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Article from: The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph's rugby league experts sat down and worked out who they thought, based on each team's run to the finals, who would make the top eight.
Here are their results (in alphabetical order to avoid squabbling).
Ray Chesterton
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Eels
4. Cowboys
5. Tigers
6. Bulldogs
7. Broncos
8. Warriors
Steve Mascord
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Broncos
4. Cowboys
5. Eels
6. Titans
7. Knights
8. Sharks
Josh Massoud
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Eels
4. Sharks
5. Bulldogs
6. Cowboys
7. Titans
8. Raiders
Iain Payten
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Eels
4. Cowboys
5. Broncos
6. Tigers
7. Bulldogs
8. Titans
James Phelps
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Cowboys
4. Eels
5. Bulldogs
6. Broncos
7. Sharks
8. Titans
Dean Ritchie
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Eels
4. Bulldogs
5. Sharks
6. Broncos
7. Tigers
8. Cowboys
SO, go on. Pick your top eight for this year's NRL finals, and then back it with a week's wages.
And if you're confident enough to do that, get on the phone and give Tony Blair a call. He needs ideas on how to solve the Middle East crisis.
Not to belittle the pursuit for world peace (if dozens of Miss Worlds haven't made any inroads, how can we help?) but you get the feeling that lofty goal is more tangible these days than predicting who's going to play finals footy.
With the honourable exception of Melbourne and Manly, the heated battle for top-eight spots is still as open as it was in round one. And not only is it open, it's wide open.
The evenness of the competition in past seasons and particularly in 2007 has seen the top-eight catchment stretch all the way to last spot on the ladder.
The levelling of talent has seen very few sides with the power to skip away from the field on the back of long victory streaks.
A middle-ranked side can play strongly to beat a top-eight team, and then lose to the team coming last the following week. And the ladder stays the same.
A side travelling well with a handful of wins loses two key players to injury, and with teenage rookies the extent of club depth, plunges back down the ladder.
The result is the current dogfight, with only 10 rounds left before playoff spots are handed out.
The Dragons and Penrith, both with just four wins to their name, are sitting last on the ladder but are just four points out of eighth spot.
Six sides are tied on 14 points. If the eight was ringfenced tomorrow, Cronulla (14) would be in it on for and against, and Canberra (14) would have to explain a 13th-placed finish to the board.
With the table so congested, defeats are a no-no but even more so is the blowout loss.
Entry or exit for the September club could well be decided on "points differential", basically your for and against.
So letting a side race away to a 20-0 score is dire, but the pain is eased if you rally to only lose 20-16.
"Our greatest example of that was when we played Canberra a few weeks ago and were down 30-0 at halftime," Parramatta coach Michael Hagan says.
"We won the second half 10-8, which was pretty important for us in terms of stopping the leaking of points. You are certainly mindful of keeping your for and against in healthy shape."
Gone are the old days where you could look at a calendar and pencil in a couple of home wins and training trots against Souths and the Warriors.
Traditional form guides are now as scarce in league as moustaches and tape around the ears.
"I think that went out the window two to three years ago. The sides are very even in terms of talent and ability," Hagan adds.
There are plenty of stressed footy coaches around but the bookies are a nervous mob too. Framing and re-framing top-eight markets has been nigh on impossible as the weekly merry-go-round of results has played out in the first 15 rounds.
"There were once three categories of an NRL competition; the runaways, the guts and the no-hopers," explains TAB Sportsbet's Glenn Munsie.
"You'd have maybe three sides way out in front. You'd have two or three no-hopers to write off, and maybe another two or three who were OK but never going to make the eight.
"There was a fringe around the eight that'd be five or six teams. Now you have a few runaways, and the rest."
So who'd bother trying to pick a top eight at this, um...early...stage of the year?
Well, we did for the sake of an argument.
Six of the Daily Telegraph's league writers were tip winners for the remaining games of the season.
To ensure there was an outright result with five voting sheets, we selected one out of a hat to be discarded and found a consensus on each game.
The points were added up and where points differential was needed, the current figure was used.
And the results?
The struggling Bulldogs are tipped to find their bark and gallop home into fourth spot.
The Broncos, too, should find a wet sail and jump into the eight with plenty of points in the last ten games.
The Sharks can hang on in eight if they win six games and scrape to the predicted top eight cut-off mark of 26 points.
The Tigers and the Cowboys can make the playoffs, should they keep up their winning ways, but the valiant Titans' effort to play finals in their first season may just fall short.
Who knows? The competition is wide open. In fact, who wants to move on to world peace?
The Daily Telegraph's rugby league experts sat down and worked out who they thought, based on each team's run to the finals, who would make the top eight.
Here are their results (in alphabetical order to avoid squabbling).
Ray Chesterton
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Eels
4. Cowboys
5. Tigers
6. Bulldogs
7. Broncos
8. Warriors
Steve Mascord
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Broncos
4. Cowboys
5. Eels
6. Titans
7. Knights
8. Sharks
Josh Massoud
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Eels
4. Sharks
5. Bulldogs
6. Cowboys
7. Titans
8. Raiders
Iain Payten
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Eels
4. Cowboys
5. Broncos
6. Tigers
7. Bulldogs
8. Titans
James Phelps
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Cowboys
4. Eels
5. Bulldogs
6. Broncos
7. Sharks
8. Titans
Dean Ritchie
1. Storm
2. Sea Eagles
3. Eels
4. Bulldogs
5. Sharks
6. Broncos
7. Tigers
8. Cowboys
SO, go on. Pick your top eight for this year's NRL finals, and then back it with a week's wages.
And if you're confident enough to do that, get on the phone and give Tony Blair a call. He needs ideas on how to solve the Middle East crisis.
Not to belittle the pursuit for world peace (if dozens of Miss Worlds haven't made any inroads, how can we help?) but you get the feeling that lofty goal is more tangible these days than predicting who's going to play finals footy.
With the honourable exception of Melbourne and Manly, the heated battle for top-eight spots is still as open as it was in round one. And not only is it open, it's wide open.
The evenness of the competition in past seasons and particularly in 2007 has seen the top-eight catchment stretch all the way to last spot on the ladder.
The levelling of talent has seen very few sides with the power to skip away from the field on the back of long victory streaks.
A middle-ranked side can play strongly to beat a top-eight team, and then lose to the team coming last the following week. And the ladder stays the same.
A side travelling well with a handful of wins loses two key players to injury, and with teenage rookies the extent of club depth, plunges back down the ladder.
The result is the current dogfight, with only 10 rounds left before playoff spots are handed out.
The Dragons and Penrith, both with just four wins to their name, are sitting last on the ladder but are just four points out of eighth spot.
Six sides are tied on 14 points. If the eight was ringfenced tomorrow, Cronulla (14) would be in it on for and against, and Canberra (14) would have to explain a 13th-placed finish to the board.
With the table so congested, defeats are a no-no but even more so is the blowout loss.
Entry or exit for the September club could well be decided on "points differential", basically your for and against.
So letting a side race away to a 20-0 score is dire, but the pain is eased if you rally to only lose 20-16.
"Our greatest example of that was when we played Canberra a few weeks ago and were down 30-0 at halftime," Parramatta coach Michael Hagan says.
"We won the second half 10-8, which was pretty important for us in terms of stopping the leaking of points. You are certainly mindful of keeping your for and against in healthy shape."
Gone are the old days where you could look at a calendar and pencil in a couple of home wins and training trots against Souths and the Warriors.
Traditional form guides are now as scarce in league as moustaches and tape around the ears.
"I think that went out the window two to three years ago. The sides are very even in terms of talent and ability," Hagan adds.
There are plenty of stressed footy coaches around but the bookies are a nervous mob too. Framing and re-framing top-eight markets has been nigh on impossible as the weekly merry-go-round of results has played out in the first 15 rounds.
"There were once three categories of an NRL competition; the runaways, the guts and the no-hopers," explains TAB Sportsbet's Glenn Munsie.
"You'd have maybe three sides way out in front. You'd have two or three no-hopers to write off, and maybe another two or three who were OK but never going to make the eight.
"There was a fringe around the eight that'd be five or six teams. Now you have a few runaways, and the rest."
So who'd bother trying to pick a top eight at this, um...early...stage of the year?
Well, we did for the sake of an argument.
Six of the Daily Telegraph's league writers were tip winners for the remaining games of the season.
To ensure there was an outright result with five voting sheets, we selected one out of a hat to be discarded and found a consensus on each game.
The points were added up and where points differential was needed, the current figure was used.
And the results?
The struggling Bulldogs are tipped to find their bark and gallop home into fourth spot.
The Broncos, too, should find a wet sail and jump into the eight with plenty of points in the last ten games.
The Sharks can hang on in eight if they win six games and scrape to the predicted top eight cut-off mark of 26 points.
The Tigers and the Cowboys can make the playoffs, should they keep up their winning ways, but the valiant Titans' effort to play finals in their first season may just fall short.
Who knows? The competition is wide open. In fact, who wants to move on to world peace?
