The number of season long injuries in the first half of season is a worry

A significant number of games are now starting to to look like basketball scores.

Good to see a couple of the non favoured clubs up the top.

Wigans crowd last week was a worry, how are crowds looking this year?

We do have a lot of mediocrity now in Superleague now that the effect of a low salary cap and the unavailability of the top quality player starts to bite. With probably the possible exception of Warringon and Catalan all the other "top clubs" have dropped down a level instead of the "bottom clubs" raising the quality of super league.
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There is also the threat of our small top quality pool of players sinking to the southern hemisphere for both the challenge and the australian dollar.

I would agree with this on the whole.

Warrington,Wigan and Catalans should make the top 4 from here and the other spot seems up for grabs, probably between Saints and Hull FC.The Widnes bubble appears to have burst but they could still make the 8. Although the general standard has been poor, hopefully the Super eights should be good quality and i expect the play offs to throw up some quality games as always.

Hopefully Catalans make OT, would be great for the competition.

How does the salary cap here or down under explain the total lack of WC half backs or general paucity of quality backs in this country?

Good question, but this has been an issue for a long, long time over here. Can surely only be down to the quality of coaching, or lack of.

Quite simple, too many ex forwards as coaches.

Two bright spots: Catalans retaining second place on the ladder, despite injuries and suspensions, and in the Championship London Broncos are definitely top two.

Third Bright Spot: in League One Toulouse appear headed for top 2 position, despite their draw with wicked Rochdale.

Look to the junior game to see the antecedent to that problem - community teams, coached to win by angry Dads with a level 2 coaching badge that they earned through a half day course; pass it to the big lad, stick the little ones on the wing and take to Twitter to laud the achievements of your young charges.

If only it was that simple.

I fully agree with you.

I guess many on here have played amateur Rugby as a young lad and seen It was always the biggest strongest most developed lad put at 6 or 13 or in a role where the ball handler should be. Its generally all about winning at that level and not enough focus on the goal of developing the right lads in their correct roles.

My eldest lad was very lightweight as a seven and eight year old but could pass a lot better than any other kid in his team and more accurately than most of the coaches. He would regularly, and without prompting from his coach, deliberately pass the ball over the head or behind the coaches chosen first receiver (the big lad) straight into the hands of a better placed runner further wide. He gave up playing as his name was never called to get a run with the ball and was invariably substituted as soon as he missed a tackle hence he rarely played for more than five minutes in a game.

Just to add, he's nineteen now and whilst not a big lad he's a solid 5'10" of bone and muscle. Not for one second suggesting that he could/would have made it if he'd continued to play, but I'm sure there are plenty like him out there who could have but were put off and allowed to slip through the net by 'angry dads' who wanted to win at any cost.

Actually think we could see a new winner thus year and because of the unpredictablilty of things this year still time for most teams to get in the 8 and stand a chance, points are being spread out more. Going to be a hell of a fight for 6-8 if the Giants and Rhinos can put a run together.

A not unfamiliar story; and the sad thing is, the 'big lad' is often just an early developer who soon becomes the average lad when his peers catch up - and he's learnt nothing from several years in the junior game of just running over smaller kids.

I'm not sure what the answer is - there's a whole load of excellent voluntary involvement in jr rugby without which, there would be no community game; but coaching is just too important to be left to poorly qualified volunteers.

Didn't Andrew Johns a few years ago touch on this and say that introducing a weight category rather than age category might help matters?

They are probably there in place with the academy and u/19's teams but struggle with the development transition to Superleague. We have probably have plenty of examples where young players start off at half back but professional clubs won't take a short term risks to play them in that position and end up on the wing, full back or hooker.

Take my club for example off the top of my head we have had Eastmond, Wheeler, Roby, Moore, Lomax, Gaskell, Charnock, Swift, Bailey etc and not one of them have nailed down a half back position.

i think the top 4 will be the same as it is now

saints to finish just outside i reckon, too many injuries and too many inconsistant peformances to get into the 4

widnes sinking quicker than the titanic maybe saved by salford picking up a points deduction

bottom 4 hudds, kr, salford (points deduction pending), and either one of the others with widnes being my tip

So nothing to do with salary cap?

Still generally a poor quality league. Still far too easy to score tries, not enough players with a good kicking game etc. But what do you expect when so many of our top players go to the NRL and they retain so many top players already?

Good to see some different names up at the top, in Hull and Catalans and Wire after a two year dip, like it was when Cas were up there two years ago. And good to see Wakey playing well and picking up wins.

Wire are top and it has to be said we've only played really well a couple, maybe three, times tops. Catalans had a poor start but look very good now.

My prediction come end of regular season, No particular order from 1-4 or 9-11, I think that's where Saints Cas Leeds Huddersfield and Salford will finish.
Wire
Catalans
Wigan
Hull FC
Saints
Cas
Leeds
Huddersfield
Widnes
Wakefield
Hull KR
Salford (presuming Salford lose their points)

Bateman is running away with the Man of steel. The guy's a machine.

Wigan and Hull (who else?) will be there or thereabouts when the prizes are handed out.

Agree entirely with Thelonius and Bren2k.

And sadly it's an ongoing issue.

Saw part of an u11's game at the weekend. Parents and coaches screeching and screaming on the sidelines.
Coaches abusing the 12 year old ref (who handled the situation fantastically well).
The kids hyped up and more aggressive because of the attitude of their coaches.
Plus of course the usual issues of passing it to the big kid, who mysteriously, never gets subbed.

The terrible state of the amateur game in the heartlands is, in my opinion, one of the biggest factors as to why we have only average crowds and very low interest levels in RL. It's also the reason why we don't have better players and a big reason as to why we don't have better referees.

Sort the amateur game out and the game will reap the benefits many times over.

Until Sandow was injured he was supposed to be.

Sandow when he returns, will pick back up where he left off, and let's not forget Ben Currie.

Too much mediocrity, too many teams in Super League. Catalan have a good chance of winning silverware if they keep it up and don't lose any more key players...

Agreed, we need to get rid of dross like Leeds and Huddersfield who are dragging the overall league down.



In all seriousness, I think defensive standards are down, but there does seem to be a style change where teams are far more eager to throw the ball about. We are seeing soft tries, but lots of really good ones as well. Are we seeing too much mediocrity? Well maybe, but we are also seeing lots of entertainment which is what the fans (especially those just discovering the game) want to see. Wigan play the "NRL way" more than most. It's obviously effective as the table proves, but most of their games have been mind numbingly dull.

It's hard to see anyone who isn't currently in the top 5 having a say in the playoffs. I think the top 4 are all pretty well matched, then there's a small step down to Saints (I'll be interested to see how they go now some players have returned though), and then there's a bit of a gulf to the rest. We are in a situation where anyone can beat anyone in a one off, but those sides from 6 downwards don't seem capable of putting a telling run together.

Catalans have been the surprise package for me. We knew Warrington and Wigan would be near enough, and whilst it was only a friendly I saw enough from Hull v Rovers in pre season to know that Hull would go well. But I didn't expect Catalans to rectify their away form so dramatically. That said I'm not as convinced about them as many seem to be, but they should still make the 4.

By the end of the Super 8's I'd say:

Warrington
Wigan
Hull
Catalans
Saints
Castleford
Leeds
Widnes

I don't expect any of the bottom 4 to have too many difficulties in the middle 8's.