Predictions
Fev will win the league and the playoffs. This time they have the right coaching team to do it. In my opinion (and I’m not know to be bright) they had the team to run us close last season, but the coach (not a coaching team) was all wrong. I don’t rate the guy who was in charge and never will.
Re Wakey, doomed and Cas can relax. I really respect how that have survived for so long in SL but the writing is on the wall. Cas are not great but will win a couple more games. Wakey may win one, full stop.
Prices,
I believe we are being affected by LSV in ways that are directly affecting our ticket prices and DB’s ability to give us fans what we want. I honestly believe that the ticket prices are at the lowest level they can be right now, and that the LSV is the reason they are not lower. The prices are not being affected by the pre-match entertainment (and neither is that affecting our signing of players). Derek is funding both independently to build the whole match day experience as a long term fan base goal. I honestly trust that DB has probably the best business plan to put is in the IMG SL long term future.

Don't you get your parking chucked in for free when you buy a ticket for leigh? Not the rip off everyone says when you factor that in. I won't be there next Friday, but its due to work and not the ticket prices. Bit gutted as my last trip there was very enjoyable when we walloped Wakefield in the CC semi.

Well said, Moe. Your Leigh ticket gets you good pre-match entertainment too and, for Wire fans, the travel costs are lower than those of attending away games in Yorkshire.

Well if you'd put T'pau on for our game I'd have thrown a sickie

You old dog!

Don't expect to take any food or drink in or you will have it taken,only ground i have ever been to that does that.

its not a picnic

Jack Gaskell and Bent & Bongser, sorry I missed your posts, I forgot to check back in this thread.

I am more hopeful than confident about promotion this year, in my opinion we have been playing at a similar level to last year (amybe a bit better defensively but not on attack so far), we just don't have a Leigh to deal with this time! It's quite pleasing to see Leigh doing so well this year because you were so far ahead of us in the 2nd half of the year it would have been worrying for us if you had struggled in SL. BTW you're right B and B it was only at the 1895 Final where Leigh's superiority was really established but to be honest I did think the writing was on the wall before then.

A lot of people are looking at the league table and thinking it's a formality for Fev to get promoted but it will come down to 2 games at the end of the year (wrongly in my view but them's the rules). Halifax beat us and deservedly so in the Cup, Sheffield looked like beating us with 20 minutes to go at our place too, and if we catch them, or Toulouse, or Batley, or someone else on a good day for them in the play-offs we are far from certain to win - we don't have the same physical dominance over our rivals that Leigh did in the 2nd half of last year.

Then of course whoever does go up will have the same problem Leigh did a couple of years ago ie trying to recruit towards the end of the year after all the best players have gone. Unless you're in a position to offer SL-value contracts now, which no current Championship team is able to do, that's a really tough thing to do. But then we're into IMG's points-mean-prizes territory the year after, so who knows who that will favour!

Hi Phantom. Good to see you back again. Yes, winning promotion and then recruiting a side good enough to stay up is that eternal conundrum for all championship sides.

How to do it? Well it looks like Leigh have finally cracked it this season but has it provided a necessary blueprint for other Championship sides such as Fev?

As you have alluded, it has obviously been based on a much derided (sometimes quite rightly - even on this forum) lunatic fan of an owner who has the financial wherewithal to fund a Super League quality squad whilst in the Championship and then back it even further by recruiting Super League standard players mid Championship season for the forthcoming season all on the basis that the club would be a division higher. All of this with the knowledge that Leigh were just 80 minutes away from just one defeat in the play-offs that would have seen the plan and the dream die a complete death. What a gamble! A gamble indeed but one that seems to have come off - at last

Without a similar monied owner or owners who are prepared to splash the cash and gamble this season on success and to be planning and recruiting the right level of player now for next season, for it being a Super League season, then what are Fev to do? It is a tricky one.

Assuming for one moment Fev get promoted then leaving recruitment late will be fatal. I don't know how many of the current squad you think are good enough to step-up for a SL season but I am guessing you may well consider that quite a few of the current first team squad will need to be replaced with upgrades.

Fev certainly do not want to be gambling at the end of year having won promotion on NRL flotsam or voided contract Wakey players (they are a desperately poor quality bunch - there is not much meat on the bones there).

There is also the issue for you of going full time. Surely Fev cannot hope to survive in SL with a part-time squad. On this point perhaps you can shed some light. Last season there was much sympathy in the rugby press, albeit a predominantly Yorkshire based rugby press, that played to a narrative that it was plucky little part-time Fev who were taking it to the full time juggernaut funded by Derek's millions. This did not sit well with some of us here who suspected that a good part of Fev's team last year were to all intents and purposes full time professionals with the remainder part-time - in effect a hybrid squad.

I am guessing that something similar is happening this year but again, stepping up to a full time squad surely cannot wait for the pre-season to next season.

It's not easy, Leigh have failed miserably and worn the tee shirt - several times. The odds are just stacked against the newly promoted team staying up and the majority of SL team owners give the distinct impression that they just do not care a jot about changing the 'club' rules - so long as the team threatened to go down is not their team.

From your post you indicate that the money is just not there at Fev to recruit SL quality players now but surely at some point some money will need to be found and the cheque book is going to have to come out.

Maybe you can unearth another Jackson Hastings or a Brodie Croft, a star player in a key position who can just add gold dust to lesser standard players and where that star player just ignites the team to be better than the sum of its parts and Fev just have a brilliant season on the back of it and stay up.

Maybe, just maybe....... but I do not envy you the poison chalice that is otherwise the prize for promotion. It certainly will not be easy but as a fan is it not better to live the dream with the team struggling in SL than having (yet) another year running away with the Championship.

Jack, yes I'd rather have one year in SL and flop than never make it, especially as that's what the club has been striving for for nearly 30 years (having been booted out from the top flight after finishing 11th of 16). And let's face it we can't do much worse than Wakefield have this year.

I would think we will be full time if we go up. We have a lot of players at the moment who don't have a job outside RL but quite a few who do (Lockwood, Hardcastle, Davies etc) and it would have been folly for the club to turn its back on those players whilst still in the Championship.

We will need to replace a number of players if we do go up (I think 3 of our forwards might retire), but unless you are in a financial position to provide guaranteed SL-level salaries it's very difficult to attract the right type of player until you know that you're promoted and will be getting £1.5 million (or whatever it is now) rather than £200k. The same will apply to every other club currently in the Championship.

That said, Mark Campbell is nobody's fool and I think he'll have a proper dig if Fev do go up.

No more promotion and relegation based on results alone. Finishing 12 is not a death sentence, there is a huge band of Category B clubs, and personally I think Fev are in a better position than Wakefield off the field. They may even increase Super League to 13 or 14 teams in the near future if ratings are close.
A large chunk of change from being in Super League will cover the wages for next year, but finding Super League calibre players is not easy.

Without trying to compare Rugby to Football, if we need to make our game stronger at club level and get fans excited we must look at the import ruling.
Premier League is awash with non English players as it’s all about the entertainment.
The standard down under in reserve grade is unbelievable and I firmly believe that we could have a strong 14 team super league if these rules were relaxed for say 5 years and give teams time to develop academies from 16 years old.
The bigger clubs at the top of the pyramid will of course use this to their advantage but it will mean quality talent used to playing at a high level is not lost completely and the lower teams would benefit.