I would agree with you that its been an issue in the past, but it is precisely in this area that I feel we have made the biggest strides. Its no secret that to compete properly you need good youth players pushing through, those players you mention above are not veterans by any means, they are all young talents.

These are some players that will most likely not be first choice for Hull:

Yeaman, Whiting, Michaels, Lee Smith (?), Feka, Thompson, Naughton, Hadley, Green, Bowden.

Those might not be world beaters but they are all established players with plenty of Superleague rugby under their belt who you know will come in and do a solid job. Then there is a wave of very talented young players in just about every position. I think we are better placed to handle an injury crisis (it seems almost inevitable where Hull are concerned) than we have been for quite a while.

The one position of concern is hooker. It looks like Washbrook is our back up hooker, which is fine if Houghton stays fit. If he is out for a while though we are either playing someone out of position or going to Jez Litten, who is very talented but also only 17.

If both Houghton and Washbrook are options for hooker you'll be lucky to get 7th.

Yet finished last season 7th with just Houghton.

With a better 13 and squad we should be looking at improving on last years finish (Although plenty of other clubs will be thinking that)

The problem Hull and others around that part of the table seemed to be the view of just making sure you're in the 8 after 23 rounds. Whilst that worked for them it left them too far adrift when the Super 8's started.

The lesson to be learnt is, don't target 6th-8th spot after 23 rounds. Target the top 4 after 23 rounds and that'll put you in position to challenge in the 8's. Of course it'll be tough for those teams to make that jump up into the top 4 but it's sport, it should be tough to get up to the top.

That's another thing to bear in mind with Hull. Last season our start pretty much dictated that just making the 8 was our season objective. Don't forget that after 8 games we had 4 points and many fans were already resigned to playing middle 8 rugby.

We then amassed 18 points in the next 14 games (one more than Leeds, level with Hudds and Saints and only two less than Wigan) by which time we were effectively putting out a reserve team (I believe 3 kids actually made their debuts in the 8's) and didn't realistically have a chance of making up the ground to the top 4. But we remained competitive in every game.

It'll be interesting, that's for sure. Frayssinous has to be on dodgy ground and I can only see Catalans being continually undermined by their away form. Whether any coach could find a remedy is a moot point. Smith I have no worries about and I fancy wire for a good year. Neither will saints be far off - when are they ever? Ditto Wane; I think both he and KC are safe. I could see Hudds going backwards due to disruption and a slight waning of the likes of Brough and Crabtree but can you imagine Davy getting shut of Anderson?. HKR are, you'd imagine, taking a long term view with the appointment of Peacock and I don't see them ditching Chester before the year's out. I reckon Betts could well be safe too as I don't think Widnes hold unrealistic expectations or ambitions. Perhaps even Koukash will show more patience than he has in the past if things don't go their way. And I see less likelihood of Radford getting the boot than I did a year ago.

My predictions are invariably rubbish so who knows? Maybe they'll all get chapped.

As a wtw fan, 2016 is a year of progression not perfection. Considering last years woeful performances and SL uncertainty we have been quite astute in the transfer market. Ben Jones Bishop, Arona & Tupou are good signings and hopefully they will add strength. A club in our position has to also sign unwanted players, gambles and potentials and then attempt to turn them into effective members of the team. We have signed a few of those none more than Sean Morris, a university graduate coming from London. Whether he makes it or not his attitude and training ethic has been first class and with a coach like B Smith he can only improve.

Liam Finn is the type of player we need. We've lacked a decent kicking game and has already got his first m.o.m. Danny Kirmond will hopefully be like a new player having had time out to sort out his injury problems. His presence is huge.

The million dollar question is where will we finish. Pundits and other clubs fans will probably say bottom which I can understand. We are aiming for top 8 & so we should. Anyone's capable of that should they perform consistently. Fans will be happy with an improvement on last seasons performances and not being in the million pound game. Fitness and attitude for me is the two biggest aspects in any sport and we seem to have improved in these areas. I honestly couldn't predict a finish, so just hope for an entertaining season. The chairman has done a fantastic job slowly steering the club in the right direction, securing Brian Smith and putting together a competitive squad despite last season.

Our team will probably be something like... (Not first game due to injuries)


1 BJB
2 Tom Johnstone
3 Bill Tupuo
4 Ashley Gibson/Arundel/Walton/Lynne
5 Richard Owen
6 Jacob Miller
7 Liam Finn
8 Nick Scruton
9 Mikey Sio
10 Anthony England
11 Mikael Simone
12 Danny Kirmond
13 Anthony Tupuo

14-17 (4 from) Arona, Scott Moore, Jon Molloy, Scott Anderson, Anthony Walker, Matt Ashurst, Craig Hall, Chris Annakin, Andy Yates, Sean Morris, Stuart Howarth, Jordan Crowther, Max Jowitt, Jordan Tansey, Ben Shulver, Joe Arundel, Reece Lynn, Jason Walton.

Good Luck to all clubs! Here's to a fantastic SL 2016

Catalans Dragons

Too many changes in personnel for us to be a factor in the super 8s.

I reckon we will get in the eight again, but whereabouts depends on our away record.

We have some pretty decent signings through the in door, but whether the likes of Richards and Taylor are past their best is open to debate.

It will be fascinating to see how we go.

I'd say Salford's chances have just taken a pretty big hit - Daniel Vidot out for half of the SEASON after needing surgery.

The Wire

From an optimistic point of view I think we've made some good signings- Gidley will bring the experience and guidance we've been missing and was mom in the friendly v Widnes in his first game, not to mention his potential partnership with Sandow. I'm looking forward to seeing Tom Lineham as well in our back division.
Mitchell Dodds could really add some quality to our props and always made the Broncos first 17 ahead of
Garbutt for Leeds who has already made an impact in SL. Jack Hughes and Westerman will add quality and potential to our back three with Currie still improving.
Overall I think a lot will depend on how quickly our players gel but potentially we have a good looking squad with strength in depth.
Ones to watch:-
Sandow Gidley hb partnership.
A potential front 3 of Hill, Dodds and a settled in Daryl Clark.
Improving Matty Russell at fb
The long term potential back 3 of Hughes, Currie and Westerman.
Current stock of Westwood, Simms, Ratchford, Penny with improving newbies in Dwyer, Patten and Johnson.

Teams to fear-
Wigan- were close last year and with the addition of Tompkins and further improvement of Williams with a Shawn Wayne charged pack will be there and there abouts.
Leeds- will miss the consistency and leadership of Peacock and Sinfield but still have the best back line and quality forwards.
Saints-always hang around like a bad smell and I see no different this year.
Hudds- will be challenging top 4 again with Mcgilvery, Brough etc but how much will they miss Ferres?- I think they'll be fine.
Hull- have a great pack if they all stay fit but never know whether they'll blow hot or cold.
Catalans- great squad on paper, it's just the away form.
Cas- will be in top 8.
Others to fill in the other places.

Can't wait for the start of the season and good look everyone.

[uLeigh Centurions[/u
To decide how we'll do next year you have to try to workout what went so disastrously wrong in the Qualifiers, we played some brilliant rugby in The Championship but some awful stuff in the Qualifiers. In my opinion there was two main things that went wrong.

1.We underestimated how important momentum is against SL teams. Defence hadn't been our strongest point all season but if you let a Championship team score against you you'll get the ball back & get anther go; if a SL team scores against you they'll keep you pined down on your try line until they score again. Hopefully we've learnt from that & the more experienced players brought in will also help. Coupled with how our forwards have strengthened hopefully this issue will have been solved. Would still like to see us make a big effort to stop Championship teams scoring against us even if we've already got the game won.

2. I think heads went. In the space of 3 weeks we went from being league winners for the 2nd year in a row, having only lost once all season for the 2nd year in a row and being hot favourites for promotion. 3 weeks later we'd lost against Hull KR after a big lead at half time, been well and truly trounced by Salford who we'd have expected to be a close game and lost by 1 point to Wakefield, coupled with Bradford's win against Salford we suddenly for the 1st time in 2 years were underdogs with it all to do & I don't think the players could cope mentally. Coupled with a string of injures you could see that the players' minds and bodies had gone. Hopefully having been through it this year they'll be ready for it next, as they say you have to lose a cup final to win one the same thing may apply. Also the experience of the players brought in should also help.

I understand what many people are saying about the players we've brought in not doing much but causing trouble at Salford. Well Salford finished 3rd in The Qualifiers which will do for me. Also Paul Rowley has long said that the most important thing for a coach to do is to make sure his players are happy, if they're not happy they won't be playing their best. We've got a good history of looking after players at Leigh, there always seems to be a good comradery between players when you hear them speak or see behind the scenes videos. Much as many people don't like him it's clear Derek Beaumont looks after his players. Compare that to Salford where Koukash publically blames individual players when things go wrong and there's clearly something wrong with player welfare at Salford with so many players demanding to leave with such bad feeling for the club last season. I'm confident we'll see a better side to these players than Salford did as they'll be looked after a lot better.

I do think everything about Leigh Centurions is Super League Quality. If it's a higher quality than any of the bottom 4 SL teams and if we can prove that on the field which is the only place it matters, we'll have to wait and see. A lot could happen between now & the Super 8s starting so no real predictions on that but I do think we'll finish top of The Championship again, think we've strengthened with SL quality players while Bradford have only consolidated with top level Championship players, not sure anyone else has strengthened enough to catch that top 2.

I think you'll find you actually finished 8th.

That depends on whether you class the 8's as a separate comp or a continuation of the regular season. I'll leave it to you to decide whether we finished three spots above you or whether we were in a whole different league.

As Zucchini alluded to below what position do you consider Rovers finished 9th or 10th? serious question.

Rovers finished 10th, and then 1st in the middle 8's.

As the points carried forward into the Super 8's, it was in essence a continuation of SL, so Hull ended up 8th.

I think.

I agree. 8th and 10th respectively. Not good enough for either team. As an aside I think a fit Campese is critical if Rovers are to finish in the top eight. There seems to be little information from Rovers if he will be fit for the start of the season which must be a worry.

for the giants top aussie signing hinchcliffe working his magic at hooker and feeding brough to supply mcgillvary on the wing for bags of tries



rapira strengthening the pack for them to work behind too

Just on Hinchcliffe - I think he'll quickly become one of the most hated players in SuperLeague - he's absolutely from the Melbourne school of poophouse wrestle and niggle. It'll take no time for people to start complaining about late hits, facials and 'undue pressure on limbs'...

Should add a bit of steel to the Giants pack, but if I'm honest, he's not got much more than that in his locker in my opinion...

I started this thread as a means to be positive about your own team without the need to denegrate any other teams or rank your team above others by predicting a league table.

I think it's a nice spin on the type of threads we normally see at this time of year and it's been good so far.

Keighley Cougars' supporters have been excited by the signings made since the end of last season. Today's friendly against a full strength Oldham Championship team shows Cougars could be on to a winner this season. LLS & promotion could surely be the result. The players selected today handled everything Oldham could throw at them and scored three nice tries to secure the win. Team spirit & confidence on a high. After the trauma of 2015, hoping this could be Cougars' season.

I agree with you, I'm not sure I've caught the games where Hinchcliffe has 'pulled the strings' from dummy half. Workhorse and strong as he may be, he's not the most inventive player. Steady, but not going to unpick defences.

Improvement on what they had, but I don't expect to see him at the man of steel awards

In terms of pure playing ability I think you're right, but what you've lost from Sinfield and Peacock in terms of experience, leadership and big match nous simply can't be bought. Sinfield did play a reduced role for you guys last year, but without him pulling off that 40/20 in the semi-final - which was so typical of Sinfield in big matches down the years - I think it's pretty much certain that you wouldn't even have been in the Grand Final. You've got a great squad, but I'd be amazed if the loss of those three leaders didn't take its toll in some way.

At Saints I think we're well equipped to challenge for the LLS. We have what looks like a better pack than last year, with the excellent Savelio likely to take a more senior role and Lama Tasi able to make a more consistent contribution than Mose Masoe. We also now have backup in pivotal positions, with Fages and Owens on board. As a result we should be able to spell Roby a bit more to keep him fresh, and also have plenty of cover when the inevitable halves or full back injury crisis happens. We have better competition for places this year and we shouldn't be as badly affected when we get injuries, so I think we'll be stronger on a week-to-week basis. I suspect, though, that we're a star player or two away from being a favourite to win the showpiece games.

to be fair he's one of those workhorse players that every team needs. he's definately one of those who you don't always notice - until he's not in the team. was one of the first picks for craig bellamy and that should tell you a lot. that said i'm not sure i would have spent a chunk of the cap on bringing such a player halfway round the world, but i guess we'll find out soon enough

It looks to me that this year has a lot more uncertainty for a lot of clubs than the last few, which is a good thing IMO. In terms of Leeds its all about the halfbacks and hooker for me. The kicking game will be a big question mark, as will goal kicking.

Looking at the other clubs the big question is Sam Tomkins. When he comes back he'll be a yard slower than when he left, but he's a very good player with a great rugby brain, so for me its not that he won't be massive for Wigan, but more how he and Wigan may have to adapt to get the best out of him.

isn't tomkins out injured until around april?

(makes a bit of a farce all these 'rugby pages' on fb and twitter tipping him for MoS already)