Looking at the fixture list I would say the next month starting sat is make or break for us and noble;

We play

Wakey (cup)
HKR (H)
Wire (A)
Cup Quarter (Providing we beat wakey)
Salford (H)

Win all of these evidently winable matches, and in one months time the whole season could be turned around, we could be back in the top 4, 2-4 points off the top with it all to play for, and in the semis of the cup!

Lose one of the cup matches and one or two of the league games and the challenge cup is over and i think we will struggle to make the bottom half of the play offs, which even if we do will result in almost certain play off failure again.

For me its all to play for this month.....Nobby says the season isnt decided in feb/ march but for me this one will certainly be decided in may!!

Lets just hope we're peaking at the right time.....if not at least we will surely have the consolation of noble being out the door, and if not he'll have happily proved me wrong!

4 wins hopefully though 3 would be ok.

All tough games.
But all win-able.

As i have said on another thread the major tests of how far we have come will be against Hull KR and Wire, if we perform against those 2 then Noble way well put himself in a much stronger position for a new contract.

As another question, out of our 14 remaining games in SL, what do people think will be the required win ratio to give us a shot at the title and / or what people consider to be an acceptable win ratio for Nobby to secure another contract.

Personally I think that our realistic target should be at least 10 out of 14, anything less and it will be another season with the points tally having regressed.

It's going to be a tough ask but i agree that we're looking at 10 wins to get us in a position were we can challenge for the grand final.

Hull Kr have won 8 and drawn 1 from 12 to put them in second and were 5 points back on them(with an extra game) so even if we won 10 it wouldn't be enough to get us up into second position but we may be able to get 4th ish and that would give us half a chance.

Until we start making better starts to the season though we have little chance of making a grand final.

Wigan will have to do something they have not done since 2006 - go on a long winning run to get into a top four spot, possible IF the team can find some consistency, the Saints game proved to everyone that on their day Wigan can match the top teams. Consistency has been the achilles heel for the team in recent years though.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some changes at the top of the league - can Hull KR keep up their great form or will they do like Hudds and Wakey have in recent seasons and fall back in the 2d half of the season?Time will tell.

Like others have said though the next few games (and I think the next cup game is THE major pointer ) will show which way things will go for the rest of the season.

Don't tell BK that



I think the cup is our most realistic chance of success this season. We could be fortunate that teams above us "do a Wire in 2008" and fall apart for the latter half of the season but I think we need more than one team to do that while at the same time doing as others have said, go on a winning run the like we have not seen since 2006.

A lot of things have to come together some of which are outside the teams control for us to have a realistic chance in the play offs.

Dave

Most defo, for me if we can keep the intensity that we have shown over the past 2 weeks we should come out of the run in good shape.

Wakey (cup) This is very winnable but it all depends how JK gets his team up for it and if we don't give away silly penalty's.

Hull KR (H) To win this we need to do just what we did to saints get in there face and keep pressure on them if we do this we will win.

Wire (A) This one could be the stumbling block not a good record at the HJ and Smith is just getting them to play better and sorting out there defense be a very close game if we win the 2 before it we will go to them with lots of confidence and could pull it off.


Cup Quarter (Providing we beat wakey) Depends who we draw but on our day we can beat the best.

Salford (H) This should be an easy win for us but if we go into it with that attitude we will get burned.

The cup is our only realistic chance of a trophy imo aswell.

If i had the choice of getting to one of the finals the challenge cup would be the one if for no other reason then i'm on holiday for the grand final so we can sod that one off



As for our finishing league position i don't think we'd need teams to really fall to pieces aslong as our form is very good. If we get those 10 wins talked about other sides above us are naturally going to lose more then that if the league stays as competative as it's been so far.

10 wins would get us about 4th- 5th imo

7-8 wins would get us around 6-8th

anything less and we'll be struggling to make the play offs.

50/50 against wire, can't see us beating kr. in fact i think wire will beat us too. just not at all confident in the team. with regards to the last three weeks. of course its a step in the right direction but lets not get carried away. i posted earlier, celtic, not a SL standard team, wakefield have a massive inbalance since there players came back, just like what happened last season, and saints have looked jaded for weeks. i agree jonh, we beat wire and kr and i will start to have alot more confidence in the team and the coaching abilities of noble, but no matter what happens, i would like to see a change of coach next season

except IF we beat wakey, we dont know who we play.

saints away would be a toughy with em wanting to even things up after edinburgh.

Nay, we would a competitive game, Saints are too easy.

1 game at a time.

We have got to win the cup tie tomorrow than we should gain more conferdance and get a good crowd against HKR and hopefully end our very bad record at the HJ than if we beat wakey its the cup game depends on the draw but anybody at home and the salford game shouldnt be that hard going off when we beat them at the willows and we are a better side now.

I think as the old adage says take one game at a time because you are only as good as your last game. beat Wakey tomorrow, 4 games on the bounce, dreamland, how long since we did that