Principle?
Sounds a bit like the principle of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Interesting what you say about the classic/ vintage cars , was looking up the London- Brighton Mini Run for next year ( wife used to have a Mini, haven’t been for years) and read that next year’s run has been cancelled, citing ULEZ as the main issue. OK full disclosure, it was a Daily Mail article and they never knowingly pass up an opportunity to Khan bash .

Cars built before 1973 are ULEZ exempt and anything over 40 years old registered with DVLA as historic.

My pal works at Stansted airport. The last few weekends, he said, were the busiest he's ever seen it. So lots of people are away. In fact I'm on holiday in the UK at the moment. I suspect the long break from PL backed up by the poor performance v York put a few off too.

Broncos formula of starting the season with a poor, underprepped squad, then having no home games for weeks (I don't count Kent as home) and then cramming home games in the holiday period is clearly flawed.

The side we have today is a long long long way short of the sides we had in the 2015-2019 era, where the club was growing again (abit very slowly) after the disaster of the Barnet debacle.

In a way I hope we finish 5th and not 4th, as it really would not surprise me if the club have made no plans for a home playoff fixture, and we would end up playing probably the most important game of the season at Rosslyn Park.

This sounds right to me. Whilst you often do get more than one chance to make a good impression you don’t get many and our annoying habit in last 3 years of being poor or mediocre in our initial home games has done us no favours if we really want to grow. I was one of the people who went to Ealing to see our 1st game back after Covid. To say Bulls walloped us would be an understatement and even their fans knew Bulls weren’t all that then. (Then there was the ‘heavily’ promoted game against Toulouse. That didn’t go well to say least). Last season - Widnes/ Haven -genuine rubbish. This season pretty average against Batley then Eagles and did poorly against York first game back at PL after months away and that is how not to grow crowds. Radio silence with fans, lack of local engagement etc all add to the malaise, links with AFC not obvious. Discounting games can help but, as others have said, makes buying a season ticket, a loss leader. I did think that relative to the crowd size there were quite a few in hospitality - it could be about 20% % of the crowd but the numbers through the door will have been low (although not quite as small as the twitterfeed photos might suggest and once again atmosphere quite decent) the plus side we have a decent side and we are winning games - but how do they get the message out? It feels too late in the day in a disjointed season.
So far we’ve announced two are staying. Probably time to hear some more good news. I also think that whilst the jury is still out on some of our late doors recruits it would be good to know Butler is staying and the sp with the 4 overseas recruits. One assumes Whare and Norman are only to the end of the season. The latter in particular will be a loss so I hope we have our recruiting hats on. Broncos must be a more attractive option to players after this season which is some good news. If we can make a decent start next season it could be a good one. Alternatively we could all picking splinters out of our backsides perched on rotten ‘seating’ at Roslyn Park. Happy days.

We should perhaps prioritise keeping Rhys Lovegrove on as coach as he seems to have made an impact.

Agreed. On a side issue. Keighley? Going along pretty well. Owners realise they aren’t going to win the league. Appear to Put hand brake on hard. Relegation. Can that really be what happened? Salutary lesson that’s it’s not just us who get it wrong.

Its not just us that get it wrong that is true, but we get it wrong time anf time again. We do not learn from our mistakes. That is the big problem. And we will continue to not learn from our mistakes, while the people who currently run the club refuse to admit that they keep making the same mistakes.

I think we do learn sometimes but often a bit slowly and not in a joined up way. The venue debacle and growing support base we’ll put to one side. It’s difficult and we’ve made it look difficult. However we twigged that our 2022 retention policy was spectacularly flawed and did something about it. Not rocket science but better late than never. Unfortunately we kind of forgot the other half of the equation and only recruited lightly. So now we know what not to do vis a vis recruitment AND retention I’m expecting a sound strategy for next season.

As to best use of PL - I think that’s probably too big an ask ( see earlier on poor decision making) but it’s undeniable the set up with mascots joined up fan zone etc and all in the East stand is miles better than last year (relatively).

But who is going to implement that sound strategy? Cake seems to be the only one that might have a plan but doesn't hold the purse strings. Hughes, Junior & Hockey Sticks appear to be not of this planet.

Absolutely. Would be quite happy with him slotting in as official head coach and Eccles having the free reign as Director of Rugby to put in the broader structures I think we still need.

Wouldn't surprise me if this happens.