

So the minutes matter. It was not specific who too, for the pedantic posters.

A lot of this debate seems to be a reflection of years of clubs being rewarded for mediocrity and fans getting used to teams who have coasted, being in the mix with all conquering teams, 3 weeks before the grand final.

You really do need counselling..

At least the title of this thread has reminded me that i need to clean under the bed.

Let's for the sake of argument, say that we beat the Pies on Friday, Saints beat Huddersfield (looking less likely now than it should do) and Catalan beat Cas. Huddersfield 30 points, Cas 30 points, Wire 26.
After the break for the cup final we play Hull at home whilst Huddersfield play Cas. Assuming we win and Huddersfield win too (worst possible result for us?) then Huddersfield 32 points, Cas 30 and Wire 28.
If (by some miracle) results do go our way we then come up against Huddersfield whilst Cas entertain Saints. Another win and Cas turning over Saints (worst possible result again) then it's Huddersfield 32 points, Cas 32 points, Wire 30.
Penultimate week and Cas visit Leeds, Huddersfield visit Hull and we entertain Catalan. Quite possibley Huddersfield 34 points, Wire 32 and Cas 32.
Final week and Huddersfield entertain Leeds, Cas visit Wigan and we visit Saints. Should we beat Saints then there is every chance that we will end the season on 34 points level with Huddersfield and 2 points ahead of Cas.

I appreciate that it would take a dramatic turn around in our fortunes to win those 5 games, but stranger things have happened. We will have a bearing on whether the Pies finish in the top two and get a home semi final or have to travel to Saints (or maybe Leeds). We may be the difference as to whether Saints get a home semi final. We could make all the difference between Huddersfield or Castleford or even ourselves finishing in fourth place.

We're not down to 'dead rubbers' yet.

You haven't considered the points against us v Huddersfield. It's mathematically possible, it's odds of happening could also be worked out, Im not clever enough to do it, but it would certainly be greater than seeing Elvis alive, which strangely is only 100/1 and 1000/1 if you want to request him being seen alive in Tesco.

The odds will be available from Monday. I would expect Warrington wouldn't even have a mention and you would need to request it.

So if the team also buy into Mr Duck's dead rubber theory we could see some true cricket scores against us in the next few week. I just hope none of the players read this forum.

hmm some good arguments for and against the system...

But our Leader Tony smith says it best today on the BBC website....

we are playing for pride and nothing else.....!!!!! [urlhttp://www.bbc.com/sport/0/rugby-league/33929335[/url

the super 8's is two rounds in and its over.....We have to settle for jumping for glee if we put a spanner in the works of one of the big clubs......other than that lads try your best...

"play for pride" thats the stuff people ridiculed Cullen for..... I think Smith can go for me..he's starting to irritate me a bit now.

and for those that thought I had a wires only stance on the system, How can anyone think that Hull Or Catalan (who came close to the second tier ) playing against Leigh, Bradford or Halifax Sheffield etc would have been good for the game......yes it would be exactly where they deserved to be because they didnt get enough points. but it would have set two big clubs back considerably.

we should not be making a bigger sub standard division...

Ironic. I wish we were playing for pride last Thursday night.

Tony smith tony smiths tactics or lack of tony smiths indifference tony smiths recruitment n.tony smiths team selection??

This is a side he has built or dismantled depends how you look at it, we persevered with cull for too long and maybe doing the same with smith. Sentiment and past results dint win games re

Did you have a chance of making the top 4 when the super 8's started?

What's with the mouthy Leigh fan that seems to be obsessed about posting on this forum?

No. The team wasn't good enough before a ball was kicked. We didn't just suddenly turn shaat last month.

Please feel free not to turn up next Friday, if we (Wigan) lose and given our away form that's not stretching the bounds of possibility, we'll be under all sorts of pressure to make the top four, same as Saints.

Smith can go, past performances mean jack s--t

He's gone stale, he totally mismanged the transition, recruited averagely and i'm sick of his B.S excuses...TELL THE F-KIN TRUTH when it is plain to see, sick of him lying to the fans when we already know the truth.

Get someone fresh in, remember Wigan recruiting 'Madge' no one knew of him and he transformed that clubs culture.

put a quid on all that lot if it comes in you can retire...

I admire your optimism, Thelonius.
Unfortunately, I've more chance of having a pooh in The Queen's handbag

I do use the words 'miracle' and 'dramatic turn around in our fortunes', and I'm not crazy enough to expect us to go on to win our next fives, but as I also said, 'stranger things have happened'.

Surely we still want to finish as high as we can this season, even if that only means fifth rather than sixth or holding onto sixth rather than drop to seventh or eighth. The only possible dead rubber I can foresee us being involved in at the minute is if we are fixed in sixth and Saints are fixed in second or third come the last game of the season.

That's the thing that "piddles me off", Thelonius

We DO have the capability of WINNING all 5.
We also have the capability of LOSING all 5 (which will make 8 on the bounce).

Sad, really. Four years ago, losing 3 on the bounce would be inconceivable. Now, it's almost expected

No.....We didn't have a chance of the top 4 all season. ..In fact dig up some old posts on here many didn't think we would make the 8.....

If I remember only the all new Chester Wire thought we would make the top 4 and also Saints fan saddened. ..but he's never right

With the signings of Daryl Clark and Ashton Sims ,I felt we had the opportunity to improve on 2014 but, it just hasn't worked out ,hardly been able to field the same team all season ,the depth of our squad was not good enough for this new format,we will learn and be better next season ,though I think RFL may have to look at salary cap again ,if teams need to have bigger squads to compete

That doesn't make sense to me cutter...
How does increasing the salary help teams to compete against each other?