Oh there will be upsets thats for sure.
Fev & Dewsbury away should be great games and the games in Cumbria will be testing especially if the weather is nasty.

You might get a good idea as to how good a coach Lowes is going to be,the last couple of years has shut the anti Rowley lot up at Leigh.

The thing is, last season only Leigh were full time. They lost 1 league game all season. There are 3 full time teams next year, Leigh, London and us. So realistically, even though the part-timers are going to push us to the best of their ability, I don't see us having losable games apart from against Leigh and London. It's certainly not a level league in terms of funds for players or in terms of player ability. I think I read some where that out of our 29 players we've got something like 23 who've played at SL level. You compare that round the rest of the league and you're looking at maybe half a dozen in each team who've played at the higher level.

I know a lot of people don't want to say we've got an easy season because they don't want to look either arrogant or the possibility of having egg on their face depending on results. However, I think that should we lose more than 3 league games next season then that is an unacceptable number of losses of a team in our position.

Leigh were part time last season.

My understanding is that Leigh were 'more or less' full time, ie they had a bulk of full time squad members but had retained the odd part time player who, for whatever reason, didn't want to give up their 'day-job'. Better question to ask might be, "when did they do the bulk of their training - Tues and Thurs nights or during the day"?

Leigh's squad trained in the evenings and on Saturday mornings. None were on full time contracts last season.

It will take a while for the squad to gel and we will be a prized scalp for many teams. There could be a couple of setbacks early on.

Last season there were 4 players that didnt have what could be described as ' normal regular ' jobs, they worked for the local community trust these included Ryan Brierly and Liam Kay

So we do expect a significant improvement in performances this coming season

Ah, so I got it back to front.

'They' [the full timers] reckon it takes a season for the total benefits of full time training to kick in, but the basic advantages of not having to put a shift in before training and doing your workouts before you get knackered must be fairly immediate I'd have thought..you do have the benefit of keeping the majority of last season's squad nless I've got that wrong as well!!] so that makes up for a fair bit too, I'd guess.

Good luck - except in a couple of your games...

Todays article says we are now at 2500.

Could we hit 3k with one last push?

Well the quote from the T&A is that if sales continue as they are doing that we're on target to hit the 4k figure the club wanted. I'd imagine there'll be a big up take around the end of Jan when people have been paid, I know that'll be when I'm buying my ticket and I've a few friends who are doing likewise.

Plus, I'd imagine we've sold more than 2500 as people have said about previous milestone stories, but this is a milestone along with a feel good story about the person who got the ticket.

More good news and a really nice positive story of the club going that extra mile.

I'll think we'll get around 3300 which is a fantastic achievement considering the price increase and the fact we've been relegated.

As roofaldo said, they should be a surge around end of January when people get paid. A lot have waited until after Christmas!

It's not disimilar to "the pledge" where they drip fed news of the total increasing. I'm sure we're always at a higher figure than the articles state. We perhaps won't hit the 4k target but 3k is surely going to be surpassed.

There's those of in the "I'll get one, I'll get one, I'll get one, ah bugger, the season's started. Screw it." brigade. Our numbers are growing.