Probably a bit of both.



I think the majority of people writing us off on the VT and elsewhere are guilty of being a bit lazy; they've missed the sweeping changes to our squad for next season and the gulf in quality between last season and next.



Equally, some WTW fans have got a bit carried away.

Quote Pumpetypump="Pumpetypump"This is effectively a sister thread to ours on the Bulls forum: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=515210 They are pretty much interchangable in that, our optimists hope for a top 8 finish but think we'll be battling to get in the playoffs (the odd poster is riding a cloud-cuckoo to la-la land and thinks 6th). Equally your thread and ours are matched perfectly in that they fly completely in the face of what they are saying over on the VT. Accepted wisdom appears to be that Bradford are 8th to 10th and Wakey are bottom 3. I personally haven't a clue how Wakey will do but can someone tell me why there is such a major difference between what you think will happen and the way that you have seemingly been written off by others? That's not me being snide, I genuinely don't understand. Are they missing something? are you letting your heart rule your head? or is it a bit of both?'" It seems people put us in the bottom two without much thought tbh, it's been going on for years and it's most fans default position for Trinity, so it's not going to change now. I mean even last year with the poor miss match squad we had, without the points deduction we wouldn't have finished in the bottom 2, this year we have a far stronger squad but it's still business as usual for most fans. To answer your question though it's a bit of both, some Trinity fans have got a bit wrapped up in the good feeling around the place and all the new signings, not that that's a bad thing mind. I personally just want us to be competitive all season and take some points off the big boys, finishing around 9th or 10th would be a good start to the new staff & team.

Quote Pumpetypump="Pumpetypump"This is effectively a sister thread to ours on the Bulls forum: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=515210 They are pretty much interchangable in that, our optimists hope for a top 8 finish but think we'll be battling to get in the playoffs (the odd poster is riding a cloud-cuckoo to la-la land and thinks 6th). Equally your thread and ours are matched perfectly in that they fly completely in the face of what they are saying over on the VT. Accepted wisdom appears to be that Bradford are 8th to 10th and Wakey are bottom 3. I personally haven't a clue how Wakey will do but can someone tell me why there is such a major difference between what you think will happen and the way that you have seemingly been written off by others? That's not me being snide, I genuinely don't understand. Are they missing something? are you letting your heart rule your head? or is it a bit of both?'" It seems people put us in the bottom two without much thought tbh, it's been going on for years and it's most fans default position for Trinity, so it's not going to change now. I mean even last year with the poor miss match squad we had, without the points deduction we wouldn't have finished in the bottom 2, this year we have a far stronger squad but it's still business as usual for most fans. To answer your question though it's a bit of both, some Trinity fans have got a bit wrapped up in the good feeling around the place and all the new signings, not that that's a bad thing mind. I personally just want us to be competitive all season and take some points off the big boys, finishing around 9th or 10th would be a good start to the new staff & team.

Excellent summary - very sensible and realistic conclusion!

Definately. I wish you all the best for 2012 and here's hoping we rub it in the faces of those that have written us off.

Whilst you are right in that this years squad is better than last years, i think that goes for a lot of clubs who are in the bottom half. The way i see it, Wakefield have two problems, firstly they have recruited a lot of players, obviously something they needed to do but that will mean a squad which is much less settled, less chemistry in attack, less structure in defence. Its always the way when there are large turnovers in players and that will affect Wakefield more than others.



Also, the bottom half of the league is much stronger than it was last year and the top half deeper, Wakefield have improved, Widnes have a better squad than crusaders did, Salford will be more settled and London have signed some real quality. What we will see is the clubs at the lower half all taking points off each other with the difference being the points the can take off the bigger sides. However whilst the bigger sides have used games against the lower sides to rest/blood players its not something they will do because the top sides will all be taking points off each other and cant afford to risk a loss against the lower sides so i also think we will see fewer points taken off the top teams by the bottom.



That means that if Wakefield click and get a few early wins on the board and can be consistent against the teams around them and that middle section of the league (hull fc, hull kr, Huddersfield, bradford) then they will be up around 8 with a few games to go and can look to squeeze in. Unfortunately for them the opposite is also true, early season there is Widnes who will have been building towards kick off for three years, promoted teams almost always play above expectation first game, Hull KR would probably be favourites, Bradford could easily go either way, Hull, Hudds, Warrington, Catalans would all be heavy favourites against Wakefield, London away is rarely easy, Cas derby you cant predict, before what is always a tough game against wigan. Wakefield could very easily lose their first 10 games without playing particularly badly, at that point you are pretty much a drift and done for the year.



You generally need 13 wins for play-offs, which means you need to be looking at 4/5 wins in those first 10 games, that looks a tough job for Wakefield in my opinion. I think they should be realistically looking for 10 wins which will put them about 11th.

I doubt anyone cares what you think

Where's the evidence that a new team will take so long to gel well enough to be competitive? I know it will take a few games for combinations to build and for understanding to reach a level where it works well on the field but I think you seriously overplay it.



I don't see where the teams around us are that much better than they were last year, London have a couple of potentially good recruits but there's also a long tradition of NRL forwards massively under delivering so there's no guarantee that Londons star signings will be anything special.



The rest of your post just describes the nature of every sport that uses league tables to determine who the Champions are, oh hang on a minute, we have a five week mini league to determine ours.



Without being rose tinted and over optimistic I think we'll finish between 9th & 7th.

I dont think its a matter of being competitive, I think Wakefield will be competitive but you can be competitive and still lose. Thats what i was trying to say, Wakefield could play well lose all those games, similarly I wouldnt be massively surprised if they win 7/8 of those games which would put them in a wonderful position for challenging for the play-offs. Thats why i think those first 10 games are so important, you play a lot of the teams around you in a fairly short space of time.

To be fair I hardly ever agree with Smokey, but his opinions here are fair enough here...

That would be the opinion that Wakefield will struggle because of the huge turnaround in playing staff, but Widnes will do OK as they are newly promoted (I guess they have the same team that was crap last year do they, or do they have a massive turnover of playing staff too?).

The same opinion that has Salford as much more settled even though their coach left them in the lurch 3 months into his contract and left them with a coach they didn't deem to be good enough when interviewing previously.



I'm not rose-tinted enough to see us make the top 8 but I would still put us above those 2 in the table and probably London as well, and maybe Cas depending on how fit Rangi Chase stays.