If you include cup games I'd reckon no side has ever gone through a whole season unbeaten - I assume Hudds played in the Challenge Cup in 2002? Even the 80s-90s Wigan at their most dominant dropped a league game here or there.

I should probably clarify, I did only mean the regular season. I wasnt particularly thinking about the WCC, CC or playoffs but I can only assume if people are raising the question of difficulty of winning [ievery single game we play this year [/ithen you must have some confidence in our ability to win the regular season games?

Still not happening. mainly due to the fact the top 4 teams are so evenly matched these days that its highly unlikely that you would win 6 games against them. Added to it that the teams just below arent 100 miles off the pace and you cant peak 27 weeks in a row. I doubt it will ever happen in the salary cap era. The closest I have seen it in any sport was the New England Patriots who won all 16 regular season games a few years back and then won the 2 playoff games before the Super Bowl. LFC will tell you what happened there though



Even the dominant Green Bay Packers this year looked like they might go through the regular season unbeaten and knocked off a heap of top teams, before playing the lowly Kansas City Chiefs 3 weeks ago and coming away with the loss.

Anyway, history has shown us not to get out of the gates too quick. Whenever we have we always slump for a month or so. Id prefer us to set off competently before pushing hard at the end of the season again.

Whether you're talking about the whole seaason or just the regular season, this is still a pipe-dream.
I usually have confidence in the Rhinos to win any game, but not every game.
It's not just that it doesn't happen in SL. I'm struggling to think of any sport where a team has had 100% supremacy for so long.
Think of those that are miles ahead at the moment: Barcelona FC, Red Bull Racing, Green Bay Packers. All have their off-days or come across a great performance by the opposition once in a while. If they can't do it with the dominance they enjoy in their leagues why should Leeds who are were nowhere near the dominant team in their league last year.

Could you imagine the enormity of that. Going through the the entire weekly rounds unbeaten and then choking in the playoffs or the CC? I'd never go again!

Were we to be tremendously entertaining, yet contrive to lose as many regular season games as we did last year, I reckon I'd be pretty hacked off. Entertainment's fine but losing rugby rarely remains entertaining for long, at least not for me.

Isnt that a tad contradictory?

If they can win any game can they not win every game?

Arsenal 2003/2004?

This, along with the OPs contribution to the sponsorship thread = priceless.

"We will lose against Hull KR in the opener."


Please don't!!

No contradiction at all. On their day the Rhinos can (but are not sure to) beat any SL opposition. The likelihood of them having their day every day is very remote.
Suppose for example Leeds were evenly matched with every other team. There would be a 50% probability of them winning any game. The probability of them winning every game though would be astronomical.

To be honest there were many games this year when I thought give us the two points and let`s go home. The standard was poor with no apparent structure. Burrow was predictable the forwards were going nowhere and we had no idea what to do when we got into the oppostions 20 .
But the back end of the season certainly made up for the dross for the most part of the season.
Maybe the answer is to only watch from August onwards.
Whilst I like to watch good entertaining rugby week on week. I am more than happy to finish 5th and win both the CC and the GF.
Especially when it makes the Sky muppets and Clarke look like a set of to$$ers.
If the aim is to win these 2 trophies this year then maybe we have to train/play to peak at the wright time and to do that we might not be at our best until August.
On the other hand it would be even better to entertain and win the CC and GF and the WCC of course.

This thread is in danger of joining such ledgendary yearly threads as "brown and orange away kits", "TMFMISL" and of course "Lesley Vainikolo/Jonah Lomu/ etc to Leeds"

No chance mate.
It will be over by Feb when we lose to Wigan

No thread will ever get near the heights the "Willie Talau" thread did though.

I have it on good authority from a very reliable source that etc is definitely coming to Leeds.

but then the wigan fans will decide to hijack this thread after that and tell us that we are a team in decline and that we will be 'forever in their shadow' which will make the thread 'legendary'

back on topic though, after looking up the standings in all super league seasons, 4 teams have gone through a season losing only 2 games and that is the 'best' record; Saints in 96, Bradford in 97, Wigan in 98 and Leeds in 04.

Records are there to be broken, but by us? and in this day and age?.....probably not.

Good work Roy.

Poses an interesting question. Is this squad better than the one of 2004? If so, we must have a chance of improving on their very good record I would think.

Can you imagine the response if we did?

Fans of the lesser clubs manage to find excuses galore whenever we win a poxy GF. Just think how many bad decisions, episodes of poor weather, leg-ups by the RFL, cheap shots by TMFMISL, provocative celebrations and the like that it would take to get us through a season unbeaten. The board would be in meltdown.

Four teams but on five occasions.

1996 - St Helens and Wigan (from 22 fixtures, note Wigan also drew 1 game)
1997 - Bradford (from 22 fixtures)
1998 - Wigan (from 23 fixtures)
2004 - Leeds (from 28 fixtures, note Leeds also drew 2 games)



Quite.

CMOOOOOOOOOON MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Rule 1 of Southstander is "you dont mention the Talau thread"

Rule 2 of Southstander is "YOU DONT TALK ABOUT THE TALAU THREAD"

Rule 3 there are no rules in Fight Club, er, I mean Southstander.

Out of interest how many teams have gone through SL without losing any home games?
What is the longest unbeaten run in one season in SL?
Whats the best away record ever in SL?

Regular season only, no cup or playoff matches!

MACBETH!