The three Yorkshire clubs of Bradford, Wakefield and Castleford plus Widnes are all are high risk with London the obvious favourite.
Widnes look relatively stable and have the advantage of a the iPitch whilst they also seem to benefit from their neighbours resting players against them and thus nabbing a couple of unexpected wins each year. They are terrible in defense but they should narrowly avoid the bottom with about 10 wins or so.
I think Castleford have the best manager of these clubs and are without the financial problems of three of the four others and they will probably be just about safe. Without Powell I'm pretty sure that Cas would have bumped along the bottom with Salford and London. However there isn't a lot of quality in the squad and the loss of Chase means Cas will need to rely on two guys at halfback who have had off field problems and fall outs plus have suffered from poor form. They won't get much beyond 10 wins and they will need to get more than a single point from London next year if they are to survive.
Wakefield will lose players due to financial reasons but I think their passionate support and good quality squad will be enough to bring in the new players and still do ok. They seem to string a row of wins together each year and I think they can do it again next time out, I don't think they will drop.
Bradford look a thin squad and have a very quiet crowd thus little home advantage and I fancy them to finish in the bottom two. They will do just enough whilst everyone is match fit but when they aren't they'll not win many.
London will be universal favourites to drop but they have managed to clear about half of the underperforming players off their rota and have a huge amount of salary available to build up. If this money is spent very wisely they may make up ground on the others. It remains to be seen who makes up the squad before saying they are certain to go.
With Salford raiding their smaller clubs for their better players, the lack of quality coming from the NRL and a lot of veterans it is certainly a weakening competition and that will help all these clubs pull off more surprise wins. That will probably be crucial in staying up.
