Well, the club have launched their appeal against the points deduction today.
Now awaiting a hearing date

Here we go, using the FA predictor I get;

St. Helens...50
Leeds........45
Wigan........38
Hudds........36
Warrington....32
Castleford....30
Hull FC........30
Catalans....28
Hull KR........25
Salford........18
Widnes........18
Wakefield....12
Bradford......10
London......0

So I reckon the points appeal is pretty crucial.
For the record thats wakey winning against Cas(H), Lon(H), Wid(H) and HKR(H).
and the Bulls winning against Wak(H), HKR(H), Cat(H), Wid(H), Lon(A), plus one other surprise win from somewhere. (something like a real surprise/off day for the home team at Hud (A), Cat (A) Wig (A) or Sal (A) )

I've probably been a bit too positive for us and negative for wakey and I still have us relegated unless we get 2 points back on appeal. So its a big, unlikely ask....but its not a done deal yet. And FA is right, we pick up results towrds the end of the season, not over the next 6 weeks, so we're going to have to hang in there for a while. Also, if there was any doubt, its only London and wakey we're playing against, no other results matter, so we need Widnes/HKR/Catalan to beat Wakey if possible - because we're not catching anyone other than London and hopefully Wakey.

and it does seem to chime with his stated honourable way of doing business - that said, if anyone were to think about 'unsettling' a player they wouldn't advertise the fact would they? I mean Wakey never made an announcement that they were going to 'unsettle' Sammut and Scruton, did they - they just got unsettled and finished up at Wakefield.

part-time players on a much lower cap and used to playing against lower standard opposition. It is possible, though it very rarely happens in modern RL, that a club in this position can raise their game for a one-off occasion in the cup - but they sure as hell ain't gonna do it four times in a league situation.

There is such an inevitability of the four SL clubs coming in at 1 to 4 in this mini league that you have to consider that this was the intention all along. The chance of 'promotion' is entirely an illusion, imo, and if we drop we'll be down until they change to straight P&R or bring back licensing at some unspecified time in the future.

To be quite honest although friday was a bit poor, i cant see a problem with us challenging Wigan and Wire over the coming weeks as their form seems to be up and down at the mo, that being said i can imagine them seeing us as an easy 2 points (which in all fairness they should) but i can sense an upset or two in the coming weeks

Its a long shot but its a shot. Plus youve got to remember you dont have to finish in position 1-4. The 4th and 5th placed teams at the end of the middle 8 play each other in a final one off decider, so you only have to be in the top 5 of the 8 team mini league to be, at worst, 80 minutes from SL, and then why couldnt we be the club that raises their game for a one-off occasion?

I know the situations are a little different between now and 2010, but it was often said that it was a big mistake to stick by McNamara while we were on that horrible run of 11 losses. (I know he left and St Hilaire took over for a few games)

But at the moment we're on 5 straight league defeats with no realistic/predictable win in perhaps the next 5 or 6 league games. Last season we had a run of 6 straight defeats which extended to 1 win in 10.

My point is, with a heavy heart, should the board take a serious look at replacing Cummins?

edit: the Wakefield message board are already getting very twitchy and want Agar out, but money seems to be the stumbling block for paying him off... for the time being at least anyway.

I'm not following this ... if the likelihood is we realistically will not win any of the next few games, what difference would replacing Cummins make, apart from we would lose the self-same games under a different coach?

Nobody knows for certain, all it could take is a fresh idea or two to tweak things, i.e. perhaps a subtle change to defensive patterns or a shift in balance in training between x and y, and then we could find our form. Of course it's only speculation, but further down the line it becomes hindsight.

Yes, we're low on numbers and Francis has dealt with shiite no other coach has but who's to say he's really the right man? At what point does it become too late to do anything?

There's too much at stake to leave it to "what if". Some may see it as knee-jerk, or changes for changes sake, and of course anyone is welcome to because it's a forum, but I really think drastic changes are needed. The minimum should be another assistant to shake up our defence. However, I'm beginning to think more changes are needed.

What do you think FA?

Sacking Cummins when the reason we're in this mess is none of his doing is a bit harsh.

Since last year we've lost Lulia, Sammut, Scruton, L'Estrange, Langley, Whitehead, Bateman etc all of whom would walk into the current team. Cummins would have kept the lot if he could. Not to mention bloody Carvell and Winterstein.

As far as I can see Sir Peter Fox is retired and I don't know of any other coaches available who could do better job than FC at the moment.

They have been at Agar from day one, not just recently. If Wayne Bennett, assisted by Tim Sheens & Craig Bellamy, was in charge at Belle Vue (sic) & Wakey were on a 20 game unbeaten run they would want him out. They can't help it, it's an illness with doctors & drugs & sh[ii[/it.

I think given the unprecedented shiite he has been dealt, and his responses to it, it would be hugely unfair and a real kick in the bollox to thank Cummins by giving him the bullet. I would give him the rest of the season on general principles and as only a bastarrd would not.

Trouble is that in business and sport it is more often the bastarrds that do best.

Cummins has been far more impressive than i could have predicted, and it is true that he has had little or no control over a number of factors, and in team unity, dealing with adversity etc. I suppose no-one could have done better but nevertheless there are a number of things that are in his remit and which he COULD influence, which have not been affected by the calamitous events surrounding him and those include
* our endemic propensity to give up miles of territory by poor technique, dropped ball, poor pass selection etc.
* our endemic concession of serial predictable penalties
* our erratic defensive standard, and frequently shambolic and disorganised attempts at defending (Sure you could talk about getting defensive coach but isn't that the same thing as saying Cummins himself can't coach a decent defence?)
* our tactical kicking, which overall is amongst the worst in the league, especially last tackle plays, especially in the opposition half.

I know we have lost plenty of important players but while with us they all regularly contributed to all of the above, which has been a feature of our play for a long time with little sign of improvement.

So if I were the owner, his job would be safe for the season, but that's perhaps because I'm too soft, and think in fairness he's earned the right to have a chance to show he can improve things on the field now things are (maybe) starting to at last settle down. But I'm pretty sure that with most hard-headed basstard businessmen he would be out the door, in a Koukash-stylee "just do it" kind of way on the basis we don't have the luxury of time.