Warrington Wolves • A positive spin for the coming season

The fuss just depends on what fans expectations are.

Since about 2014 the strength of our squad has been around the same level. About 3rd to 5th strongest in the league. Some very good players, some fairly ordinary players who will be starters most weeks. It's a squad good enough to make the playoffs, compete for the Challenge Cup and be an outside shot to go all the way through playoffs and win a Grand Final.

That's where we are in 2020. Basically the same place.

So for fans who look in the context of Wire history and have seen years where we've nearly been relegated or gone bust, it's easy to be positive that we are likely to do pretty well.

The fans who have been complaining about recruitment and so on are the ones who aren't satisfied with another repeat of what we've done before. They now want to see us win the Grand Final and play a more exciting style of rugby. Those fans haven't seen anything to get optimistic this off season. They will just think, we're going to pick up where we left off last year, with the big signing Widdop injured, and lots of talk about how this is the strongest squad ever and so on, that's not really believable till they see it on the pitch.

So like you say, we have some talented players...with some luck on injuries...could have a decent start. The fans in that second group though, won't be satisfied with a decent start, they've already seen that happen recent seasons. They'll want to see something on the pitch that makes you feel we're credible Grand Final winners, not just be a team that's aiming to make it to the playoffs and cling to the hope that "anything can happen in the playoffs" (spoiler: Saints, Wigan or Leeds always win).