The great sadness is that when a coach and a team believe that what is a level playing field for all, is and has never been on the cards to achieve! Particularly when it's very early in the season for this so called quest for promotion.

All the championship teams who are in with a shout for a top 4 finish, realise that the opposition who are the bottom 4 from SL will have known for some considerable time in the season, that that is where they will finish, and have geared themselves with the sole reason of keeping themselves in the SL competition! Therefore the team that is currently playing in the bottom 4 of this league will be far stronger against less opposition in the championship.
We have at least to thank Wakefield for exposing that particular foible, and of course their sacked coach, Webster, for saying it well before the season ended.

The problem is expectations and hope which every club should have, frankly I think at least 8 clubs in either division realise that P&R is not an option.
I should imagine the RFL also know this, but what a disgraceful way of maintaining the status quo?

Oh dear that old chestnut, our player recruitment at the back end of last season had nothing to do with your club, did you hear us complain when you started recruiting yourself or doesn't that count.
You can't have it both ways even though you weren't good enough to win the championship, if anything Leigh should have gone up automatically and us come down, but hypocritically you chose to ignore that and were happy to accept a place in the final going to do this that and other to us despite us embarrassing you earlier in the play off's. Of course we celebrated as would you have done had you been good enough in fact we're still dining out on it, the difference is if I may remind is that despite you having 4 home games we only had 3 and still finished above you' I'd like to say good luck for this season but your bitterness towards us is still in abundance, who knows if your lucky enough you might get another chance if you improve.
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At the risk of boring those who've read my views a dozen times, we had the freak circumstance of a Wakefield team in total meltdown, and on the day we should have won, but as I keep saying it is only if another team goes into a similar meltdown that anyone might have a similar chance. I don't see any team in SL either melting down, or that we could possibly dream of beating, if you're honest.


But, it's that sort of "anything could happen" that persuades me to keep buying the occasional Lotto ticket. My head knows I've no chance of the jackpot though.



TBH I'm not that bothered at all about the overall performance, yes we need to peak at the right end, what has me on a major downer is that we SHOULD be visibly a class or two above all these sort of teams, even if we blow hot and cold, if we had the class, it should tell. And we don't. We have sadly started the descent into mediocrity that is the Championship level, and so we make excuses, Leigh are a good team, Batley on their own pitch are hard opponents etc. It's all bullcrap though IF you GENUINELY think you can mix it with the bottom few SL clubs.

Overall I am very frustrated by the fact that our squad is better than last year's, or could be, but for the crucial fact that we have made the sin of no scrum half. It is a bit like giving Lewis Hamilton the best car, but no steering wheel. I don't know how much better we could be or how more classy our play and combinations could get if we had a half-decent organizing, kicking, problem-posing scrum half, but without one, I fear all the rest is rapidly going down the tubes.

Because in the key game, a Championship level team (which is what we now are) having the cheek to go up against a SL team without a scrum half is actually taking the pi.ss and will end in tears.

I agree with FA, at the moment we are a rudderless ship. So far I have seen two part time scrum halves namely Thackery (Featherstone) and Brambani (Batley) who do what a Scrum Half should ie steer the team round the pitch, I`m sorry Addy does not compare to them.
On Sunday at one point Mathers was screaming to move the ball to the right, AOB moved the ball right to Addy who promptly returned it left to a static player. Addy does not think fast enough and assess a situation quick enough to be a scrum half. Both of Batleys half backs showed how to kick on the last tackle, something ours don`t seem capable of doing. Thank heavens Clare was the one being kicked at he was superb and made the Batley halfs change tactics, something ours seem incapable of doing.
Till we get a decent one we will never know how good this team is.

I don't disagree with any of that.

Maybe a straight winner takes all match between the bottom SL club and the top team in the Championship would introduce more of an incentive to either avoid the bottom slot or come top, and in a one off match you have a better chance of an upset. As it is the Championship side has to overcome both the massive difference in resources, and the pool play which also favours the SL teams

We all know we need a 7 - so does Jimmy.

He's not going to come out and say that and I'm glad he hasn't.

I fully expect us to have a 7 by the middle 8s and will be shocked and disappointed if we don't. I don't want us to leave it too late but equally I think we'd all be a bit miffed if we sign up a bang average half now and a top quality half becomes available towards the back end of the season!

Personally I'd rather see Addy fill in until the right player comes up than sign a Herbert/Siejka!!!

I fully expect you to sign a decent 7 before the 8's but simply waiting for a player to 'come up' might not be the answer. If a decent quality 7 became openly available tomorrow I would expect Huddersfield, Hull KR and Sheffield to be on it like a shot for starters, probably Wakey too.

There are plenty of sides desperate for a good half back at the minute so anyone who comes onto the market is likely to be fought over by a few clubs. Not necessarily a case of seeing who becomes available and snapping them up with ease. With Brierley on the outs and without fully knowing the Chase situation I wouldn't be surprised if Leigh had at least half an eye on the half back market also.

#Brambani4Bulls

Yeah plenty of clubs could do with a half back but I'd like to think we can still get the right man.

If he's not in place by the 8s we can forget about promotion.

I personally think the 8s are to late to be signing a SH (what if we have visa issues or something else crops up) he needs to be playing with the team a few weeks if not a month or 2 so he has an idea of stratagem and the rest of the squad know what to expect, just him turning up at our first 8 game is too late I think.

But I fully expect us to coast thought the season make a snap judgement on an 7 him turn up be crap and out of his depth us not to qualify and it go tits up in a turnip

On the basis that a key player might take a season or two to fully fit in the side, yeh great, lets get one a couple of weeks before we play away at a SL club. That'll work.