We know who we are

....we might just need to eat humble pie this season when Leeds win the double.

It is certainly interesting that Leeds by general consensus have not really hit their straps for 80 mins and have been truly awful at times...but yet they have still found a way to win (and against Hull really excelled for 40 mins). That must augur well for the season (I remember the champion winnning seasons where Leeds played badly but still managed to snatch the wins).

Combined with the fact that the rest of the SL has a general malaise of mediocrity I have suddenly become optimistic for silverware this season.

I must also add I am pleased to see the departure (if belatedly) of the 'deadwood' and the vindication of giving more faith to Singelton and Achurch is seemingly paying dividends. Having the strength to play Burrow where he most effective as an impact sub and keeping faith in Stevie Ward is also to the coach's credit. It's also nice to see McGuire providing the killer passes and not being afraid to continue trying after a litany of mistakes which might put others off...
Now let's see JJB justifying his continued selection (Delaney would def make a better prop/3rd prop for me) and Sinfield offer more than his indisputable credentials as a captain (which is enough to warrant [ihis [/iselection)

It's a shame for Sutcliffe at the moment, but it IS up to the lad to make himself undroppable when given his next opportunity. At the moment I have no beef with the selected 1 to 17 and the way they are being utilised by the coach.

Makes for a boring forum though maybe

Previous seasons are colouring people's attitude I think. Last year, we were going great guns before Magic Weekend, with only one defeat. After Magic, our season fell off a cliff, with some of the most pitiful displays seen in years.

Obviously still a long way to go, but already I think we've seen that we will be in contention for that Top 4.....some posters seriously thought we might struggle to make the top 8.

Said before that too much was being made of that run of 6 defeats and that an earlier than expected finish to 2014, only a few away on England duty and no WCC game could well be hugely beneficial to us in 2015.

Also I think people probably put some of the other teams around us on too high a pedestal. They all have their flaws if you watch closely and read some of the threads on their boards yet some on here almost seemed in awe of them.

The most surprising one and one even I'm surprised by is Wigan. Has Wane's style of flogging them when they lose run its course? Eventually in most cases, players wont't respond to the same thing again and again and again after a certain amount of time. With the spotlight on them from last year's events they've been as poor disciplined as ever.

I always thought we would see much improvement on the results front once the playoffs got trimmed to 4 sides.

The Wigan forum is going into meltdown with their poor seasons start which was compounded when the Mighty Tigers gave them a right royal roasting on friday.


They are wondering whether or not they will finish in the top 4 this season?
Now that is a rather pessimistic view to take after being only 4 games in to the season

They also have the cheek to say we keep our players because we pay them more than we are supposed to.

Ill judge us more realistically when we have played some of the teams likely to be challenging at the top. We look a little Jekyll and hyde at the moment and I'm still worried about the age of the squad.

Fair point i am also looking forward to seeing us against wigan,wire and Catalan,teams who are likely to be top 4/5.Cuthbertson has been a far better signing than i expected,just the kind of forward we needed and i do think he makes a big difference but i need to see it confirmed against the big teams.

That said,all those sides have far bigger worries than us at the minute and all will probably be be in far better form later in the year than when we meet them in the coming weeks.

I'd be cautious about saying we'll be in contention for the top 4 etc we've only played 4 games and we were on a much stronger run for whole first half of last year yet look what happened?

It's probably a bit early in the season to weigh up form. On the plus side I have not seen any thing from our main rivals that concerns me.
Confirmed by the Catalans salford match yesterday , defensive not the order of the day.
Without doubt we have the best centres and wingers in the super league. When the weather improves with pitches firming up I am expecting some big games from these players.
On the minus side I have concerns about the ages of some of our senior players, when the warm weather arrives it will be challenging for some of these players.

Well that's why I went with "we'll be in contention" instead of "we'll make the top 4"

Obviously injuries are still the huge X Factor on any sides season and others have already been effected whilst we've been ok. Speaking of which, apparently Todd Carney broke some ribs yesterday and will be out of action for a while.....only 3 weeks until we play them so doubt he'll be fit for that game.

I am still puzzled as to why we didn't find our early season form after Wigan ' spiked' our guns at the Magic weekend

I think ever since we beat Saints in the cup last season we were utterly focussed on that and I think we were, often unconsciously, not focussed on the SL games.
I also think the injuries we sustained had a bigger effect than many people realise. I think the constant disruption and never quite having all our big guns fully ready were big factors in some of the performances. We probably lost a bit of confidence too. You don't have to be off by much for an attack to falter.

I also wouldn't underestimate the value of another year under the belts of the likes of Ward, Singleton, Watkins, Sutcliffe etc both in terms of playing and simply being another year older, another year in the first team environment.

I understand the points being made about not getting carried away but in my opinion, we look far sharper, far more fresh, and far more energetic than even during our good run early last season.