don't be silly, that would be Huddersfield in 2013.......Pie Eater ?

TBH William, after watching them for over forty years, I haven’t got a clue

.







Yep, the benefit of finishing first appears to be irrelevant, but right now, if I were a betting man, I wouldn’t like to call who will win the G.F. (With the exception of St's, Catalans & probably Widnes.



A part of me feels like the cosy consortium has finally been broken, then on the other hand, if Cas are in the mix to win the G.F is the quality is diluting?

My money would be on Leeds, especially from 5th or 6th.



The playing standards are absolutely dire. Leeds could do the double for the first in their history yet their playing squad is so ordinary. I've seen far better and far classier Leeds teams in the 80's and 90's who won sweet FA.



Think it's unfair to single out Cas in order to make a valid point about the quality of the SL diluting. I'd prefer to single them all out.



SL is utter pants. There hasn't been a decent SL side since Saints in 2006.

Retro rlfans.com rules OK!

Wire 2011

Not sure how to define 'decent', but there hasn't been a 'great' side for a long time. The salary cap seems designed to specifically prevent us ever having great sides, because apparently great sides are bad for the sport - they win too much.



It might even be preferable, to all fans in general, to have it the way it is today ( very difficult as a Wigan fan to give a 'neutral' perspective ), but at the same time, nobody should expect to ever see a truly great side appear under the current salary cap regime - you'd have to get unbelievably lucky with masses of instantly ready world class youngsters appearing in the same season. Then you'd have to offload most anyway. So even then, you'd be 'great' for one season only, which is probably a contradiction anyway.

Mr Eve was listing decent SL sides, not ones that can't even beat an opponent [ithey[/i have chosen to play against.

Yes, I agree, but we won't get there just by lifting the salary cap. We could engineer the early arrival of a 'great side' by other essential rule changes:



1) Teams must play in their traditional ( i.e.pre-1990s) colours

2) Wage levels, squad sizes and allowed overseas signings will naturally be proportionate to this colour scale

3) Teams who play in all white will have the lowest allocations on this scale

4) Teams who play in red and white hoops will have the highest allocations on this scale

5) Leigh are excluded from the above

This! it was cringeworthy, and as already said, the reason our sport will never be taken seriously.

I liked it. It made for a dramatic moment.

There's simply no incentive to coming top with the current structure. From 98-2001 we had a top 5, the league leaders featured in all 4 GFs, winning 2. From 2002 - 08, we had a top 6, only once did the league leaders not feature in the GF, and it it was won by the league leaders 4 years out of 7. Under the current system, the leage leaders haven't featured in the GF for 3 seasons out of 5.



Coaches have worked out that simply doing enough to ensure reaching the playoffs and peaking at the right time is the way forward. Last season was the nail in the coffin for this structure for me. After watching Wigan lose 7 of their last 9 weekly rounds to then click and win 3 games to be crowned champions, it was obviously great as a Wigan fan, but the resulting apathy to the weekly rounds in 2014 is obvious.

Absolutely right.



Cant wait for next season when we go from Jim Bowen "come and have a look at what you could have won", to Paul Daniels with "every second counts"

What utter B******s.

Our sport is no longer sport, just entertainment for Sky TV and unfortunately this isn't going to change any time soon.