As an outsider looking in I think your starting 17 looks pretty good on paper. The question marks are in 3 areas for me. 1. The halfbacks and how well they gel, Pryce can disappear when it gets tough and Sneyd can be a bit up and down. 2. The slight lack of quality depth up front, prop and backrow look short on experience and quality if a few of the main players get injuries 3. The coach - who isn't very convincing and I think is out of his depth.

I like the look of some of your younger players and there's a big opportunity for some to make a name for themselves in the forwards.

You have a squad capable of creeping into the 8 but I think you'll just miss out and finish 9th just behind Cas but above HKR. Then again I think the league places from 6-10 are very hard to predict.

I've never said it's the only factor, but I don't think we lose enough through not having Talanoa in the team to warrant having a very slow back line.

A back line of Talanoa, Yeaman (it will happen), Sa & Lineham is not pacey at all. Are you suggesting that by swapping Talanoa for Lancaster we suddenly become defensively unsound?

Not sure we're you get that Shaul is faster than Russell from, or that Evans is slower than Lineham! Michaels won't play in front of Yeaman so I don't think that's a realistic comparison.

Wigan & Leeds don't look faster? Are you for real?

Hardaker, Briscoe, Hall, Watkins & Moon are a lot faster than Shaul, Lineham, Sa, Yeaman & Talanoa. Apart from Bowen, Wigans are faster too.

I want a back line of Shaul, Lineham, Sa, Michaels & Lancaster. If (and its a big if) Michaels does play in front of Yeaman then playing Talanoa in front of Lancaster wouldn't be the worst thing.

Fair enough comments. HBs are key, Radford hasn't delivered yet. Hopefully our depth in the pack will prove OK as our academy players step up although probably a season too early for the likes of Turgut, BTW etc to make big first team impact.

It's also fair to say that expectations amongst our own fans range from pretty modest to suicidal. With so much hinging on a risky HB pairing and a longer term youth development strategy that's sensible, if a bit downbeat for me as a glass half full supporter.

I think a lot of fans are really underrating our chances. It kind of makes a welcome change from being expected to do well and underachieving. To say "a squad capable of creeping into the 8" suggests the best we can achieve is 8th. I don't expect trophies or anything but I consider 8th to be bare minimum. We are capable of 5th if everything clicks. I think we are better than Cas, similar to Huddersfield, and there are big question marks over Salford and Leeds too.

I agree with your question marks though. Apart from the back row, we have some very good youngsters in that area.

You think Evans is quicker than Lineham, seriously?

Lineham would leave him standing.

Seemed to get away pretty easy last time I saw them match up.

Which game was that?

Here's a fact for you. Rhys Evans has only played against Tom Lineham once. In that Evans was at centre and didn't score. You've clearly made that up.

Yes, because centres never come up against wingers do they? And who mentioned him scoring?

It's alright, Lineham's obviously bullet like in comparison, because ARL said so. Even if it did turn out that he was marginally faster, it hardly backs up the 'it's ok to have that back line because everybody else's is slow' line, does it?

Facts are these, the back line we'll most likely have will be slow barring Lineham. Which basically means that unless our halves only unlock defences within 10m of the opponents try line we'll be chased down. We must have the worst record for converting breaks in to tries in the entire league, we are and have been for years, poor in this aspect of the game.

TBF I did also say it’s hard to predict places from 6-10. You could get as high as 6th if the side clicks and you escape injury. There’s a surprise package every year, it’s hard to predict who though.

I’d say Cas are hard to predict since they also have new halfbacks and have lost their star hooker but they play very well as a unit which is more than a lot of other teams did last year. Their coach is one of the better ones in the comp too. I personally think they’ll find it harder this year but have enough about them to stay in the 8 just about.

Salford are a hard one to predict, they’ve got a real quality 17 but after the first 20 or so players I’ve no idea who they’ve got to come in. That could see them badly exposed. Such a lot rests on Harris who is relatively unproven. They could easily end up outside the 8 if the side doesn’t gel. I expect them to do better than last year but who knows?

On the subject of pace I know that Naughton was very quick indeed when he was with us, particularly over the first 30-40m where he has great acceleration. He's decent under the bomb too. His only downside is that his 1 on 1 tackling is a bit powder puff but that's maybe down to him being young and not fully developed.

You make it sound like we have 4 lumbering prop forwards in the back line. I agree we don't have the quickest back line but it's daft to suggest we will only be able to score from 10 yards. There's no Richard Whiting's there, I've seen every member of our back line (Sa is probably the exception) score a solo try from deep in their own half.

The core issue I disagree with is that I don't think we have seen enough in 5 games to have a sufficiently informed idea about that. A very good try return and good metres in a couple of blow-out games are all well and good, but he's still very unproven. His tackling for a start was pretty poor IMO.

Agreed. When it comes down to it, who has the best chance of getting the better of Jermaine McGillvary in round 1? Talanoa surely?

I would agree with this. Talanoa's lack of pace might be an issue if he was regularly being hauled down from behind because of it but he wasn't last year. As it stands he will have the starting berth I would think and <ddd>quite rightly so</ddd>. Lancaster will get a chance at some point and if he performs he will get the shirt.

I have absolutely no doubt that that's what will happen. If Michaels is preferred to Yeaman than it becomes less of a problem. But how likely is that?

I wouldn't rule out Michaels starting. Yeaman seems to be well liked by Radford but if we're paying good money and bringing someone half way round the world then he's not going to be sat in the stands every week.

Unless yeaman has somehow added extra dimensions to his game like passing, an ability to jump & extra pace over the close season then Michaels should be a shoe-in the starting 13. Wondering if the rumour that surfaced last year of yeaman going into the pack might come about, can't see it myself mind, i don't think he has the mentality for it. Though he stated that he wants to carry on past his contract that ends at the end of 2015 I'm afraid Kirk is past his sell by date without being rude I really hope we don't extend his contract.

I understand your point - if Yeaman does get the start then I think he'll have to play pretty well to keep it. This coach has already dropped him once and I doubt he would have a problem doing it again if he thought there was a better option. It's not cut and dried that Yeaman is the automatic choice that he has been previously in my view.

I don't think we'll see any favouritism by Radford this season. He knows its sh*t or bust to get into the top 8 so he'll be aware that AP will be keeping a very close eye on him.

So finishing in the top 8 of a 12 team league is going to be classed as some form of success.Just shows how low our standards have slipped

Who said 8th would be a form of success?

Most supporters would consider that as a reasonable improvement on last season. We are unlikely to jump from 11th to the top six, never mind the top four. The fact is that after the poor youth policy of Agar and patchy recruitment by Gentle and McRae we are some way behind Wigan, Saints, Warrington, Catalans, Leeds and Huddersfield which leaves us battling with the others for two places in the top eight.

I think realism has finally caught up with us. Our expectations have been about 8 years out of date. As fans I get the impression our expectations have still been based, at least in part, on 2004-2007 when we actually were decent and regurlarly beat the top sides.
The realisation that we're not that good and we have a lot of work ahead to reach those heights again has hit.
Thats not to say I don't have optimism for the coming years, I do.

Scrapping to make the 8 is the best we can hope for .
Making the top 6 would be brilliant.
Sneyd is a massive gamble to shell out £100k for. He struggled the back end of 2014 when the pressure was on . Pryce is in the twilight of his career. Yet again a new halfback partnership looms! Will they deliver the goods?
One positive is the emergence of some of the young guns.
Maybe patience is the key for 2015?

Its not that finishing in the top 8 is necessarily a form of success in itself, just that missing out on it is a something of a disaster to say the least.