A year ago this weekend we lost to Bradford away prior to Cardiff Magic.
This left us on:

P12 W7 L5 14 F251 A257 -6

Compare that to today's stats:

P12 W5 L7 10 F282 A249 +33


Now considering we achieved 4th last season, could expect a similar route this year? Are we good enough?...we all know we have gone backwards in the first half of the season.

It's hard to judge where we're at as a team compared to last year. We had Barrett then and now we don't but the team seems to be slowly coming to terms with that.

I honestly think the side is better if we can find some consistant form and we don't look quite as nervous of playing Saints as we did last year. I think the draw at knowsley road on the last day last year added to the good preformence at the JJB this year have helped us.

Saints by 10 though for me.

You have to bare in mind that last years 4th place finish came despite a stinking fixture list that saw 10 of our 27 games coming against the eventual top 3! No one came close to a tough a fixture list as that. Catalans in return had a miles easier fixture list. Had it been an even list I've no doubt we'd have finished 3rd above them and I think the play offs proved that.

This year it's not so tough so we should be expecting to do much better or as good as despite the absence of Barrett in my opinion. But we seem stuck in a void of a win 3 lose 3 pattern this season and until we improve that to at least win 4 lose 2 from every 6 games we can only hope to scrape into the top 8.

Those stats make interesting reading. Both our attack and defence has improved but were in a worst position than last year. Just shows how close the games have been this season.

We've been going backwards for the last two years.

You are forgetting Warrington conveniently moved aside and handed 4th on a plate to us. I forget how many games they lost at the back end of last season but their tail off in form was spectacular.

Also while our fixtures may have got easier the rest of the teams fixtures have not got any harder and we still have to make up the 4 points down we are from this time last season to finish with the same points total.

If we do manage that, a lot will depend on how the teams above us go and we can't rely on another team "doing a Wire" and imploding towards the end of the league campaign.

So we are already in a situation IMO that to match least season we can afford very few further losses. We lost 11 in total last time so only have 4 more losses to play with (though we did draw 3 games). We play Saints twice and Leeds once more I think so I think we will do very well to finish with 11 losses again.

Dave

The new style play offs mean that you must get a top 4 slot to have a realistic chance of a Grand Final place. Last season we got 29 points from 27 games to book 4th place, there is no guarantee that 29 will get 4th this time, but to get to 29 points we need 19 points from 15 remaining matches, that's 9 wins 1 draw 5 losses. Will take some doing.

With how close the league is this year I definately think we are in with a chance to finish in the top 3 if we can go on a run. there is 4 points between us and leeds.

Any team who strings together 5/6 wins this year are in with a chance of finishing high up that is how this league is looking.

tbh as poor as we are at the minute 2nd place is achievable. Theres only saints lookin nailed on for top spot, even leeds are slipping and starting to look a poor side as the CC continues to weaken super league. Its a sad state of the game that as many as 8 poor teams could get 2nd IMO this year!!

Thats a little harsh mate. All wigan could do was get as many points as possible from the games they had infront of them, which we did.



Leeds??