We're not a rugby league club any more; we're a Gold Lounge.

Squad has been announced with Miski and two Wigan lads are in. Even has photos of players. Pretty soon theylll be on the website to join the full ‘sponsors’ list that has finally been updated. Looks like we’re all ready for the season to start ...oh hold on. @what a shambles.

And even that is debatable as the plaque on the door to the room that the Broncos are I believe using for Gold Hospitality is actually the Platinum Lounge. The room named the Gold Lounge is the Broncos Bar.

Yes I thought start of last season quite a few of our players were anonymous but they’ve taken it to a new level.

Any old iron! No wonder the discounts are coming thick and fast.

No Silva though which is a real shame. He's gone well for us and offers some much needed forward depth. Guess we have no way of knowing if its unavailability through injury or whether he has gone back to Wigan. They sent Shorrocks out on loan earlier in the week, so they appear OK for forwards, hopefully we see him back

Yes on the face of it he seems a good fit for loan. However only so far we can paper over our recruitment failings.

The numbers don't make pretty reading. We may be about to play our fourth loan of the season. In contrast we have played just three new permanent faces this season; Bassett, Natoli and Stock. That's the grand total of the successful recruitment.

On 1st November Eccles said "“We’re close to striking deals with several players currently playing in the World Cup, We’re hopeful we’ll be in a position to have those names announced in December.”

On 10th January: Eccles expressed the importance of recruiting the correct calibre of player, adding that he will not be rushed into signing players simply to make up the numbers. Conversations are being held daily and he hopes to confirm some new recruits later this month. “We’re having conversations every day,” said Eccles. “We did miss out on a few names, but we’re making progress on bringing in some more bodies."

Since mid October there has been =#FF0000ONE new signing that has made the team; Ethan Natoli. That's three and a half months. Most of the off season plus the first month of the new season. It's fair to say they certainly haven't "rushed into signing players" !

I suspect for the stats they would say Davis, who we lost to York, through our 2021/2 retention failings, and then came back and Walker, who had a go at SL then Championship up North, and then came back are ‘new’ signings. On that PR spin the efforts don’t look so bad. In reality an absolute failure. All this means we need to have an early, cogent retention policy in place so we can at least finish 9-12 next year. My take on it is for most of these PT players staying in London makes more sense than leaving for sunny Widnes or Bradford. But that would have been the case in 21/22 so clearly our approach/offers or general club ‘culture’ led many to roll the dice. It remains to be seen where we are compared to that situation. Eccles certainly seems to have clarity of thought and isn’t afraid to be ruthless, but as others have pointed out, the much vaunted support doesn’t appear to be there. I saw him on the pitch with the players v Sheffield but didn’t see any other coaches. On the touch line I see the lady medic but not really anyone else. It looks to me like it’s a one man band.

Miski’s great but who does he replace? Ulberg is probably our best player so it must be the other winger who has made so little an impression on me this year I don’t know who it is. Is it Macani. If so does Macani play in a other position? Is Miski a better defender than Macani ....can anyone remember. Our recruitment doesn’t seem to be following the logical pattern of identifying a weakness or gap because of injury but just taking anyone who is half decent. We could end up with a team of 13 props by that metric. It’s mid table standard playmakers and someone who can kick well that we need to step up. Anyway interesting game this. This is the type of game we need to win to stay clear of L1.

Could be 2007, could be 2023.....who knows?

With Brain McDermott we almost had a squad of second row forwards!