I honestly don't see the problem. Seriously, if someone had told me four years ago we'd reach the GF four times in a row and lose I'd have taken it. When Martyn retired, Scully began breaking down repeatedly and Keiron had that bad year with his elbow I thought our number was up. There were a lot of great players either leaving or reaching the ends of the careers. We had no money to replace them (certainly none for world record transfers) and McManus said repeatedly that we had to cut costs and go with the juniors. I had primed myself fully for three or four modest years whilst other sides took their turn at the glory.
Given the above I think we have done remarkably well. Our fullback is paceless. Our wingers can't catch. We have one recognised centre who is close to pensionable age. Our backline in general has little penetration. Our stand-off's form has been sketchy. At scrum-half we've either fielded an old crock or a young crock (admittedly with sublime skills). We've run with a Wigan-reject as a starting prop whilst Cayless' form dropped into the abyss. Our star foreign signing was wiped out at the start of this season and all of our best youngsters have been crocked for lengthy periods etc.
With this in mind I think it's been a phucking MIRACLE we've done so well!
Next season we'll start clawing back some of the ground we have lost on other teams over the last three or four years. The signings we have made are about as good as I hoped for. All of this current generation of kids (with the possible exception of Lomax) will be fully mature and far more capable of dealing with the physical aspect of the game. With a bit of luck the extra bulk will protect them against the kind of battering only SL dishes out. For the first time in four years I'm quite optimistic.
