Can we finish 4th?

[25tiger]

Still way too early in the season to write off 3rd or 4th place for anyone currently sat between 3-10. Plenty of games left for teams to take points off the other teams around them, so why not be optimistic.

[ellis9]

Looking at all teams fixtures over the next 3 games, I think each team will earn the below amount of points:

Saracens 14
Exeter 11
Gloucester 9
Wasps 10
Quins 5
Bath 2
Bristol 8
Tigers 13
Worcester 4
Saints 5
Sale 1
Newcastle 5

This would leave the table after 12 rounds looking like this:

Saracens 56
Exeter 51
Gloucester 37
Wasps 34
Tigers 31
Quins 29
Bristol 26
Saints 22
Bath 21
Worcester 21
Newcastle 20
Sale 17

[Scott1]

No way we get 13 points,dreamworld territory there

[ellis9]

No way we get 13 points,dreamworld territory there

We shall see.

[Scott1]

I'll say 6,1 win made up with BP

[ourla]

So we should just give up on 4th then?

We should be thinking about putting the building blocks in place to be successful over several seasons. Frankly whether we finish 4th this season is neither here or there given how things have gone over the last 3/4 years.

That is not the same as saying we should give up on anything. It's a long season. And if you are still "in the mix" and can find your form at the business end of the season anything is possible.

[ellis9]

So we should just give up on 4th then?

We should be thinking about putting the building blocks in place to be successful over several seasons. Frankly whether we finish 4th this season is neither here or there given how things have gone over the last 3/4 years.

That is not the same as saying we should give up on anything. It's a long season. And if you are still "in the mix" and can find your form at the business end of the season anything is possible.

Anything is possible apart from beat Sarries or Exeter? As earlier, you said:
#2 It would be great to be in the play offs again but scrapping into fourth and then getting spanked by Chiefs or Sarries only gets us back to where we are before last season. It stops the rot but that's about all you can say. So perhaps I am wrong to call it "optimism".

If we finish in the play offs, we will have had an excellent run, so are you saying anything is possible, meaning we could finish in the play offs and win them or are you saying we will just get spanked by Exeter or Sarries?

[JP14]

Anything is possible... what is a certainty is that I will be attending every game I can .

[ourla]

So we should just give up on 4th then?

We should be thinking about putting the building blocks in place to be successful over several seasons. Frankly whether we finish 4th this season is neither here or there given how things have gone over the last 3/4 years.

That is not the same as saying we should give up on anything. It's a long season. And if you are still "in the mix" and can find your form at the business end of the season anything is possible.

Anything is possible apart from beat Sarries or Exeter? As earlier, you said:
#2 It would be great to be in the play offs again but scrapping into fourth and then getting spanked by Chiefs or Sarries only gets us back to where we are before last season. It stops the rot but that's about all you can say. So perhaps I am wrong to call it "optimism".

Listen, as I've said before IMO Spencer, Thompson and Denton were a good trio of signings. Our first choice back line is, assuming they are all fit and firing, high class and a match for any domestic team including Sarries and Exeter. And we have some good younger players pushing from underneath. So, on paper, "anything is possible". However, sitting in the negative column is the coaching staff, the level of confidence and level of belief. I honestly don't know if our current coaching staff is good enough, or whether it needs bolstering/changing. What I do know is that performances have been to be polite indifferent and inconsistent, we have shipped a lot of points and nobody fears us anymore, even at Welford Road. Now, it's possible, that Murphy now has full control, that he can harness the rest of the coaches and galvanise the team to fix the problems, start to get some W's and rebuild that confidence/fear. What I am not really interested in or entertaining the thought of, is us continuing along the same path/form, papering over the cracks and doing enough to sneak into 4th before meeting a somewhat inevitable demise in an away semi. That may well happen and hey ho I will cheer the team on as always. But what really interests me is the much longer time path of the club/team and the prospects of us creating a new period of year in, year out success and actually being seen as serious trophy contenders.

If we finish in the play offs, we will have had an excellent run

Well, no, I thought the whole premise of this thread was that we do just enough to get 4th. If we have an excellent run we wouldn't be sneaking into anything and 3rd would be a possibility.

[ads]

Sort the defence out and any thing is possible.

[Scott1]

I'm with you ads,top defence coach and lineout guru and let's have a go!

[teds]

Still way too early in the season to write off 3rd or 4th place for anyone currently sat between 3-10. Plenty of games left for teams to take points off the other teams around them, so why not be optimistic.

Tbh even Falcons in 12th, are only 9 points behind 4th with a possible 65 on offer. The only certainty is that neither Saracens nor Exeter will be relagated and it’s highly unlikely that Gloucester will be relegated, beyond that anything is possible.

[Ian Cant]

Beating Quins will be a huge task: they beat Chiefs with something to spare .
Surely one game at a time is the way forward, so beat Racing first to boost confidence.
The 6 Nations period could really hurt us as I don’t see us performing as well as last season especially as the teams we play will have very few players missing except for Sarries but their home record speaks for itself.
Injuries will also play their part.
Back to Dean’s days when 1 game at a time meant just that.
Hope to cheer the lads on to a win at Welford Road first.

[Ian Cant]

Just seen the Quins team for this weekend. Most players rested ready to face us!
I now have asked Santa for an early present: no injuries to Tigers’ players- fat chance! Bah Humbug.

[TigerCam]

Just seen the Quins team for this weekend. Most players rested ready to face us!
I now have asked Santa for an early present: no injuries to Tigers’ players- fat chance! Bah Humbug.

Hopefully they will get battered by Benetton this weekend to slow them down a bit?