> Jimmy will make this thread look daft as he leads us to automatic promotion in the middle 8's!

Whereupon we become a bigger gig than Dewsbury.

I couldn't remember JK with hair, so I took a look at some photos - ye gods! Is it the same bloke?

Taxi for Lowes.

I'll put some towards it. What about Rowley or Haggerty who will probably get his team further in the cup than us!!

After last season and making the MPG I thought Lowes had just about done enough to deserve another shot this year on the proviso that he developed the team and learnt from his mistakes. So far we've looked no better than last year and the same problems keep on recurring. Not sticking to the game plan, unable to close a game down despite leading going into the final minutes etc.

I think we can all accept the odd blip and despite being FT there will always be occasions when a part time team edge it. But have we looked the business for the full 80 so far this year?

I suspect the next couple of games might be crucial for the team and Lowes. Facing two quality sides who we will be competing for the top 4 with we simply have to see some performances. Personally I've lost confidence in Lowes and would like to see a replacement brought in sooner rather than later to give a new coach chance to actual make his mark.

I think if look deeper into us getting into the middle 8's how much was that down to Lowes? Were we really that good?

Shefifeld - Comfortable victory at home, but we were playing against a part time team.
Wakefield - game over after 20 mins
Salford - Best performance of the season. Fair play
Widnes - Hammered by 50+points. Decent first 40 but completely fell away as thing got tough (sound familiar)
Hull KR - Awful performance and Hull KR were there for the taking that day. Dire selections in Chev Walker and Mendieka cost us.
Leigh - A good win but i think Leigh were completely gone by that stage. they had just lost to Fax and were more or less out of the 8s even if they had beaten us.
Fax - another humiliation

Wakey - MPG - Our coach completely panicked with strange tactics and he was completely out coached by BS. His use of the bench was horrendous that day and lost us the game (Not Danny Addy missing a conversion as we could have still lost as our players were out on their feet from playing virtually the whole game) throw in humiliating losses to Fax, Sheffield Featherstone and Leigh. In fact how many games last year were we sensational? Not many.

Ask yourself this simple question. Based on James Lowes' general demeanour and attitude, would you want to work under him and bust your gut for the bloke?

First of all, the Challenge Cup. Who cares? We ain't gonna win it so we would be better getting horsed out straight away rather than playing more "meaningless" games. Bodies are better being saved for the important stuff at the end of the season IMO.

That said.....

Lowes is beginning to make McNamara look like some sort of genius now. He is arrogant and confrontational, skills that made him a wonderful player but hinder him in the coaching capacity. He also appears to be too stubborn, and, ultimately, clueless. It is time that he was "relieved of his duties" before he takes us backwards even further and get someone else in (Morrison/Kear/Smith etc.) who will be able to get more out of the team and motivate them better than Lowes is able to do.

And this has to be done sooner rather than later because if we do not go up this year, then we won't be back in SL until there is some more changes to the P/R system we currently have in place.

10 games perhaps? Then see where we are....

"I can't question the desire of the players", I'm sorry Jimmy if you think this is the case you must be on a different planet to most of our supporters. The only real desire I have seen this season was in the last 15 minutes against Leigh.

Yeah, agree with all that

We keep hearing people say 'His job was to get us to the MPG and he did that... so he gets a free pass'

Sorry, but we stumbled into the MPG on the back of some woeful performances at the back end of the season, and then in the Super 8s. If Leigh hadn't totally imploded, we'd not have been there at all - and its unlikely that Leigh will do that again this year.

More worryingly, we simply don't seem to have learned anything from last year. We're still putting in those patchy, unconvincing performances, filled with mistakes, tactical ineptitude and unconvincing defence. We got past Swinton and Whitehaven OK, but how did we do against reasonably decent teams?

Featherstone: unconvincing win
Leigh: fortunate draw after Leigh ran out of steam, on the back of purple patch
Batley: blew it, lucky to get a draw
Dewsbury - lost

It all points to the overall feeling that we've 'settled' at a Championship level. I think we'll do well to get past London on Thursday, and I've little to no expectation that we'll beat Halifax on Easter Monday.

Could leave the club today I'm hearing

Interesting. Do you have a source for this?