As I only do hospitality at SL level I've not seen much of the Bulls this season. My view of Lowes has always been that he is not SL coach material, however I am sure he has achieved the goal set for him by Green, which is making the play-offs. Whether winning that game is a necessity is more debatable. The fact that Green is not a RL person is interesting to me, does he know what good looks like in the Championship, other than a league table? I would suggest possibly not, therefore I expect Lowes to continue for a good while, win or lose.

I think Steve Ferres has been around the game long enough to sufficiently advise Green if he feels Lowes isn't cutting it.

Fair point.

OTOH isn't Ferres at least substantially responsible for the acquisition of a whole bunch of players that are, seemingly, not of the desired quality?

Objectively some looked pretty undisciplined, disorganized and lazy in the second half. You claiming they looked "disillusioned" is subjective. How do you "look" disillusioned - even if you are?


The point was very well made, though. He said we finished second in the table. With Leigh, well clear of and a class above the pack. I don't know anyone who is bemoaning it as a season, I've had a great time for the most part, we've done better than I expected. And i'd say that 5K coming to a dead rubber that had been described as such by the coach in advance, to watch a second string team, is testament that few feel like you do about it. And they've been rolling up all season, home and away, so there's the evidence.

You keep trying to move the goalposts, nobody mentioned celebrating finishing above Batley. The celebration, if such it can be called at this stage, is about finishing above ALL our competitors thereby qualifying for the million pound game.

Well by not abiding by the terms of the discipline as set out, not being where you're meant to be within the organisation as requested, and not looking like you're trying. In fact I made all the objective observations you did and concluded they looked disillusioned. Either that or they weren't provided with the information required, in which case they are even less responsible.

We used to play to 10k now we play to 5k, irrespective of the context you've managed to stretch over it, this isn't evidence that 'few' feel like me.

Disagreeing with you doesn't necessarily mean constructing straw men and/or moving the goalposts. There has to be some disambiguation in the argument. There isn't.

Any system which pits teams limited to under £1m in wages and has spent most of the season playing against semi-pro opposition, against teams who are allowed £2m and have competed in a higher level, fully pro, league all season, is a system clearly set up top preserve the status quo, imo. Incidentally, I do realise that Wakefield probably haven't spent the full £2m, but I'll bet they've spent a good bit more than us.

As for next season, if promoted it's a whole new world and I expect no-one would doubt that some new faces will appear, and the early part of this season will be consigned to history and soon forgotten. If not promoted, it will be a hard sell next time round to be honest, as it's my belief that many thought it would be an easy ride to promotion. When all is said and done, as I've said elsewhere, at Wakefield on Saturday, it's our 17 against theirs and anything can happen, whatever the odds, so let's get behind the team.

I can forgive him for a few duds after the hastey job we had to prepare for the Championship. Though we've got a squad together that's got us to this point so I guess it wasn't that bad a job.

Nor that they don't; as if they don't actually come to games, then they are in no position to form a view, now are they?

As for attendances, your superficial point is again bogus, when we examine it. Our recent SL attendance averages are as follows:
2012 - SUPER LEAGUE - average attendance: 11,755
2013 - SUPER LEAGUE - average attendance: 8,575
2014 - SUPER LEAGUE - average attendance: 6,891

The fact that we used to play to 10K would only be evidence that fans weren't that keen on Championship rugby, if we had maintained that 10K until we exited that league. Wouldn't you say? Not sure eaxctly what our average ended up this season but to me the only word I can use to describe this seasons crowds is "impressive" given that we have been asking fans to pay proper top dollar for much inferior fare, in a vastly inferior league, yet the crowds are not drastically lower. How can you turn this fact on it's head and keep a straight face?

Because it isn't a fact. The rate of decline bears no correlation to which league we're in as we were losing roughly 2/3k per season in the SL.

Therefore if anything (and I'm not making a scientific case), those stats support the view that 'very little has lifted or excited the fan base' as that decline has continued or at least not been arrested despite last season being our worst in living memory thereby creating a historically low base from which to judge. However, I have to say your conjuring of 'evidence' and 'facts' is absurd as is your attempt to reduce the season to check/pending options. This is merely a feeling I have which you don't share.

I just think there's been quite a bit happen over the last six months that needs taking into account whether or not we go up. There!

Perhaps 5k is our core hard core support base, and in a way this seasons average with the reduced level of away fans in the Championship could actually imply an increase in home support this year?

We lost fans in SL as we became increasingly uncompetitive, and not appealing to the floating fan as way to spend £20k of their hard earned cash. Perhaps commercially the apparent "just do enough to get to the big game" attitude has failed to bring back more fans. Sure qualifying for the million pound game is a box ticked, but as a commercial company improving attendances throughout the system must also be important too. We are after all in the entertainment business.

5k is where we were in the post-admin phase of last year when Catalans came. Most of the others, outside the first two pre-admin home games of the season (about 8k each), were around 6k. The only real outlier is the 10k for the home game.

We hit the hardcore support last year, and bar a few poor weather poor crowds have retained them this year. By my measure that's a success. A sign of what's possible when there's some of yer KPMG approved jeopardy in a game is the 9k for the Leigh game.

If I were a betting man I would say we'd lose about 500 off that 5k figure if we don't go up.

That is, of course, entirely untrue. There is clear correlation between the league we are in and the attendances that we have, but it is not necessarily material given other observable trends. I suggest somebody performs some principal component analysis to find the real truth of the matter. Going by the linear trend from 2012-2014 (because I'm too lazy to find the 2015 home average gate), my main concern is how we are going to survive on gates of -405 in 2017.