I would rather no injuries.
Getting injuries now doesn't mean they won't happen later in the season, as well.
The problem with the injuries now is it could ruin our chances to staying in touch of the top 4 and if that happens, it's season over. No team is winning outside the top 4.
Cutoff for top 4 looks to be 8/9 losses based on the last 2-3 years... so we've got 4/5 left in the bank with origin still to come... we'll need to have a really good origin period hopefully via Reyno, Ezra, Bhunt, Willison, Riki, etc. that are left after the rest get picked apart by the 40 odd squad that will be unavailable on the 3 impacted rounds.
Interesting to look at where other teams currently stand:
- Storm is already at 7 losses, so they're pretty well done for top 4... that opens things up a lot
- Raiders and dogs from last year's top 4 are already at 5 losses, so they've potentially only got 3 left to play with... and they still have to play each other again this year
- Panthers only have 1 loss for the year, so you can basically lock them in for top 2 already
- Wahs and rorters both at 2 losses, but they look better than the bunch around them, so they look pretty good for top 4
Rabbits, tigers, cows, eagles, sharks and knights all at 3 or 4 losses as well... they look to be the main contenders we'll be dealing with.
I think most of those teams look pretty overrated and it feels like they've had a great draw to start the year.
Our year will hinge on the origin period... last year we only lost 2 games from rd 13 onwards... and that was because we were gifted Walsh during the whole origin period... but it means we went into Rd 14 with 7 losses on the board before going on an historic run.
There is no chance that we are getting Walsh through origin this year, so we're going to need the guys that are left behind to step up and keep us chugging along.
Even then I look at the entire comp and it's basically panthers to lose...
