Quote: jbuzza "I prefer Cake's post match assessment that it was really poor and unacceptable. As for next season, aiming for mid table won't deliver the fans we need to make the club sustainable.'"
It's no good comparing us to Leigh, they had three international wingers in their team today, yes they were all well past their prime and wouldn't be anywhere near a top SL side, but there is a level of investment in the Leigh side that no other Championship side can match (maybe Fev can come close). RL isn't like some other sports e.g. football, where a plucky underdog can hold off a much better team, the nature of the game means that semi-pro sides just can't compete with fully pro sides unless there's something very wrong with the fully pro team. They rolled over us because they were bigger and stronger and they can play consistently at a higher tempo. It's not a disgrace to be beaten when it's such a mismatch.
At the start of the season London were a shambles, the last tackle play, if it ever came, was for Moceidreke to hoof it randomly in the air. But with a few key signings in the spine we now attempt some half decent plays, yes we are one dimensional, and yes we lack true quality, but there is competency, shape, structure and patterns, even if there's no plan B, C, D etc...there is at least something resembling plan A, and that makes us competitive against most teams in this division.
I've given up on the myth of 'sustainability', I don't worry about the magical 5k average (I remember hearing this direct from Nic Cartwright's mouth in the bar at The Stoop in 2006), we need to be competitive in this division, and play some attractive RL that will appeal to RL fans in the South East catchment area. Barring a game or two a season I pretty much gave up when we moved to the Hive, and I thought I'd made a mistake coming back this season, but I've enjoyed what I've seen in the second half of the season. We want people seeing competitive, entertaining games, don't worry about SL. If I were the club I'd flood the local area with £5 ticket deals for the Barrow game, we can play entertaining stuff, even if it's not technically great.