I fully realise life isn't straightforward. And I certainly wasn't complaining about losing to either Toulouse or Toronto. We were told that we were a world away from these two and I was merely pointing out that we lost narrowly to both and the results could quite easily have been different. But hey, don't let the facts get in the way!

And I wouldn't be surprised if she'd already made her mind up about you before she caught you in her bins!

You talk about facts then come out with that rubbish! She pursued me and asked me for a second date after I woo’d her at the all you can eat Chinese!

Tbh, that’s what I’m aiming for this year. Winning 2 from 2 against the bottom couple of clubs. Accepting 2 defeats against the top couple of clubs (but performance is important) and being 1:1 in the league with most other mid table clubs. Sheffield at home and York away being the 2 that I would like to win to even things up. Then see if we make the top5

If you see the start to the season through the prism of us being a fallen giant then you could get downcast I suppose but I'm firmly telling myself the whole time "We are newly promoted". The other day we went to an established top 5 Championship club and beat them on their own turf. The fact that they hate us and lost to a freshly promoted side must have been really annoying.

The capitulation at Feath better not become a habit but nor is it a disaster. We are roughly where I expected us to be, the only thing that has surprised me is that our attack hasn't clicked, and I thought that would have become more fluent by now.

I think this is a fair summary. I also expected about mid table with the possibility of sneaking into 5th with some luck going our way. All teams have runs of form, Fev are currently having a good run. If they continue to grind out results when they lose a few to injury or poor form will probably determine their fate like the handful of clubs fighting it out behind Toronto and Toulouse.

Regarding our attack, I guess losing our main two playmakers in Keyes and Chisholm on top of the loss of McNally hasn't helped. I guess you could argue that the club had a choice re Chisholm but they obviously feel in the longer run it was the right call. I'm fairly relaxed about this year as I believe we would only be making up the numbers in the top 5 in all reality if we made it. It's also the ideal time for people like Lilley and Milnes to develop a partnership and prove they can lead a serious promotion push in 2020. To achieve promotion in the next couple of years we really need to keep this squad together for a year or so though as the vultures are already targeting some of the promising young players.

Yeah for me this season was all about being in the mix, finding our feet back at this level and seeing where we get. Next year and beyond needs to see us beginning to become an established top 5 side. Promotion is sadly a few years away I'd say. There's just no way it can be rushed if we're to have a sustainable model for the club.

I say sustainable but there's still the nagging doubt that our current owner can be our sole funder. I'm not one for conspiracies (although I know who REALLY killed Dianna) but my worry is that if we don't have a secret investor, we might simply have a man with moderate means, and we know how that one sometimes ends.

On the attacking front, for me it's more that we don't attempt, rather than don't achieve. We're far too formulaic and don't seem willing to try anything different. Our halves don't take on the line enough, whether it comes off or not, if you don't even try it then the defensive line can discount the (lack of) threat from an acting half and just look for the runners - we're making their job easier.

Off-loads is an other area we don't make enough use of. I can understand that JK probably considers it 'risky', and it is but I'm not suggesting we do it every other tackle like some clubs. There are plenty of tackles where players could be given the discretion imo, and again, if we never do it defences can ignore the threat and concentrate on making the 10, again making their job easier. It is a balance I know but imo we haven't got it quite right.

Don't you think we slightly overplay the conservative style of John Kear a little bit. I'm not sure what we are serving up is quite what even he has in mind.

Agreed. But I'm not sure we're practicing anything else or we'd be more fluent wouldn't we?

Can't be that hard for ball carriers to have some support runners for instance rather than people standing back and watching.

To be honest, I believe JK is more a pragmatist than anything else. I think he uses the tactics he feels are achievable by the players available and are conducive to breaking down/containing the opposition and I'm far from against that. For sure it isn't always the free flowing expansive style of rugby we'd all really like to see, and though obviously we wouldn't expect that all the time (well, most of us), when things aren't working it's maybe time to unfasten those top buttons a bit and try something else a little less conservative?

I don't think the vast majority of fans mind us being beaten, if we've gone down fighting and given our best against a superior team but sometimes it seems we think that coming out of the game with best stats, more than actually winning the game is the objective. The sad part is that we too often don't change tactics even when the scoreboard shows it isn't working.