Luke warming up

As we reach the midway stage of the season, Luke Dorn sees plenty still to play for in Super League XV.

The fight for a top-eight place gets set to heat up!

While it is often said that the table never lies, I think it's fair to say that the current Super League standings only tells the story up to a certain point.

There are some teams positioned in the top eight that have shot out of the blocks early but are now struggling to keep up with the pace, while others lower down are getting their key players back at just the right time to make a push for the play-offs.

Looking back on what we have seen so far in 2010, Wigan have exceeded the expectations I had for them, though I always felt they would improve with a new coach (Michael Maguire) and new systems in place.

Warrington have also impressed. They have developed a reputation in recent years for spending big but not being able to go on with it. However this time around, with Tony Smith at the helm, they look the team that will be the hardest to beat when it comes around to the play-offs.

Of course, some of the top teams have had major interruptions. Defending champions Leeds have certainly had their injury problems but have dug out victories - they are only going to get stronger for the run-in that is ahead.

You'd think things look rosy for Huddersfield, as they sit in comfortably in fourth spot. Yet it is tough to know how things will go for the Giants after a tough comple of weeks on and off the field.

They would obviously love to send the departing Nathan Brown out on a high but the players will be a little apprehensive over what direction the club intend to go in the future once their current coach has returned to Australia.

What isn't in doubt is how well Brown has done during his time in charge at the Galpharm. He has changed the culture of the club for the better, and they have been an exceptional team over the past couple of seasons.

Results haven't gone their way of late either - they were blown off the park by Warrington in the Carnegie Challenge Cup after suffering a loss to Wigan at Magic Weekend. They've now got to get back to what served them so well at the start of the campaign.

Fight

I honestly can't see many teams that are currently outside the top eight battling their way in (except Harlequins, of course). What you will see, though, will be a fight to get over the finishing line in the closing weeks of the regular season.

Hopefully this time we can get in there rather than being on the outside looking in. The last few weeks have given the squad a lot of confidence and while it was a bit disappointing to get knocked out of the Challenge Cup last weekend, we always knew it was going to be a tough game against St Helens

At half time we were ahead and at that stage pretty confident in the way that we were playing, though we did lose two of our props early doors. However Saints turned it around after the break and just proved too good for us on the day.

Now we are left to focus all our efforts on reaching the play-offs Super League as we head into the second half of the season.

We'd have liked to have picked up a few more wins at this stage, but you always want to finish the season stronger than you started it and we are just hoping that we've come through our injury crisis.

Last year it was a complete reverse for us. At this stage in 2009 we were going really well and looked on course for a play-off berth but we never managed to recover from a series of injuries.

Hopefully we are going to do it the opposite way around this year. We now face two very important weeks - with Castleford at home and then Wakefield away - before the next break in the fixtures for the cup quarter-finals.

Edinburgh was enjoyable again (particularly as we managed to get a positive result against Hull FC), albeit bitterly cold. It will now be interesting to see if the Magic Weekend concept continues and, if so, where it will go to next.

The Airlie Birds had their injury problems at the time but you've still got to take your chances. For us, some of the things that we have been working hard on in training came to fruition, which is a good sign for the future.

Hull will be a force once they get the likes of Sean Long and Craig Fitzgibbon back on the park. Sides don't have the depth in Super League to handle such key losses, and that will not change until the level below becomes much stronger.

It seems that this year the key to success for every team is making sure your top players stay out of the treatment room.