i would say Cats need to finish in 1st or 2nd as they are not as good away from home

I think Huddersfield or Catalans will win the CC and the other one will win the league shield. With Wigan v Wire at OT, with a Wigan victory

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Huddersfield or Catalans to top the league at the end of the season?

If you're serious, you might want to get down the bookies - You'd probably get decent odds against that happening.

I can only really see Wigan/Wire at the top, Saints/Huddersfield/Catalans 3rd-5th.
Not sure of the exact order of the 2 groupings, but that would be my guess.

Leeds probably 7th-8th.
But maybe that's their plan this year - Try to set a new record for winning the knock-out comp from the lowest possible position.

It makes me laugh when they are constantly referred to as "champions" by Sky, as whilst it is technically correct, they were in fact the FIFTH best team in the league last year, and just got on a lucky streak in the end-of-season cup comp.

Winning the title last year may even have been counter-productive for Leeds. It meant they had to stick hold of Brian McDermott.

7/1 for Hudds, and 10/1 for Catalans to do it.

Which would be about right imo. I think both will fade away as the likes of Wigan, Warrington and Leeds raise their games.

I dont see why this should be the case both will be strong for the rest of the season i think

Don't fancy Huddersfield to sustain it, but Cats at 10/1 to top the league's not a bad shout IMO, when they are effectively running joint top, and have a game in hand at home against a poor hull side, and are unbeaten in france. With Wigan, Saints, Leeds also still having to go to france...you'd have to make them favourates to win those in the heat of summer.

On top of that, looking at their remaining fixtures, I can only see two potential losses for them away from home, against possibly huddersfield and wire away, with potentially a third coming from one of the hull clubs. Add on to that I would be extremely surprised if any more than one of Leeds, Saints and Wigan manage to beat them at home (fingers crossed we're the one). That would leave them with only approx 5-6 losses all season - Cant see them slipping up against any of the other clubs so that would make them pretty decent bets for top spot IMO...may just have a little flutter at that!

how did we run out of steam? we lost v leeds by a last minute penalty? funny how people change facts to suit an arguement!

Wigan ran out of steam more than we did. There was this myth created that Warrington were head and shoulders above the rest of the league last year because we won lots of games by large margins but we only finished a point ahead of Wigan and Wigan also won the Challenge Cup, then they deflated badly in the playoffs.

We smashed Hudds in the first play off and then lost a tight arm wrestle game to Leeds, there wasn't exactly a decline in form towards the end of the season because after the Salford loss in June we won 13 or so straight before that narrow loss.

What I wonder about last season is what would have happened if Leeds had beaten Wigan at Wembley. Both Leeds and Wigan played the same number of games so should have been as tired but why did Leeds finish so strongly and Wigan peter out...? I wonder if psychologically the Cup winners relax a bit, the edge comes off after you have won it? I wouldn't have been surprised to see Wigan come back with a vengeance had they lost at Wembley and defended their SL title.

whoever wins the LLS is always told by other fans that 'it doesn't matter' and 'it means nothing' but secretly... We all enjoy winning it. any silverware is good silverware. Especially for us wires, Christ knows we've waited long enough!

Okay, I'll change it:

Wigan running out of steam after Wembley, and Warrington choking (not for the first time).

I wouldn't say I 'enjoyed' winning it. It's nice to finish top buut rightly or wrongly it means nothing.

Look back through my posts from 2010 and you'll see I said something along the lines of "lets just pick it up, say thanks, and get on with winning the big one"

You ran out if steam because you didnt play up to the standard you had set yoursleves throughout the season. If you had played as well as you had through the season that game would of been won by Warrington by a good few points imo.

We never looked the same after the challenge cup. Them two playoffs games against Saints we made a lot of cock ups and looked a mess.

Leeds CC Run :
Crusaders (H)
Harlequins (H)
Hull (a)
Cas (N)
Wigan (N)

Wigan CC Run :
Barrow (H)
Bradford (A)
Wire (A)
Saints (N)
Leeds (N)

(Plus a WCC match too)
You could argue Leeds had a tougher match in the final though



Joking apart, I do take your point, though I do think we ran out of steam more than any other team last season.

We are always regarded as the big chokers or the biggest bottlers... i would say Saints are worse than us... i am aware they can actually make it to finals but 5 times without winning? come on I'd say that is worse...

I'd prefer top if it wasn't for club call, 2nd spot seems to be the most advantageous in the current set up.

Saying that top 8 is just plain stupid, rewarding mediocrity.

Top 8 s an absolute joke , it's called super league and 8 out of 14 can go to the play off s , it should be made as hard as possible in my eye s . As in top 4 and 12 teams max

the only reason we have a top 8 is to make the last 8 weeks of the season mean something for a few teams around 6th to 10th. Without there being a top 8 only 6 teams in the league have something to play for (ie those 6 who would fight for a top 4 spot) This is because 8 of the teams can perform to levels of mediocrity as they know it doesnt matter as there is no threat of relegation. This scenario will continue until all teams can raise their own revenue income to enable them to spend up to the maximum cap limit.

At the end of the day, it wasn't really a jab at Warrington. I was trying to explain why I felt that last year two relatively mediocre teams contested the Grand Final.

As we approached the end of last season, I don't know anyone who didn't confidently expect either Wigan or Warrington to at least appear in the final, if not win it.