Lots of Cas fans at the game yesterday were saying they need to win the cup now because they'll be nowhere near it for a a long time, the expect a lot of the players they have to get a gig elsewhere next season.

...and there we have it, in a nutshell

If the lad is anything like 50/50 about wanting to be here next season, then I want him nowhere near our club.
Let him stay at Cas, if he thinks the grass will be greener, there.
After all, Cas may turn out to be a one season wonder (even though I do, and always have, rated Powell as a coach).

If rumours are to be believed, WE hold his contract for next year. If he wants to wriggle out of it, Cas'll have to pay us more than what we bought him for. More dosh for us, which will help us in future, as many are up in arms in the Wire accounts thread. I dare say we'll cope next year with Higham and Dwyer as hookers, and there'd still be a chance of getting cover elsewhere (NRL, Championships, out of contracts)

He's coming. Forget this nonsense that he doesn't want to. He's got to let the cas faithful know he doesn't really want to leave but he knows it makes sense for his career. He will leave with a heavy heart but we've got an absolute gem and a bargain.

Let's hope so.

Having been on the receiving end of it as a Wire, as I'm sure most of us have, Cas' main responsibility is to ensure the survival of the club and the odd Wembley appearance isn't going to change that I'm afraid, so the tangible assets are all fair game.

Of course, at the risk of sounding condescending, as one door closes another opens. When Andy Greg left us most people of a P&B persuasion thought the oceans would boil and the planet would fall off it's axis, then along came a lovely fella called Keith Holden who could also play a bit and we all moved on.

The fact Keith sufferred a career-ending injury all too soon is another reason on top of the 180,000 others we know of as to why Cas have done the right thing to cash in their chips.

I remember Keith Holden, plucked from the Pie reserves as recall. I was at there at Swinton, the old Station Road, when he ran around the blind side of the scrum and just collapsed as though he had fallen in a pot hole. Never really truly recovered but what a player we had, albeit it too briefly.

Didn't his lad play for one of our our junior sides for a spell?

I remember watching Sculthrope and Harris go and thinking the world just ended (I was just a kid then) I hated them both forever after that but when you realise that the fees received for these players kept our great club going then its easier to take.

Cas were close to going out of business and now all looks rosy, I like to think that we helped them out but fear they may feel the same way I did as a kid. They have a great coach and a really good team I really hope they kick on from here and improve year on year and hopefully finally get their new stadium!

The new stadium is essential for them. without it they'll just keep pouring money into the bottomless pit that is Wheldon Road and in 2 years they'll be back where they started. They are also going to lose quite a few players at the end of the season and I don't think that the replacements they've brought in so far are anything like as good.

Its just like Southampton in football, clubs need money to survive and if it means selling one or two players then so be it. They have shown that they can compete and do you think a team like Cas could bring in the likes of players they have for next season without the money generated from the sales

We're budgeted to spend less next year than this, thanks to freeing up big contracts to Richard Owen and Lee Gilmour.

I think all this is clutching at straws. The deal quoted was put to DC 2 months ago, Wire were happy to accept the money & comp back. Cas were happy to pay it, and double his wage, and give him a get out clause to NRL for 2017. He wants exposure for the NRL and reckons his best chance is at Wire. So snubbed the deal.

Have things changed since then? I'm not sure.

Australians don't watch Cas?

Ian Henderson put it on the map

Cas have done superbly and you have to say they are doing something pretty unique in sport at the moment, British sport anyway. Where else will you get a team from a small town being able to compete at the top end of the elite division, being in the major Cup final in the game's show piece occasion, when a few years ago they were in serious financial trouble.

You have to say the club has got some fantastic people at the top, not least Daryl Powell.

If Clark joins us he is giving up a lot so I hope we can make it worth his while. Hopefully we can though and I am sure he knows he is joining a very professional set up with Tony Smith and i just hope we can move his game forward and take him to being one of the world's best hookers.

It isn't unique to Rugby League though Sally whereas Rugby League is unique in that it is only played in a localised area of the country at the top level. This is one of the wide reaching issues that Rugby League has never, despite its efforts, been able to address.
I have a cockney mate here at work who thought it was lovely and amusing that a team of coal miners from Castleford could compete with a team of the elite from Leeds
I was delighted as a Rugby League fan to see Castleford in the CC Final and understand what a remarkable achievement it is etc etc but however quaint and heroic it was for Castleford to appear in the CC final it does nothing for our reputation as a top drawer sport to the wider non believing public

Castlford are not a quaint little club....like it or not for large parts of modern rugby league history they have been a major club. rugby league is not massive sport nor is it massively supported. Cas like us for many many years were always there and there abouts, winning the odd final, getting close to the top of the league and playing a nice brand of rugby supported by enthusiastic if average rugby league crowds. back in 1990 when we went to wembley no one said that was quaint and When Cas went two years later that was absolutely no different to our attempt at beating the pies.

talk the game up where else would a town of 39 thousand people take twenty odd thousand to wembley.

Surely it's just as quaint when a team of miners and shepherds from little Wales (population. 3 mill lots) win the six nations over massive England (population 53 mill).........???? It's either quaint or just plain to me.....

talk the game up at every opportunity.....