Ah, so you haven't actually read my posts on the subject, then. Fair enough. To recap
Indeed. I also agree very much with the first proposition (that promotion is not really possible - and only some very unlikely circumstances conspired to make it actually doable this year)

But I do feel that despite the well-known failings and strange traits, in achieving what he did, Lowes has done enough to warrant another season, if the insiders - i.e. Green & Co., who know more than we do - also concur - which they seem to - and given that I fear promotion in a fair fight is impossible, it doesn't really matter who is the coach. But if things do go pear shaped as 2016 wends its weary way then of course Lowes would become more vulnerable - if there was anyone both better and available.

But I'm afraid that I hold no optimism for 2016, and do not believe we can get promotion even if we had a coaching team of Mal Reilly, David Waite and Jesus Christ. Unless another SL team implodes, or the RFL makes some changes to the rules.

I don't see any changes on the horizon. I do see the drawbacks of the Super 8 system now we have experienced it (mainly, panic buying/loans; the inability of the bottom club in SL or the top club in Championship to properly plan/sign for the next season; and above all, the now proven fact that the £1m extra salary cap means all things being equal no Championship team will ever win the MPG.

I can see the solution. This would be that the team finishing top of the regular season gets an automatic promotion and the SL bottom club gets relegated. The remaining Super 8s or Super 6s would make it possible, if only in theory, for 2 Championship clubs to go up.

This would mean a team like Wakey who frankly deserved to get relegated for their abject year would do so. It might also mean that coaches such as Lowes would have to work the regular season on an "every minute matters" basis and not settle for just a top 4 spot. But i can't ever imagine the Sl clubs voting for auto relegation. Which leaves us with a club having the misfortune to go bust, which you can't rule out, but which I certainly don't wish on anyone.

More selective points.

Tell me, FA. (Nice and simply now without your usual spin please)

Did you think that we would get 50+ put past us in the play-offs by the part-timers of Halifax?

Yes, I thought we might, when we announced a weak side and Lowes made no secret we were treating the game as an inconvenience to be got out of the way.

No I'm sorry, he didn't JUST mess up the MPG. Throughout a season in which you repeatedly stated that all that mattered was the end game, Lowes decision making demonstrated what was likely to happen in that end game.

It's not sustainable to state that you were right up to the point where Lowes got it wrong when in actual fact Lowes was getting wrong throughout the year, while you were saying in effect, it didn't matter. Similarly repeatedly stating 'promotion is impossible' right up and including the moment when MPG demonstrated it was, and had always been possible.

I'm sorry what? You expected to concede 50 points against a part time team? Even with the changes we shouldn't have conceded 50 points and to say we should is an insult to the professionals who played in that game. Each player who played that day had started during the season, and was deemed worthy at that point of a starting place.

I don't believe anybody walked into that game expecting to concede over 50.

Lowes' coaching record was poor before he was signed and those who aren't blinkered by his playing record (and we're all agreed he was a legend) have said this from day one.

If the team had played like they meant it right throughout the season and with a more intelligent approach to team selection we'd be back in Super League now.

It's a closed book on promotion next year. It is NOT going to happen with him in charge, irrespective of external factors.

No and I never said I did.

It would be, but nobody is saying that we should have.

Indisputably. And despite being a weakened team, it should have had enough to beat a team of part-timers, at home. Nobody is disputing any of this.

Neither do I. But, once things started to go one way in the second half, I would bet nobody was surprised whatsoever that we ended up shipping 50, just because we have a lot of form for giving up and shipping 50 when the going gets tough. Which is why I expected we "might". Well founded pessimism, you could call it, I went to that game with a bad feeling, the players involved have no excuse at all but sadly I've seen us ship 50 a million times in recent years so it's nowt fresh.

All that mattered WAS the MPG. But here I am, stuck in the middle of you to the left of me, mystic eddie to the right, to him it was just a one-game season and nothing else but promotion mattered, to you we had to win every game in style.

The truth is in between. We needed to start steadily, and build to peak at the business end. That is true for all teams in such a league setup, and it is even more true for a scratch side who half of them didn't even know each other's names.

I have no clue how Lowes "decision making" could have in any way demonstrated what happened in the MPG but seeing as you clearly did see what was going to happen, can you just link to where you posted it? Or did you keep it to yourself?


Stop missing the point.
a) I don't maintain Lowes was perfect or never blundered, just that he achieved the specific achievable goal, being in the MPG.
b) You must realise that had Wakey not been severely disrupted then they would have stuffed us, like they did earlier in the Super 8s when Smith could have famously played in a dinner jacket. And I don't mean promotion is "impossible", like tigertot buying a round, I say there is no chance unless a SL team has a meltdown. Which, as a Bradford fan, I would hardly hold "impossible".

You're so negative. You should be thinking positive, that it was ONLY 50+

Jimmy is not the man for the job, how can he be really. If i remember correctly, in the T&A Mark G said that "unless Jimmy resigns he is staying" interpretations I know but If I had faith in a coach I certainly would not quote anything like that.

To congratulate him on the MPG target is woeful. Leigh imploded and the standard of players we have are better quality than other teams in the championship.

We went through a season with the unknown so it was worth seeing it through, next season, unless you like watching teams getting annihilated, is going to be a trudge and considering the players Leigh have picked up (Which are games I might go watch) may not be happy outcomes.

The rather generic narrative "that we will learn lessons" is insulting to fans who know better.

As for good coaching look at Halifax and how they performed. Beat us twice and even at Blackpool gave us a game. Swop....

That isn't mine or Mystic's position but nevermind.

On the basis that a SL club did meltdown on the single occassion the format has been in effect, promotion clearly was possible and we must judge his efforts in that context. Getting to MPG is a purely arbitrary benchmark which as we know, confers nothing. Why or how would this be a measure of success?

I haven't time to trawl posts but Bulliac, Bullseye and plenty of others will I'm sure confirm what you already know - that I and plenty of others stated repeatedly (Mat said it in pre-season) that we needed a scrum half and that the single hooker idea was ill fated. From HKR on this was a priority upon which our season hung. Instead we signed almost every other position excpet the ones we needed. You said it didn't matter that we struggled to get out of our own half against Workington as the season was about the middle 8's and then later, the MPG.

Pretty much everyone on our board cannot understand the Lauaki/Tahrouie situation and that includes people who agree with you.

I of course have been agreeing we need a scrum half all year long too. The only thing I will say is we would have had GOB, and I don't know who else came available when that fell through. Don't recall anyone being signed that we would have had a chance of. Getting rid of our young halfback was odd. But yes, the lack of a 7 has cost us dear.

I am not at all sure that Jimmy is the one who does the signings, though. Many think it is down to Ferres. Regardless, there has been a failure to cover halfback. Maybe it is partly or even wholly Lowes. I don't know. I would go so far as to say if we had had a decent and settled halfback pairing all year then we would have been twice as good come the sharp end.

I liked Tahroui, and I don't get Lauaki either. All this I have said.

But ATEOTD the season was about first getting to the MPG and then if possible of course winning it. I blame Lowes for not winning that game but he did get us there however much you disagree with his selection policy. And the reason we lost that game was nothing to do with what had gone before. In fact, if he'd changed the MPG team around less, maybe it would have done more. But if Lowes was to be judged by the MPG then the fact you have to accept is that if Addy had kicked 2 goals instead of missing then we would now be in SL.

What would you be saying about Lowes then? It wouldn't reomve all his shortcomings, but let's face it, it would still not have been a bad effort by him all in all, and he didn't miss the kicks. And they were ultimately the difference.

Perversely, I agree with you. In fact I think the margins over a whole season may have been even slighter than you suggest. Had we signed Sammut and Scott Moore...... BUT he didn't. And more than that he appeared to set his face against any evidence. His behaviour in press conferences in response to perfectly reasonable, and in my view adroit, observations from Ross was chilish and recalcitrant. He put his own stroppy, fragile self before the progress of the club.

Well today's t&a article makes for pretty depressing reading. Rather than enticing us to renew our season tickets with positive news, Ferres appears to be adopting scare tactics instead.
And if we really do need 5000 season tickets just to break even then we are fecked, because there is no way in hell we are reaching that number. I will be gobsmacked if we even match last year's total, never mind surpass it.

Reality bites. What are you promising next season Steve that's going to be any different to this year? Mediocrity with the odd bright spot?