we gave up on the cup this year make no mistake about it...

The Catalans attitude was there for all to see. Not about money surely, as Saints spend well too.
It was that Catalans were in the Saints faces from the start - something we should learn. Very simple rugby league- speed at meeting the opposition and at the ruck and Saints had absolutely no answer, and their 'stars' were very ordinary!
Well done Catalans I hope you lift the trophy!

Tricky mate, when you say the priority will always be making the top 8 do you really mean that? I'm by no means an advocate of boom and bust but at some stage you have to show some ambition to aim higher otherwise what is there for the fans to look forward to.
I think I see what you mean with priority, with priority being the sky money and I don't blame any one for that.
The trouble is that while ever you are content to stand still one of these days ambitious clubs below will shoot for it and if you combine this with a bit of bad luck on Wakey's behalf that could be it.

its got nothing to do with cap spending else Saints would of walked away with it, Leeds would of also got through with there spending over the years,
its all got to do with attitude and the will to win, never say die that gets results, leadership and being put in the right direction, if spending is all about winning why didn't Kookash get a slice of the pie, makes me laugh this talk of over and under achieving

If I was you don't get into motivational talking as your more likely to make things worse

Over the course of a season or a cup competition the money you spend on the cap clearly has an impact, those who spend more have higher quality players who can play at a high level consistently rather than occasionally and they usually have more strength in depth so they can rotate the players throughout the season and cover injuries better.

The league table doesn’t lie apart from us and Leeds being in the different positions than you would expect, the bottom 4 are all the ones who spend least on the cap.

That says to me that we are overachieving and Leeds underachieving albeit partly due to us getting better value than Leeds from the money we spend but if Leeds hadn’t had the injuries they have had, IMO even with the squad they currently have, they would have finished top 8

It is IMO just being realistic. Without SL we are done as a club so whilst of course I would love us to be competing for trophies, until we bridge the spending gap (if we can), we need to ensure we stay in SL first and foremost.

The catalyst for Cas upturn in fortune were imo a number of things including:

Steve Gill
Daryl Powell
Crowd numbers

But the sale of Clarke to Warrington and compensation for Solomona was key to getting the finances right and enabling the signing of some quality players and Powell to transform the club into genuine top 4 contenders year on year

Yes but attitude will only get you so far. Over the years Wakey have usually had teams with more effort and desire than ability. That has helped us survive in some tricky situations, but it won’t help you beat the top sides consistently- you also need to have the quality to match them along with the attitude.

Catalans have improved their discipline and attitude which coupled with a couple of mid season additions and the quality that they already had, has resulted in their upsurge in form over the last 3 months

Absolute rubbish, I'm not sure how you'd know this anyway coming from Aus, allegedly,
I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall listening to Chester tell Carter that we're not going to try tonight boss

Tricky's spot on when he echoed what Chester said about where our priorities lie, a good cup run would have been nice and maybe financially beneficial depending how far we got, but in the cup one bad game and that's you done for, Chester put nearly his best side out, and came up against a resurgent shudds side who I believe has only lost once since that night, certain fans on here thought we'd only to turn up to win, well I'm not sure if the news has reached down under yet, but I'm sorry to have to tell you that they've beaten us twice more since then unfortunately.

Didn't Catalan get a new fitness coach. That & like (Tricky 2309) said Drinkwater & McNamara have all contributed to Catalans rise in forune. Perhaps we should be looking for a new fitness trainer Because we certainly don't play with a smile on our face most games seem like a chore.

Here here this games not all about big buck signings as we saw yesterday with barber looking looking like a spare part for most of the game .Its about will and desire which Catalan had in bucket loads
While ever we feel like a second rate team we will act like one , this wakey team as I’ve said before beat saints by doing what’s Catalan did to them it’s that simple , get stuck into them and don’t give them room .The only thing that’s holding wakey back is what’s put in their heads on game day .