Think the league this season will be the best yet in terms of competitiveness, I think it is harder to predict a winner in most games and as Phil Clarke said there are in his opinion 6 teams who you could make a strong case for winning the GF. I am not sure which 6 he refers to but he is right.
Salford have some really good players and maybe the departure of Koucash and the `perception ` from outside that they will struggle will galvanize there players and staff and result in a backs to the wall attitude, similar to the attitude that has served us so well over the years.
I honestly think that this could be the year that SL produces competitive matches every single week which the big 6 wont like so it will be all change again for next season.

One game at a time lampboy.
To steal McDermott's philosophy, it's all about qualifying for the end of season stuff and having a fit squad when the money games come around.
Having said that, we look to have a stronger squad than last season and we just need some luck with injuries and a favourable cup draw and who knows.
And whilst I'm dreaming, some positive news on the stadium front wouldn't go a miss either

Your occasional obsession with how good the opposition are interests me. I've no wish to belittle Salford they look capable of beating us if we are not up for it.

However who are these really good players? I can't see any who are really good and no more than a dozen or so who I'd call good.

I'm not getting carried away Trinity is NOT a team of superstars but player for player we have quite an edge over Salford IMHO. It's not a must win game for us and it's not a given but it's certainly a should win.

Personally I think last season was as good as it will ever get for competitiveness. The 8s both Super and Middle were quite open for a change with even Huddersfield starting way down in with a shout to scrape into the top four early on after the split.

It may well be premature but I think there will be a more notable shift this season. I think the bottom four will be notably lacking in quality compared to the top 8 throughout the season. I say this to be proven wrong in 6 months time but I think the bottom four will be Catalans, Rovers, Salford and Widnes. Choose your order for bottom four as you see fit.

Vasty surely O `Brian, Johnson, Sau, Evalds, Lui, Kopczak, Jones, Hauraki, Tasi, Falnagan, Burgess, Vatuvei and Mossop deserve the respect of being recognized as good players, and certainly should not be written of by youI would say that Kopczak is one of the best props in the League. If Salford are able to field the above in a match day 17 then they will be a tough side to beat. One more for you Vasty Bennion who played at Halifax last season, he has a big future in the game.

Tbf he said you have about a dozen good players, but no really good ones. Its all about personal opinion what constitutes good but I have to agree. They are all decent players you mention, but how many are truly top class? How many would get regular rugby at a Saints, Leeds, Wigan or Hull?

I am a neutral in this, and I'm not convinced just yet that Wakefield are genuine top 4 challengers, but on paper Trin are stronger in most areas.

Vatuvei is out for the season.

Vatuvei's got a serious Achilles injury, hasn't he.

Salford has got some good players, who we shouldn't underestimate but Like Vastman says very good is pushing it for quite a few of them imo and that list for the most are good/decent SL players. Kopczak and Lui are their best players for me.

If they defend like they did against Wigan, our wingers are going to have a field day. It needs to massively improve.

He's a Trinity fan mate.

Haha oops.

My excuse is that I am on mobile so I dont see avatars or anything.

Point still stands though. Salford have mostly decent players with a handful of average/poor ones. Wakefield have mostly decent players with a handful of really good ones. Wakefield by 14

Yes but you said really good players and they are not imho. Vatuvei in particular looked a shadow of his former self not just last year but in recent seasons. Moosop is just dreadful and Burgess is well past his best. Liu is brilliant when he can be bothered which isn't very often ditto Hauraki, Tasi. The rest are just plain ordinary.

Kopczak is a class act and as good as any of ours but that's basically 5-1 and he can't overcome that no matter how good he is.

They are where we were is 2016 so they can definitely build but lets not over do it. I don't want to underestimate anyone but I'm not going to overestimate for no reason either.

If we lose to Salford it will mainly be because we didn't perform to our best, if we do we'll take them by 20 points imo. Whether that happens who knows.

With Belly it's an easy mistake sometimes. Loves to talk up other sides.

Despite my undoubted genius regarding the game and it's players CC and I are not in touch but if we were this is the advise I would give him RE Salford.

As Belly points out Salford do have a backbone of decent players. Likewise their Coach is no mug.

He will have watched us last week and will be rightly scared of our left hand side (been a long time since a Wakey fan could state that and be right!). That being Miller, Ashurst, Tupou and Johnstone.

He will want to defend against that and will throw everything he has at it. I'm certain they will be able to blunt that attack as they have some players who can do it.

What I'm equally certain about is that Salford don't have the bodies to defend our nearly as devastating right hand attack - BJB, Lyne, Kirmo/Horo and Grix chiming in.

For me its a case of left left right. Fein to go down the left but make all the big attacking plays up the weaker right.

If the players do that methodically we should win IMHO, because I just don't think Salford have the pace to defend it.

Of course the backs will need to be smart and the forwards hold their own but you need that no matter what the game plan is.

The club can send me my money in the post, thank you all for reading

Nah, just bash em up down the middle and stroll in for as many tries as we want.
They'll have to be under the sticks though cos Finn's kicking boots have gone missing.

You are Chris Chester and I claim my £5

I agree with both.
Smash them down the middle but then choose left or right.

I like the variation now if they are going to continue with Grix one side and Miller on the other. Miller has to keep his passing at the level he had on Friday but it stops teams guessing the play by watching Grix.

Exciting times.

Good post. Saying that didn't Wigan just completely abuse the left side of Salfords' defense, so it'll be quite hard for them to remedy that in a week. Like you say though left or right, it doesn't really matter they're both strong.

For the first time in ages, it must be a genuine quandary for opposition coaches to work out how to play WT; the pack is huge and can be devastating - and when Huby is fit, it adds another dimension, since he's a compulsive offloader - and with Grix' ability to back up, that's a real danger. Meanwhile, our 2nd row is big and quick, and then both edges are genuinely dangerous - particularly TJ, who seems to have a couple of extra gears, and a genuine ability to go from 0-60 almost instantly. I don't think you can 'plan' to defend Miller, since he's one of those players who doesn't seem to know himself what he's going to do until he has the ball in his hands - which works very well alongside Finn, who is much more methodical and always appears to be a few plays ahead of himself. Putting together that squad is a work of genius - making it perform to the best of its ability will be the challenge.

The biggest weakness from the HKR game was the middle part of the game, where we dropped off the pace and gave away a string of needless penalties - better teams than HKR will punish that kind of sloppiness, so that will need to be addressed. Looking forward to Friday - I'm predicting a comfortable win for WT.

The aspect of the 2018 left right side comparison that impressed me most was the defense, both sides seemed to be equally good. Now I know that our right side received most of the traffic against Hull KR, but in Ashurst and Horo we have two intelligent back rowers who read the game well, make great decisions and tackle well. Defense wins matches.

Squads realesed id assume we’d line up like

Obrien
Evalds
Jones
Sau
Olpherts
Lui
Littlejohn
Mossop
Tomkins
Tasi
Huaraki
Griffin
McCarthy

Wood
Burgess
Nakubuwai
Kopzcak

Must Win.

reasons noted in the must win first round.

More of a must win than last week but still not a must win as noted last week.

Must win, to ensure that we remain above Cas in the league

Will be a much tougher test for us than last week

Its always a bit iffy in early season with no game time fine tuning, but s'pose its the same for everyone, its been a long time since we gave that many pens and bb pens in a game, I don't even know how many there were but it felt like a lot, it certainly fed HKR's come back periods
I think if we play that game again without the pens, we'll see Salford off with a bit to spare..