Quote: Bradford Badger "We may have to look at the Championship for a few players. Players are there, you just need to get the right ones.
Look at Chris Hill at Wire - been excellent this year and had already had a go at SL.
I've not seen too much of the championship to have a full view on it, but I have seen Fax a few times and been impressed by the likes of Sam Barlow, Sean Penkywicz. A few of the lads at Fev look as though they could step up too, players like Liam Finn, Stuart Dickens.
I know the likes of Dickens etc are a bit long in the tooth (he's about 32/33 I think), but these were meerly examples of where we may need to go short term as you would expect most players to be signed up already.
In terms of us losing / playing with a 2/3rds playing budget compared to last season, it's probably not that difficult to chop / maintain a squad similar to last year. If we remove / lose Sykes (I suspect we were paying some of his wage while he was at Wakey), Burgess, Jeffries, Sibbitt, Hargreaves, Sammut, Elima, Briggs, Walker, Kopout, Crookes, possibly Purtell then you lose a vast amount of salary cap.
When you look at the amount of time Sibbitt, Walker, Sykes, Purtell, Kopout actually played for us last year we'd have been better off with one or two solid lower end SL players who had a good injury record.
Given where we are in proceedings, I think will have to look at a smaller squad, possibly losing our better players when contract renewals come around, UNLESS our kids come through and boost the first team (ala Bateman). These guys will be cheap short term for a few years and we then may be able to push into the play-offs. Generating more money, increasing support / sponsorship and enticing players to stay and targets to come.
It will be a long few years. Personally I think it's too big a job for Franny as it stands - he needs a very good number 2. Time will tell I suppose, but best of luck to him'"
Problem with a skinny squad is injuries as we have seen a few years ago