Yeh some bold predictions there
Yeh I think the top 4 sides are out of reach for us at this stage but I have no reason as to why we can't compete with the rest of the comp
The top four sides are different each year though. Or at least, some of them are. Most years.
Melbourne and Manly have both finished in the top four in each of the past three years. Souths have finished top four in each of the past two years. This means three teams (Manly, Melbourne and Souths) have finished in the top four the past two years, showing that Schubert has been doing a great job. :roll:
However 2013 was a bit of an outlier. In the preceding four years ('09-'12), the top four has contained two teams that didn't make the finals at all in the previous year, and between '09 and '11 the top four only contained one team that finished in the top four the year before.
2013 is also an outlier (at least over the past five years) in that during the four years between (and including) 2009 and 2012, the top eight each year contained at least four teams that didn't play finals footy the previous year (in 2010 the top eight contained five teams that missed the finals the previous year). In 2013 only two teams (Roosters and Knights) made the finals that weren't there in 2012.
It's only really this year that most teams finished roughly where they did the previous year - six of last year's finals teams made the finals again (minus Canberra and Brisbane), and six of last year's bottom eight (minus Newcastle and the Chooks) missed the finals again.
I'm guessing the bloke making the predictions is expecting more of the same. And thank f**k Schubert is gone.