Quote: paulwalker71 "I do think people have to come down from the euphoria of actually having a club, and inject a bit of realism into our plight.
When Leon was on the RHP show the other night he said that this was by far the worst pre-season he'd had in 20 years, in fact it had been like having 'no pre season'. His assessment was that 'we are miles off' - by which I took to mean that the fitness levels, skills, set moves, conditioning etc were way, way short of where we'd expect to be at this point.
Some people seem to be expecting us to run HKR close and then start winning against Rochdale the following week. I just don't see that happening. I think HKR will - and, frankly, should - absolutely annihilate us, and I expect us to lose to Rochdale and Swinton in the games that follow.
Rochdale are a well-drilled unit who will have that early season fervour of a newly promoted team. They'll target the game at Odsal as a mini Cup Final, from their viewpoint, and I fully expect them to play out of their skins against 'former WCC winners the Bradford Bulls'. By contrast we have lost almost all of our better players, and any new players will need time to gel.
I hope that, should we still be on -12 after four of five games, people won't panic or - even worse - start turning on the team. It's going to take time. I expect Toovey to pull it round as the season progresses, but it won't happen in three or four weeks.'"
Agree with this, especially the bold bit bear in mind they went to Tolouse and won to get promoted, Tolouse had to have a second bite of the cherry