Hmmm....Salford will be better than last year probably, Hull and Bradford will be definitely, so unless someone like Wakefield falls apart, I think 13th (out of 13, when Crusaders fall apart).

On a totally different issue, how long will we have a + point difference?
I give it 2 minutes into our game with Wakey, then it will be - for the rest of the season.
But yea, i would say we will finish around 9-12, no magic in our squad, just some dull rugby players.

Sheeny-Why do you think the reds will be stronger? 1 year in SL I will accept but player wise what have they done?

I think we will finish in the top eight, but only just!!!

Top 4 as I am the eternal optimist!

Come on you Quins!!

(just watching sky sports with the catch up of the year, Brian Mac is talking a good talk

)

1st. choice team is good enough to make the play-offs, but there doesn't seem to be anything in reserve. With Nobby coaching the Crusaders, if we have a bad injury run we could well finish bottom!

Salford are a selling club, I think morale is low and can't see them being much better than us IMO

10th if the club has a good season with injuries, 12th if not.

I think it all depends on whether the mysterious malaise that afflicted the squad over the closing months of last season has been properly rectified. If not we'll be potential wooden spoonists. If we can start this season as we did last we can finish around halfway. The ten wins from the first fifteeen games last season was the most prolonged spell of good form since the final year at Griffin Park and I don't think the current squad will be any weaker than the one that achieved those results. There will of course be the inevitable losing streak at some point when too many of our first choice players are out injured simultaneously.

You're not a Quins fan, optimistics make us sick

=#FF0000Im guessing you're talking about last season, not the Griffin park season, but do you honestly believe that? We might of improved our backs, which really we haven't even if it is Gafa that left. But our props are no where near the same standard as the ones that left, and thats worry.

3 of the props are the same people(LMS, Ward, KT)-We have lost Haggerty and Hecks who have been replaced with James and Big Dave(how many games did the H's play?)-We have an abundance of 2nd rowers who can move forward if need be.

Hard to be optimistic after the second half of last season. But we do have 7 or 8 young guys, some of whom just could come good. Robinson and Williamson have to be more effective than last year (please!). And none of the players we've lost was of any great use towards the end of last year.

But it's still hard to be optimistic.

Downers are that we don't have a real right centre, our halves probably aren't good enough (Orr will struggle for fitness and Gale needs to come on fast - maybe Ellis will play at one of the half-back positions?) our coach seemed at a loss last year to fix things that were going wrong, Bill Peden's replacement is an unknown quantity. And I worry about Purdo's fitness.

If everything goes right, we could finish as high as 5. If a few things go wrong, we could end up at 14. Probably about 11.

Regret to be of the view that QuinsRL are in for another poor season in 2010 and if we have a spate if injuries the squad will be unlikely to be even within 3 places of vthe last play-off slot!!

But will 'forcast' 10th at best.

=#FF0000[size=200we?[/size Thought you'd jumped ship.

Still don't think Ward is good enough anymore, LMS and KT, well they speak for themselves, obvious quality. James, no one knows anything about him, and Dave, he's good in the reserves, but can he step up? He just reminds me of a better player than Grayshon, but many people are better than Grayshon, guess we just have to wait and see.
And Haggerty at the beginning of the season was great, Hecks had his good games and his bad games.

Because of injury, this might be why it was bad come end of the season? At the beginning of the season, some of the players we lost were playing good, then they got injured and we fell down the league like no ones business.

I suspect Leeds and Quins have quite different "targets" to achieve success. Would 8th for example be failure for Quins?

Salford were (slightly) better than us in the second half of the season even after they stopped picking Myler. But no, I don't know what they've done with the money since.

Not aware of them doing anything with it yet.

A lot of the players we've kept weren't of great use towards the end of last year! Obviously it's down the coach to weed out those he feels have served their purpose and rejuvenate those he feels can come again.

I can't understand why Robinson seems to be one of everyone's prime scapegoats for the decline; he barely played during the losing streak, starting only three of the last twelve games including the only victory. If he continues to be so injury prone (I think he had five separate absences of varying lengths) then he will become a liability, but if anything I feel he's one of the least culpable. I felt Williamson's form was good during the first half of the season and his subsequent decline was something of a barometer for the entire team.

Possibly so, but the point I was making was that those who've gone aren't going to be much missed.
I'm not scapegoating Robinson. To be honest I hardly saw him play because I missed most of the early season games. But if he ain't playing, as he wasn't when I was watching, he isn't effective.

I (as a bit of a closet Manly fan) had high hopes of Williamson but I don't think he performed well at all (though I didn't see much of his early season play). When I did see him, he seemed to mistime many of his supporting runs resulting in a lot of dropped ball, maybe not his fault but he wasn't combining well with team-mates. And he became a penalty machine defending PTBs.

Sorry, I was being a bit flippant. None of the players who've left us has joined another SL club (unless you count Tony Gigot, who never actually played in SL for us) which pretty much proves your point. I don't think the squad looks any weaker than at this stage last year

Haggerty is still a SL prop, I would argue Heckenberg is also, no offense to Cook who i have no idea on how he plays, or Dave, but these two on their days could be very good.
So i think we are much weaker in the forward front

Haggerty won't be a SL prop this year because he's plying for Widnes! Personally I thought he'd done enough overall in his time with us to have been worth keeping, but it appears no other SL club made him a decent offer (or any offer?) when we released him. Heckenberg clearly had a recurring injury and was never going to be fit enough for long enough to justify another contract - a good club servant, but we have to be realistic. How can you say we're "much weaker" in the forwards when, by your own admission, you know very little about the replacements who, again by your own admission, "could be very good"?

Of the newcomers Ben Jones-Bishop looks a tremendous prospect (albeit only on loan of course), Andy Ellis was the best player in a team that would have been promoted to SL on merit under the pre-licence era, Oliver Wilkes & Matt James are experienced SL forwards, Ben Jones is the sort of young player on whom we inevitably need to take a punt sometimes.

If there is going to be a weakness I reckon it's more likely to be in the halves & backs, where we seem to have less depth than in previous years, than in the forwards.