Roosters have the best all round squad. The only way the Panthers could be near the top is if you ignored halves altogether, as outside of the halves I think they have a squad easily comparable with anyone, and with arguably the strongest depth. If Soward has a good season (and I believe he will), then we should be able to find a more then competent halfback to compliment him well out of Isaac John, Matt Moylan, Daniel Foster and ofcourse Peter Wallace who will be the first guy to get a shot with him. Which could put us in with a shot at being the 4th best team. But the top 3 are:
1. Roosters - Every position is strong, all players are proven in their positions and they play well together
2. Sea Eagles - Arguably the best spine in the competition. The squad around the backline is not far off the Roosters.
3. Storm - Slater, Smith and Cronk are good enough to make their spine top 3 regardless of who plays 5/8th. The players around them aren't as good as probably even most top 8 teams IMO, but Bellamy gets them doing what they need to do and these 3 guys are able to win games with them.
Honestly 4th spot is wide open for a number of teams. So many strong squads for 2014, but pretty much all of them have a big question mark somewhere. The team who manages to best answer the question mark could very well take 4th spot. But for mine these 3 teams are the clear leaders (on paper). All 3 will be in the top 8 for certain, and odds on the top 4.
