The likes of Hull and Huddersfield may or may not be good enough to make it all the way to the GF but it would be nice to at least see them go down with a fight. Hull's last 2 playoff campaigns have ended in very weak showings against Leeds last year and at home against their big rivals KR in 2010. Huddersfield's record over the last 3 years is 2-5 and should of been 0-6 if not for the Crusaders sin-binning i mentioned before. Catalan to be fair gave it the best shot of any of the none Leeds/Saints/Wigan clubs in 2009 when they went away to Wakey, Hudds and then Leeds and if Greg Bird had stayed out there who knows. It will be tremendously tough for a club who hasn't yet won a GF to do it from so far back yet not impossible if they go in with a 'we can do this' attitude.

I've even now read on the Saints board several posters saying how they hope to get 3rd place instead of 4th as they want to avoid Wigan in the playoffs and again this is the problem, if you go around fearing teams and hoping someone else might beat them so you don't have to face them then that's the wrong attitude. The best way to get rid of a team is to go do it yourself and not wishing someone else does the job for you. Will it be harder? Yes but what's wrong with facing the harder challenges in life? The sweeter it will taste if you do succeed i reckon.

Reading some comments since the Cup Semi draw was made it seems as if some Leeds fan would of preferred us to of been knock out in the Quarters because we might get ''embarrassed or humiliated'' and won't be attending because of this......sorry didn't realise that the possiblity of 17 guys getting several tries scored past them could make you blush. Thankfully for the sport, the players of the teams of Leeds and Saints haven't shared this same mindset over the years as a section of their fans.

Watch out for Huddersfield in the playoffs.

Brown is working to a new calendar - they've had their slump through June and July, so by the time it gets to September it'll feel like a whole new season.

You can see why Saints thought he was the answer to their perpetual chokery.

I agree, Leeds have turned up in big semi's and finals (including last years CC) and either won or gone down with a real fight in the last 10 year to give me hope for Saturday.

The very first thing a guy said to me on the way out of the Keepmoat last season was "What will Wigan do to us?". I found that pretty embarrassing to be honest and didn't hesitate to tell him to just bloody enjoy himself and let the players worry about the final.

That's probably not far wrong.

There's always the possibility though, they don't emerge from their slumber and hit form, which i wouldn't bet against either.

Glad to see not everybody is mistaking cause and effect when it comes to Leeds winning from 5th last year. BM was spot on when he argued that if anything it ought to give everyone more hope. If all 8 teams really give it their all in the Play Offs, the crowds would start to come back IMO.

I reckon we should only lose one game from the league run-in, that being away at Catalans. All the others we should expect to come away with 2pts from, which would leave us on 36 points.

The only game I'd expect Catalans to drop is away at Hull, which would finish them on 40 points.

I'd bet on Wigan dropping the games against Wire & St helens, leaving them on 42 points,

I'd expect Saints to drop the games away at Catalans & home to Wire, leaving them on 36 points.

Lastly, I'd expect Warrington to win all their games till season end, which would leave them on 43 points.

So the top of the table would look like

1. Warrington 43pts
2. Wigan 42pts
3. Catalans 40pts
4. Leeds/St Helens 36pts
5. Leeds/St Helens 36pts
6. Hull FC 34pts
7. Bradford 29pts
8. Huddersfield 26pts
----------------------------------
9. Hull KR 25pts

I also reckon that our loss in France will be substantial, and that Saints will be tight. So I'm placing them ahead of us on PD, so we'd finish 5th, again.

Playoffs-Round 1

Warrington v Saints, Warrington Win
Wigan v Catalans, Catalans Win
Leeds v Huddersfield, Leeds Win
Hull FC v Bradford, Bradford Win

Round 2

Saints v Leeds, Saints win
Catalans v Hull FC, Catalans win

Round 3

Warrington v Catalans, Catalans Win
Wigan v St Helens, Wigan Win

Grand Final

Wigan beat Catalans.

Catalans won't make the GF imo it willbe between either Leeds ,Wigan ,ST's and Wire.

Bradford are getting away without a points deduction?

You do realise that this post is completely pointless dont you? Just checking...

I think that's his speciality isn't it?

you clearly need to spend your vast ammount of spare time more wisely by getting some new songs for your band to sing in the SS


you've got the whole seasons scenario sorted out already and there's still 7 rounds to go?

at least we're on the same wave length here as as i also believe that only one of those 4 sides can win this years grand final.
clearly if wigan and warrington don't bottle it yet again this season then surely they are both favourites to not only to reach the grand final but also the challenge cup final too
however i would never ever write off either the saints or the rhino's in spoiling those 2 clubs party parade celebrations

Come on now, it's pointless even attempting to predict the final placings for top 8 and then how the top 8 will pan out from there, theres simply way too much water to pass under the bridge.

It simply doesn't allow for the element of chance and the crazy, unpredictable events sports can sometimes throw up.

Even when you have an idea of form going into the games. Last year you'd have predicted a warrington wigan final before the playoiffs. Neither even made it.

I don't think leeds will make the grand final this year. Yes, never write them off, still got the ability, dangerous playoff team...(insert cliche as appropriate). But last year leeds barely got a mention going into the playoffs, they then, without being disrespectful got to play what can only be described (to quote a very tedious poster) as rabble, up until the final eliminator.

Leeds would probably have a tougher run in wherever they finish this season, unless some of the good teams implode from nowhere. Plus, leeds are defending champions, everyone knows what happened last year, teams will be ready and waiting for leeds, they will be gunning for them.

I really fancy warrington to win the grand final personally. They've got the ability, but they seem to be biding their time this season and waiting for the playoffs. I don't think they care about finishing top like last season, I do think they've learnt from last season.

Wigan are very structured and systematic in their play. Warrington can be unpredictable and ''off the cuff'' but they still posess that forward power and defensive steel needed. That's why i think they'll be able to win the grand final this year, with the experience of what happened last season.

I'd be surprised if that list of his doesn't need altering after every remaining round. Hardly a week goes by without a shock somewhere or other as coaches play ducks and drakes with team selections.

The whole play off format is flawed IMO. By finishing in the top 4 you get the advantage of a 2nd chance if you get beat, fair enough. But 5th and 6th have (on paper) an easier home game in the 1st week than either first or 2nd do. This is why I don't get why the top 8 (I think 8 is too much anyway but that's another argument) is split in to a top and bottom four. The likelihood of a repeat fixture in weeks 1 and 3 also makes the whole format dull and is the main reason the first few weeks are so poorly attended IMO.

Repeat fixtures have always been a bit of an issue in the playoffs. Back in the days of 5 and 6 teams, 1st would play 2nd, the loser would then usually go beat 3rd/4th place to reach a GF rematch with the team who beat them 2 weeks earlier. The 8 team way whilst seeing some repeat fixtures, Saints/Wigan '11 and Leeds/Wigan '10 hasn't produced a repeat fixture in the Final itself.
If the RFL could be a bit smarter with the regular season fixtures and not have games like the Wigan vs Saints match lined up for the last weekend of this season then that would help a lot. I suppose they and Sky want some big games though to build for the playoffs and also because BBC have the CC Final around that time. Planning Warrington vs Wigan for the weekend after last years CC Final was daft considering you could tell at the beginning of the season the odds were at least 1 of those would reach the CC Final. It turned what should of been the biggest league game of last year into a disappointment.

5th is a far better place to finish than 4th.
You get the easiest of ties in round 1 playing the worst team left in the comp at home.

Then you get to go to the 4th placed team who has had to got to the top team in the previous round.

The five team play off system was by far the best in that it rewarded the team that finished top and made it very difficult for the lower placed teams.

If 5th is so easy, why was it only managed for the first time last year?

Because the previous 5th placed teams under the ridiculous Top 8 format were whipping boy SL rabble like Huddersfield and Wakefield?

Viewed from the viewpoint of the 5th placed team, this makes sense. But if you look at it as the 4th placed team it doesn't, unless you accept that 5th are better than you. To look at last year, we had to go to 4th placed team's ground in the second round. They had home advantage. How was that easier for Leeds? 4th and 5th played the same match, but reading the logic of some here it seems that Leeds had a fairly easy draw and Hudds a really hard one? After Hudds had already had a second chance. This just seems to be nonsense.

It panned out being a favourable draw because Hudds imploded horribly at the end of the season. THey still had the advantage in the draw, they were just too gash to take advantage of it. If we'd finished 4th and Hudds 5th but our relative end of season form been the same would Hudds have come to Headingley as big favourites (assuming they beat Hull and we lost out at Wire the week before)? No, of course they wouldn't.

People are mistaking the performance of individual teams for structural effects of the competition.

4th place had played top in the previous week, whereas 5th had played 8th. I'm not commenting on this in terms of specific examples, and obviously if you take it as "on paper" 4th would be favourites in week 2 but they'd be going in to it on the back of a tougher match.

The playoffs should be structured so that the higher that you finish the easier your route to the final. The only format that has acheived this IMO is a top 5. At a push I think it could be stretched to a top 7 (I wouldn't want this, but it would give Sky an extra game). Atm there is no real difference between finishing top and 2nd apart from a hubcap. Playing a top 5 (7) where top skips week one and a straight highest v lowest knockout (there would have to be some sort of 2nd chance element for 7 teams) would also free up another week throughout the season.

The higher you finish does give you an easier route to the final.

Whilst the game is against more difficult opposition for 4th, that is mitigated by the massive advantage of that game not being a knock out game.

I would ask why, if finishing top in our uneven season, is such an achievement and such a barometer of relative quality, the team finishing top needs such an advantage and why they need to make it so much more difficult to win it from lower down.

Leeds beat, 8th, 4th, and 1st to get to the grand final, thats a pretty tough run, and much tougher than Warringtons run which would have beating beating 4th and 5th, and Wigans run which would have been beating 3rd and 6th.

5th isn't automatically 'easy', if Huddersfield had beaten Warrington in the first week (which wasn't the mission impossible some are making it out to be considering the Giants had won 2 of the 3 league meetings between the two teams that season, as well as winning at Halliwell Jones in the 2010 playoffs) then Leeds' playoff route would of looked like this....
- Hull @ Home
- Warrington Away
- St Helens Away..........Saints would of had Clubcall and most likely would of picked us over Wigan.
- GF vs Wigan/Hudds

That is incredibly tough going away to Wire and Saints followed by a possible GF against Wigan, what stopped that happening was Hudds usual poor end of season form. So what do we do? Change the playoff format just to factor in Huddersfield's expected playoff crumble?
As for the Giants having to play this tougher game in Week 1, haven't people been saying of late that England won't beat the Aussies because we don't play enough tough or intense matches? A wake up call beating from Wire should of been a kick up the backside for the following week compared to Leeds having a stroll against Hull when they hardly had to get out of 2nd gear.
Leeds did have a fairly comfortable passage to reach the Warrington game but that's because of the attitude of some of the teams in the playoffs and not the structure of the thing.