Let’s be realistic, they are extremely slim. Cas have been comfortably beaten by every top 4 side they’ve played so far up until now. To have any chance of getting to Old Trafford they have to get a home semi or at the very least avoid Saints/Wigan. The chances of that happening are also very slim. Warrington are still a slightly above average side, your chances are extremely slim. Unless something changes Saints are big favourites right now. Of course a lot can happen between now and October.

There, you said it yourself

Warrington vs Castleford will not be happening in the Grand Final. Only 3 SL teams have won the GF with just 2 of those in contention this year. Saints or Wigan (if they get their act together) will win it this year because they are champion sides even if the trophies have dried up recently.

Just looked at the kicking stats on the SL website:



Player, goals/attempts, percentage



Ratchford, 25/32, 78%



Livett, 8/12, 67%



Goodwin, 23/38, 61%



I'd say Ratchford at 78% is pretty good



In comparison with other goal kickers across the league:



Danny Richardson, 80/110, 73%



Sam Tomkins, 53/75, 71%



Mark Sneyd, 47/60, 78%



Ryan Shaw, 45/54, 83%



Kallum Watkins, 34/46, 74%



Liam Finn, 33/47, 70%



Danny Brough, 31/36, 86%



Luke Gale, 31/36, 86%

For milking penalties look no futher than a certain D Richardson class player but needs to eradicate that from his game Ps you are a balloon

All this talk of "ohh, they were tough touchline kicks" is quite frankly, nonsense.

GREAT KICKERS KICK THEM, MORE OFTEN THAN NOT.

Think of Richards, McNamara, Sinfield, and our own Hodgson. Three of them were SERIAL trophy winners. Year in, year out.

You can't go into professional sport with an attitude of "let's give it a go". That's a nearly man's attitude. To win trophies, you leave no stone unturned.

As I've said before. In my time of watching, when we've been winning/sniffing around trophies, it's no coincidence that we've had a top kicker in the team

Hesford, Woods, Davies, Hodgson.

When you have Rudd, Hicks, Westwood, Jackson you fall short, as the missed kicks costs you 2 points/progression in cups.

That 92/3 season. We lost/drew several games by six points or less. We had Rudd and Jacko kicking that year. We finished eighth. We immediately sign Davies, and we finished joint top, 12 months later.



You know what I mean, 'arry.

Ratchford said in a recent interview he didn't practice kicking goals but would start practicing if he missed a few. Get practicing Stef we need you.

In reality Livett has kicked 9 from 12 = 75%. It's just that the touch judges made a mistake.

Dear me. I said that in response to the moaning about the referee when Wire scored 2 try’s off the back of incorrect decisions. What on earth does Richardson have to do with that?

In reality, the kick hit the post. Schoolboy error. It wasn't even difficult.

The missed kicks, whether down to kicker, technique or difficulty were clearly key - suddenly an 8 point lead becomes 12 and Cas have to start chasing the game and mistakes inevitably come.



However, for.me, the loss of Brown was the gamebreaker. He has been excellent all season and his defence is sulerb, whereas Patton's defence is woeful. Sub-woeful in fact.



Kevin stays on, we win.

Livetts first real bad game for me. A lot of their breaks came from his lazy grabs on the inside shoulder and he missed the kicks that would have seen us edge it. Having said that half the team weren't great either. Good to see Price identify what went wrong as oppose to the generalisations Smith would come up with. Now we have to rectify it though and quickly or we're going to lose out on the four.