If we have learnt anything from last year and watching what the other teams did we need to be planning our strategy as top 8 is a pipe dream.

We need to target 9th place thus getting four home games unlike last year.

In a nutshell to do this we should be targeting a number of games to get the points and making sure that most of our better players are fit and available for selection.

These are Widnes (h) Leigh (h) St Helens (h) Warrington (h) Catalans (millennium) plus the competition has a habit of throwing up the odd freak result and I think we need 16/18 pts to make 9th.

Any plans to spend the Brierley money need to happen before the middle 8's and we should not be playing and risking our 'crocks' in games that on current form are
unwinnable.

No guarantees of any of this working but hopefully Swinton have set off the alarm bells and we won't risk too weak a team in the middle 8's.

Also if we lose the next two which is highly likely then Mr Stone's position becomes untenable and we should have his replacement in to at least build up some moral and structure.

Some games will be hard to watch with this strategy but needs must !!

The problem I forsee is we have a number of players who have injuries that appear to be baffling our team. E.g. Leroy and taai have been "in contention to play" for several weeks, appear in the squad occasionally but never on the pitch! We have players who keep appearing for a game or two then disappearing again - Gaskell, ferguson, we have long term injuries symonds and Lawrence
Our injury list has, yet again, been awful, we have a coach who insists on training full contact regularly and a conditioner with NO top grade experience who hasn't even had a decent conditioner to learn from like Greg did from bumper.
Widnes are getting their players back and other teams are building understanding between players playing next to each other regularly.
Whatever happens we are going to have to do it tough!

I can't say I agree much with the original post, though I understand what he's saying.
IF we are to aim for 9th then why not aim one place higher..
No club will have it in them to target certain games. It's a completely negative approach and one that won't help us gain any confidence or momentum.
HOWEVER we do need to look after our players who are injured, but that should be the case anyway. A light squad will not do us much favours.
It's to early to give up hope. If we continue as we are, then it won't be long before we can't get the top 8, and we can plan our middle 8's.