I still see us mid table this year not in the playoffs

But that is a mid-table with no bankruptcies, no player legal actions, no financial black-holes, the prospect of full funding next season, a fantastic management team in place, a host of home-grown players in the first team (and more coming through), and also the club running an academy, U19s and reserve teams.

But for the benefit of our more 'glass-half-empty' members in here we do have: expensive gameday tickets, no large sizes for replica shirts, the stadia being a bit of a shed, our chairman being eloquent if loudly uncouth, the beers being low quality and the gameday food being poor quality too.

Yeah, I'll be happy with a year of mid-table averageness. I think we will be progressing upwards in the next few years anyway.

Just watching the Leigh v Rochdale game and I'm particularly impressed with the two players on loan from St Helens; Danny Richardson and James Bentley.

Another Championship cracker awaits.

Richardson has performed very well, the last couple of games, after a couple of 'average' performances. He finally seems to have got over the 'sulk' of being left out by saints, and is now playing with a smile on his face. It's only a matter of time, before he is back at Saints, long term.

Our best D/C has been Luke Douglas - a model of consistency and professionalism.

Like you say, it should be a cracker.

I suppose mid table in a 14 team league could be 6th to 8th. And 6th isn't exactly far away from 5th

So, yeah, mid table is what I personally expect (and would be happy with) but if we get a bit of roll on, and win a run of games, then we could end up in the Top 5 quite easily.

I think it will be tight league, with teams beating each other. Once you take out Toronto and Toulouse, then there's a bunch of teams who seem on a pretty similar level, and we are one of them.

Mmm, James Bentley. That name rings a bell, wasn't he one of our juniors who left to join a Super League team a few short years ago.

This is definitely a must win for us. We need to start dominating teams and putting in a full 80 minute performance. The effort shown at Widnes proves that we can compete and we need to start showing some consistency in both attack and defence

We're certainly not scoring much. Aren't we about third last in terms of points scored?

Fourth last. Batley, Barrow & Rochdale have scored less. Rochdale have played 2 less games, but on average they'd still be below.

This is the thing with a competitive championship. There's few teams that you can cut loose against and hone your attack. No disrespect to West Wales but those games were training with contact. That said, I look at our side and there's a lot more points in them than their showing at the moment. Settled halfbacks would obviously help immeasurably.