After yesterday, Ive had a think and just wanted to share my opinions.

Reserves

When the Reserves were scrapped, wasn't it meant to be a temporary move, for a season, to save some money (£50k was the figure given IIRC) yet this season, we still arent running a reserve side. Teams like Oldham, Whitehaven, Dewsbury, Keighley, Sheffield and York, all manage to run a side so why are we not doing? It'd also give some cover for injuries. with some youngsters able to make the step up. as well as games to give players returning from injury some gametime.


Dual Registrations/Loans

Why have we not taken advantage of the Duel Reg scheme? Most of our nearest rivals in the league (Widnes, Leigh, Barrow) have done, and its proved a good way of getting some talented youngsters in. Same goes for Loans, in the past few years we've had some decent players on loan (Matt James, Craig Kopczak), There must have been players available at some point but we haven't brought any in. the current injury crisis has been going on for a while, cover could possibly have been brought in earlier.

Reserves: A farce that we havent got a reserve side, but then we have some top earning, high profile stars in first team squad. We don't have a money tree or a bottomless cash pit

Dual Reg: A disaster! Makes a side completely disjointed and makes it difficult to prepare - We're already underprepared a it is!!! All dual reg is put in the hard work so super league teams don't have to - another step towards championship clubs becoming SL feeder clubs. As a matter of principle I'm glad our club don't do this!

I cant think of one thing we have got right!
The Squads too old
The Coach is poor
The results are poor
The crowds are leaving
The Directors are leaving
We dont have a Youth system
We dont have a second team
We dont have competition for places
We have been dumped out of 2 comps in bad circumstances
Were going to finish 4th at best, maybe lower with some tough fixtures on the way

Stop dreaming Mr Calland and Mr Steele, you might be kidding yourselves but you aint kidding me, were miles off being a decent championship club, we can categorically forget any higher ambitions until this is sorted.

u have just proved your a troll now, u should resign from this forum, on the stengh of that post alone, u are obviously not a fan!

Just because you don't have the same opinion as one of your fellow fans doesn't mean he's wrong and you right!!!!

i could not agree more Paul, however some posters just seem to thrive in slagging every detial of their supposed clubs actions, they look for bad in good, they turn a defeat in to a catostropic event

if unchallaged in a contucive way, this message board will detiorate into a sham!

I have no issue commenting on a poor result yetsterday, we got beat, it was not good enough, however to then turn this in to a board, coach, players, second tream, are all bad debate get mygoat and i feel needs pointing out!

all too often in england, the vocal majority belive they are speaking for the slient majority!

I too get called one of the "negative brigade" as I don't disagree too much with JTB on most of what he says and the above post. Many on here are blinkered but I am old enough and ugly enough to realise we can't all agree on something we are all equally passionate about (Halifax RLFC). However when my old man who has watched the club for over 50 years turns around and says enough is enough and several people on the way out after the game agreed with his rant I feel times of change are needed. Can you honestly say that Calland has improved things over the course of this season because I can't?

Yes we have won games (against some poor opposition mostly) but we have been a shadow of the team that I watched at the beginning of last season that imploded after the Cas game. Any teams that have a gameplan and stick to it beat Halifax, simple and Dewsbury did this and out enthused us. That is the most worrying aspect for me. I agree he doesn't coach a team to knock on, or throw forward passes but he should be coaching basic skills i.e catching a ball, apssing a ball, how to defend and we look totally rudderless and sometimes clueless and its starting to become painful to watch and at tiomes embarrassing. That for me is why I think a change is needed but I don't think we can afford to make swiping changes. Patience is running out amongst a lot of fans and people are already starting to voice opinions more fiercely and voting with there feet. I wish I had a magic wand but the only decision I can see that is a sensible action is get someone in who can coach us to do the basics and do them well.

i totally agree with chris smith.

During yesterdays game i had to endure a fool/idiot dewsbury fans laughing and cheering in my face as we continued to miss tackles and make mistakes. Making a poor side look good.
What could i say in response, nothing especially when worrincy covers is head under the high ball and cowers away.

I will still go and watch every game but it hurts at the moment

The dual reg system is a shambles IMO for championship clubs. How can you prepare a team through the week not knowing if the reg players will be called into their SL teams it just doesn't add up.

Then how does the players feel about the reg players coming in taking their spot on the team at the last minute?

I think the loan system is much better then at least you know that you will have that player for a certain amount of time.

Get real, its because i care and spend thousands each year watching them and want to them to succeed that it frustrates me so. This is a forum, not lets agree with what Jonnie thinks

The dual regs system was created by the greedy SL clubs who have to have large squads but cannot accomodate all of their players. Reserve rugby is no good to those lads who get farmed out to championship sides from SL clubs, so that bring me round to why is SL reserves rugby so essential ?
In all honesty, out of our last lot of reserves, how many have gone on to be picked up by championship or championship 1 clubs, let alone go on and improve so dramatically that they get a SL club ?
C'mon, we were a decent reserve side at that time & yet none of those lads have kicked on and made some money out of the game, who's right & who's kidding themselves ?
Don't get too carried away by the emotion of losing another match that some of us on here consider we should have won yesterday, because if we were to believe all the tripe that some folks post on here about financial trouble etc etc, how would the club's position be enhanced by running a reserve side with it's running costs ? Surely that would make things even worse.

I've come to believe that some people who use this messageboard cannot accept defeat in any shape or form, crap refs, trouble in the camp, drinking culture, challenge cup mess up, is there anything we've missed out to blame for losing a game of rugby league ?
Get real folks, we are no longer the challenge cup winners, Regal trophy finalists, championship ( old style ) winners, we are a championship club that's still trying to recover from previous badly managed regimes.
I'm still appreciative that we have a team/club to support, that nearly wasn't the case not long ago.

Got to admit - YOU ARE RIGHT.
Top post mate.

Thing is I don't think any of your post or sentiments are missed by any of us on here and I agree with what you have said Colin.

However we are told we are an ambitious club looking to attract new sponsorship, hell new supporters etc. It simply isn't purely down to being defeated its the manner of the defeats and the way the business side of the club has portrayed itself to the wider audience with some of the stuff that has happened this season. I beleive like many others the potential of our club is being stifled by not just a lack of finance but a coach who lacks "something" to take us to the next level and this is my gripe. We all want the same thing??

We can't keep being thankful and grateful for having a club each season we under perform just because we fail to deliver. Remember the club has always told us we had a 5 year plan (7 years ago). It communicated we were looking to make the next step and built up fans expectations and hopes off the back of these promises including this one. This season to now is such an anti-climax and to continue our development as a club on the field we need some fresh impetus I feel.

Chris its called momentum and that what has made me so sad this season as we had a big wave of enthusiasm after the Cas cup game last season with a load of new fans too but it went as soon as it had come sadly.
Yer we got to the GF but we never felt like we could win it as we had lost that momentum and Barrow had gained it.
Its been down and down ever since sadly, only the win at home to Barrow and maybe the win at Leigh have been highlights really this season (Widnes away was 2 average teams really).
This has lost us those extra fans and we are back to near the hardcore 1800 at the moment (although our away support is still terrific imo).
This is why I look at the coaching set up and think - does this guy have any plan? Is he taking us forwards or backwards?
He has 'lost most of us speccies' in other words we are not in his fan club bar a few real diehard anything is okay with me as long as its HXRLFC people, so that does not lend the club to getting more of us to go watch the team but less.
Alienating your fans is not a good idea in my book and he is doing this in spades.

Theres an arrogance about several of his squad too, that they are bigger than the club, like they are doing us a favour playing for Fax, not enough of them have that hunger to achieve or push on to the next level, apathy im afraid, appears to be rife.