And how's McGuire going at the 12th place Rabbitohs? Is he a great coach?

Is Australian coach Tim Sheens a great coach with his 13th place Wests Tigers?

Course they can coach, it all swings in roundabouts. Someone will always finish bottom. I just have bucket loads more empathy for coaches since I've been involved in a small part in the game over here.



Out of interest. Does anyone remember where we were tipped to finish this season?

some said 4th and a lot said in the top 8

What about the bookies?

I said fourth and still stand by that statement. SL this year is rubbish and the teams that finish 4-8 will be fairly ordinary sides.
No reason why a team spending to the cap shouldn't be looking to top that list.

Dave Woods - top 8, perhaps top 4: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/16786972 Bookies - 10/11th: www.bigbettingblog.co.uk/rugby-l ... 12-preview

Dave Woods - top 8, perhaps top 4: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/16786972 Bookies - 10/11th: www.bigbettingblog.co.uk/rugby-l ... 12-preview

Andy Wilson of The Guardian said 11th, Brian Carney 10th and Dave Woods changed his mind from possible 4th and play-offs to 9th!

Don't remember any pundits saying 4th (other than the Woods aberration).

Must admit I was hopeful of 8th but no higher, as I percieve there to be half a dozen clubs with better strength in depth.

Way things stand, I will be pleased if we can make 12th.

I still maintain that Super League has a strong top 6; then a gap to both Hulls, Bradford, London; then a smaller gap to Salford, Cas, Wakefield; then open water to Widnes.

At this stage of the year, the 2012 Broncos squad should be within 2 wins of the top 8 and conceding fewer than 25 points per game. That ought to have been par. It would have kept us speccies interested (and mostly supportive).

As it is, the rest of our league games are friendlies and we have a Cup run to look forward to that ends just as soon as we draw a Super league team.

I was hopefull of eighth only for same reasons as DSWG. However I never realised Witt was such a poor tackler and so many others would be the same. In the centre of the park we are defending better but out wide we are awful. I do wonder if the coaching staff are doing their homework on the opposition and targetting their weakness's and pattern of play (as others do us) as HKR have a defense as poor as ours but we didn't seem to know how to attack them it or what HKR were going to do when they got the ball.

We have a team which is underperforming. While the players need to share the blame we have a coach who has no experience and it is now well beyond a joke that he is still in charge.

Ok, so assuming that Warrington, Wigan and Leeds are the top 3, then you're saying you think the Broncos squad is better than Saints ? Huddersfield ? Hull ? Catalans ?

That's not optimistic, it's delusional !

Genuine best-case optimism would have said a maximum finish of 8th, with all the above clubs having a clearly stronger squad than London (spending up to the cap isn't all that great if you have to spend twice as much to get a mid-ranking player than a northern club, because said player doesn't want to leave his mum's cooking).

Guarded optimism would have said that Hull KR and Bradford had similar standard squads, so anywhere between 8th and 10th would be doing well.

Pessimism put Broncos alongside Wakey, Cas and Salford in 10th-13th. Widnes a clear 14th.

Never 4th. Never in a million years. Not with this squad.

Blimey Darth, I thought I could be optimistic.

As for spending to the cap, is it all still relative to your turnover? Or is it like the NRL where everyone has the same cap? If the former is the case, then us spending to the cap would be a much smaller figure than a larger club spending to the cap.

OK, they are all meant to be on the same cap.


However:

Under changes agreed this week at a meeting of Super League representatives in Harrogate, clubs which produce players for England’s elite training squad and the Knights will be given special dispensation to break the £1.65million wage limit.

The actual amount of allowances is not being disclosed but the dispensations are on a graduated scale and the maximum permitted to any one club is £100,000.



And if you can be bothered to read the 150 odd pages on the salary cap from the rfl, you'll see there can be bonuses etc. etc.

If we're spending cap relative to income then that would explain why we are crap......no sponsors, no commercial partners, no stock in the shop and only 13,372 through to doors thus far over 5 games.......tracking for a total income through ticket sales of about 350k........+ Profits from selling 6 different items in the shop including replica shirts and a few bob in the bars........all in, less than 700k IMO. Add SKY TV money and you're on about 2 million......

Use the same maths for say , Wigan and you're looking at over double that.......even the likes of Wakefield will be on a Million more income and that money comes directly (gate/shop/beer) and indirectly (sponsors) from SUPPORTERS....

The RFL dropped the 50% of income part of the salary cap several years ago. Now it's a general 1.65m with extras for certain specified players and bonuses.