Quote: Hopie "I've always seen a lack of ambition from Leeds Rhinos, and Rugby League in general, I imagine it looks good from the owners point of view to keep things ticking over and play it safe but a few years ago I found I wasn't getting value for money so stopped going to the games and buying the shirts etc.
We used to have "Britain's best supported rugby club", I appreciate that was a bit of a fudged claim, but that was before a sustained period of success, the crowds didn't grow during that period, and it is all fine because the real money is in corporate sales, but why not have both? Leeds should have got to the point where sell outs were regular occurrences, but they made the ground smaller and just bumped up the prices. Selling five shirts to one person is seen as preferable to selling one shirt to five different people.
We used to have a world class team, with England, NZ and even Aussie internationals, but we let them go without replacing them. At first the promise was made that we wouldn't do that, and that probably sold enough season tickets, then we stopped promising and the sales didn't go down too much, then we let more players go, and sent out a video/email asking for faith in the youth system, and that meant enough money was coming in to maintain a weak squad, its all followed the same pattern, do the bare minimum to keep the business running, but sporting ambition is a distant second.
We should be putting more on the pitch, better entertainment, higher quality signings wtc. Obviously the salary cap limits the sport, but what I have seen GH/Leeds lobbied for no increases in the cap, I'm sure it makes sense from a certain point of view, but for me Leeds should be driving for bigger and better, not plodding along near the back of an increasingly slow race.
The constant reliance on loyalty branding is clever when it works because you can ask someone to stick with you even when you aren't doing well, which means that poor performance isn't punished by the bottom line. But I know they could do much better with the money, so they don't get any of mine until they can show they are making a better effort.'"
A very honest post and there will be a good number of people with the same view im getting that way,if Gannon gets picked at six or Handley at one im going to abstain until the club decide to get serious.
