I heard that too and he did have a poor game the week before. However he was "water boy" on the day. He wasn't at home attending to domestic matters. I sincerely hope it was a selection that was unavoidable from Kear as we sorely missed his go-forward. I remember Wood coming on for Crossley when Moi Moi was coming on for Wilkes and thinking we were going to get schooled and we did.

All good points Bullseye. I'll watch the full game when its up, but from the reaction, and observation throughout the season, i think our biggest issue is ball retention. It seems to have gotten worse since the York defeat which is worrying.

IF we play to our potential, we should come through the play-offs fine. A pack of Crossley, Peltier, Green, Bustin should dominate any pack (down to Kear to get the selection right this time)
Our attack has been slated all year and Yorks lauded, yet we've scored over 50 points more than then with Hemel to play. But rightly its the way we're scoring the points. Our first try against Oldham was a pearler though. Fast accurate passing and a beautiful soft ball from Chissy to put Storton through the gap who ran a superb line. I think the reason we're not doing it is because our attack is becoming so disjointed from schoolboy errors. Not managing kick-offs, Hallas doing a poor pass on first tackle from dummy half, props dropping ball cold. If we have a couple of sets on oppisiton line, we'll envitably score. But we're just getting no rhythem in any of our last few games because of all the errors.

The errors killed us in the second half. I can see why Kear was putting so much emphasis on the first few tackles of each set in training as described by Bullinenemyland. We seem to get forced into errors very easily. A lot are totally avoidable.

Trouble is, if you have too much emphasis on mistake free rugby you end up playing in the most sterile and predictable way.

Not booting the ball out on the full or ignoring a 3 man overlap twice to try and score at the ruck would also help.

I am glad Bullseye pointed out that we are the second best team in this division, next to a very creditable and entertaining York side, and our numbers are as good as anyone.

Sunday second half was mystifying but we did win pretty comfortably away against no mug side, our defence looked mean, and our 24 points seems to have been forgotten. I do think people's overall view of games is coloured by the finish rather than the start but we did very well first half.

I've moaned enough this year about constantly giving up cheap possession so I'll shut up.

For next year though, people forget how young the team is, and they will have had a full season (well, not all, as we have had a constant stream of newcomers) under Kear, so they will be older wiser and many will be better and some bigger too. I always say when building a new team it takes at least 3 seasons to get near some sort of proper cohesion. Then, you may have a poor side; an average, good or just occasionally very good side.

Our problem has been, and is, we don't have the luxury of time. We need to get promoted and then do it again.

That brings another problem - the old one, that a team which gets promoted from L1 is not necessarily going to crack any pots in the Championship; more so at the next level. So that means more disruption. But, to me, I have seen loads of promise from the young members of the squad, who i think will all make it, and what we are short of is 80 mins. of leadership, and someone to shake us up an get us around the park when things are not going well. Whether any of our current squad can reliably do that job, I'm not sure. I would have liked keys / Chisholm to get most of the season and i know you need cover but I'm not sure Lilley's style has helped. I'm thinking that if still here, Chisholm will surely be fitter in 2019 now he'll have had a full season with his reconstructed knee. Keyes would credit any team and would be my first pick along with Minchella.

Add Magrin and surely the pack is reasonably competitive for the Championship so we need to sort out the roles for leadership and direction, and I genuinely believe we could, if we get there, hold our own in the Championship.

Whether we could be promoted from it - well, no, you'd have to say, if say Leigh or HKR as they were is the standard you need, then we are a long way off. But I'm not bothering to even look that far ahead, we're still in L1 and if we go up then I'm sure Kear will know what's needed to play in the next league. I remain of the view we are jammy to have someone as good and experienced as Kear.

I think it's been said a few times that the top six (or so) of champ1 are of very similar quality to the general middling championship level and I've seen little this season to dissuade me from that, tbh.

I definitely agree that we have a young side, which should improve simply through time spent in a good environment. Getting players to 'gel' is always a problem though and the usual end of season 'in and out' scenario under the contract system, which pretty much means up to a third of the squad is probably out of contract at the end of every season doesn't help, but of course, every club has this to contend with.

I'm sure you're corect in saying it will be very difficult to achieve promotion from the championship, given the quality of the likely opposition. To be honest, I'm far from sure it would achieveable and any realistic promotion campaign may have to be 'parked' for a year to allow for our own development. Obviously, the club can't exactly announce this... but I'm far from sure we 'need' to get promoted again next year. I think we need to be somewhere 'in the mix' and looking as though we are making solid improvements. I think that is far more critical than actually delivering a second promotion, certainly in terms keeping the fans onside. Next season is another world though, so maybe any chicken counting, when the season arrives, will look very different. I think we'll have more of an idea where we are when all the ins and outs have been sorted.

If we do go up then anything more than avoiding relegation would be a bonus.

I'm looking forward to next season if we do go up.Hopefully we can get our backsides into gear and have a good season and not tail off like we did on Sunday.

I cant buy into that mate. Even after all we have been through I still th9ink with the team we have atm we'd be a mid table Championship

Maybe a bit pessimistic Bullseye - but I don't expect us to be anywhere near the top end. I suspect we would be in the mix along with Sheffield, Swinton, Dewsbury etc. Unless we suddenly sign a whole lot of quality, I haven't seen anything this season to think that we'd be anything much above the 8th-12th position.

Of course, getting promoted would be a good first step

Yeah let's not get ahead of ourselves. We've got to get there first. If we do go up we need a few more seasoned campaigners so we don't get bullied again up front.

This thing about 'seasoned campaigners'.... I recall that when John Kear was appointed a lot of people suggested he'd make just those kind of signings. Again, when we went for the 'hybrid' part-time/full-time squad it was suggested that it would enable us to sign some experienced tough, hard nut forwards who wouldn't necessary want to be full time

But we didn't. We signed people like Mikey Wood and Callum Bustin - young lads making their way in the game, who have done well without really being able to dominate in those tough games. IMO we've been light up front all season. I wonder why John Kear didn't identify this and deal with it right at the start of the season?

Which seasoned campaigners can we realistically target? Who springs to mind?

AIS, First choice pack imo certainly have plenty of games behind them.

Green 120+
Flanagan 170+
Crossley 180+
Garside 200+
Laithwaite 100+
Minichella 100+

Let's be perfectly honest here. The days where we could draw up a list of 'targets' and actually make moves to sign them are long gone.
We sign players from the ever dwindling pool of those available. Do you think someone at the Bulls sat down and said 'hey, let's go after that George Milton, he's decent'. I don't think so.
We signed him because his agent put a call in, we needed players and his wage demands were in our budget.

The same thing will happen next year, and the year after, and the year after that until we finally get back into the upper echelons of the sport or die trying.

The only way we will ever truly have some genuine quality in our squad is if we take a gamble on someone most could deem a risk (Chisholm/long term injury etc.) or if we develop our own. If it's the latter option we'll probably get a couple of seasons out of them before they move on (Bentley).

Our season ticket sales give us an edge over the whole of League 1 and some of the Champ sides, which is why we can match or improve upon the salaries of players like Magrin and Wildie.

Fair point, although only two of those are prop forwards, which is what I tend to have in mind when I think of the kind of forwards who can 'bully' the opposition.

I don't know who there is available. All I know is that most of the Championship teams we played last season (and teams like York and Workington from this season) seem to have quite a few of that type of no-nonsense prop with a bit of 'mongrel', as the saying goes.

And for the most part they bullied our pack (Jon Magrin included!). I couldn't really see Steve Crossley or James Green bullying anyone, much as I rate both of them as good, honest 'go forward' prop forwards.

Alex Rowe signed for Newcastle. He'd would have been a great signing.

Laithwaite hasn't re-signed yet.