Another bizarre selection this year IMO. Does anyone know what the team is actually meant to be? Is it a team with the best player in each position in the competition, or is it a team of the players who have had the best year comparative to their own baseline?

I won't bore you with some of the comparisons between players from other clubs as you'll all jump all over them to justify them. But taking Saints into account, our four best players this season are Passi, Batchelor, Lomax and Hurrell (In that order). Yet the first three aren't in the team despite players from Saints (Who haven't been as good as them) being in there in the same or very similar positions. It's just odd, what is the team supposed to be? It's almost as stupid as the Man of Steel system which just seems to pick the wrong players almost every year.

Is Hurrell one of the best 2 centres currently playing in SL?

No but then they havent picked the best two centres playing in superleague either.

Disgrace that there are no Wire players in there. Inexplicable.

Pretty much agree with that dream selection based on best player by superleague position. These days its a 17 man game so another 4 players would have been more apt.

So you think Welsby is the best 6 in the comp, despite not being the best 6 at Saints?

I thought MoS used a points ranking system that accrues each week (same system the NRL use for their Dally M Medal) then the Top 3 are then voted on by a panel (or is it voted by the players at the EoY awards?).

So I'm surprised they don't use those points tallys, by position, for the Dream Team, instead it's a bunch of pundits & journos who decide it all.

FWIW the 'best centre in SL' (aka Hurrell) is at no 44 on the MoS points list, with just 4 pts

[urlhttps://www.superleague.co.uk/man-of-steel/leaderboard[/url

Looking at the MoS points and SL Official Stats, the 4 Saints players mentioned by the OP don't all appear on either list with any note - with Paasi and Hurrell in particular not doing well in either charts (coming far behind Makinson and Welsby).

But I guess that's just down to bizarre comparisons and baselines, rather than subjective opinion ?

Probably chosen as generic half backs and not at 6. Can't think of a decent 7 this season who has made a significant impact but the dream list looks as though Croft is at 7.

Welsby will also probably be favourite to get Young Player of the Year as well, he will probably be at his peak with Dodd in 2 or 3 years and will possibly be the future England Half Backs.

Quite simple, the more star players you have in your team the less chance of picking up points eg 3 star players you get 3-2-1 pts, 6 star players then 3 players will get absolute ZERO.

Another situation is James Roby is the victim of his own high standard and gets overlooked.

Paasi has been our best prop by an absolute distance. He changes the game when he comes on and he's carried us this year. He's rescued several games from a losing position with his contribution, just turning the game on it's head and reversing the momentum. You don't need the absolutely pathetic Man of Steel points system to tell you that. Man of Steel is an embarassment.

So ignoring the stats you don't like (MoS) what about the SL player stats, where other Saints players are returning figures for tackles, carries, metres gained, try assists, etc much greater than Paasi (who does, I'll grant you, come in at no.3 for offloads - which I guess you will argue are all those gamebreakers, but then was also wholly dependent upon his support runners).

So does your subjective opinion have a greater weight (or repeatability) than either fact based stats, and the opinions of a panel of RL experts?

Sure you're entitled to your thoughts, but trying to singlehandedly undermine both stat based rankings and the views other RL experts is probably even beyond you.

If you fundementally disagree with the Dream Team and MoS just ignore it, no need to get frustrated by it, and just go with your own club's EoS awards (or not).