I daresay, and my allegiance to Wires is unbreakable, the point I was making is RL isn't the only sport, and fans get disillusioned and move on - particularly when abject performances and high cost of living go hand in hand.

This wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve noticed a distinct lack of upkeep and maintenance on the stadium in recent months. The terracing is stickier than Level on a Friday night, and there is significant and noticeable rust on the outer structures of the stadium.

It’s a sign that costs are being cut behind the scenes to save money. Had the board of directors appointed a suitable coach who isn’t leading us to relegation, I’m sure ticket revenue would be much higher and help to ease the financial hardship. If Karl Fitzpatrick wasn’t messing about with NFTs and other useless marketing gimmicks, we’d likely have saved a fair chunk of budget.

This is why I Fitzpatrick should also go. He’s ruining the club off field while Powell ruins it on field.

No he hasn’t.

Sound sure rubberduckie my mate

Cheers, thanks for that.

Didn`t think it was anything but anther negative rumour

Ah yes why use the owners wealth when you can use taxpayers money.

Crap now I am worried he has.

I think this is true but more about the state of rugby league as a whole rather than Wire struggling. I remember enjoying rugby league a lot during 1998 and 2002 when Wire were crap and in 2002 the relegation battle gave an added excitement to the season. Over the past few years I've felt my general interest in RL slide and right now I feel relatively apathetic about us getting relegated.

I worry about whether the sport is going to be able to attract and keep young fans. The game does not seem to have the magic that it did for many years which hooked so many people.

Nurse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nailed on lol

Agreed. Maybe it’s just me getting older but even watching the top games as a neutral doesn’t seem to give the same buzz as it did in the past. I guess most of this is down to the very formulaic nature of modern RL and the emphasis on defensive structure. In this hemisphere we have a small pool of talent, so bringing through the attacking players who have the skills to break down such defences is difficult. The NRL seems to have such a big pool of talent that all clubs can field players that have a bit of attacking magic about them. I guess our best hope over here is to take young NRL misfits such as Dufty and Field etc, while we try and coach a bit of attacking RL back into our junior leagues.

I don’t know whether this IMG deal can change the sport to make it more appealing to a younger crowd, but if they can it won’t happen overnight. The next Sky deal could be a killer if we’re not careful.

Daryll Powell P45:

Objectives missed-

Galvanising squad
Improving performance
Terrace stickiness levels too high
Stadium roof rust worsened

Board review:

Moran; "we need to bring in a coach who is able to increase performance levels, reduce terrace stickiness levels and this new appointment needs to be ensuring that all metallic areas around the roof of the stadium are painted to avoid the appearance of rust".

Perhaps Kris Radlinski would be a good appointment as he's got plenty of experience managing rust above his eye line.

Why shouldn’t the club / owners use a scheme set up to ease the financial pressures of COVID to help support the club who have posted £2m losses over the past two years as a direct result of COVID? A loan remember (albeit on favourable terms I understand), but it still needs to be paid back.

At the same time Moran / Middleton would have taken a hit in their own businesses too, no concerts for 2 years and the high street closed down for large parts. Should they have turned their noses up at the furlough scheme too?

Come on Peckerwood ... Gazwire is joking.