It's all about being patient. That's why relegation was abolished. We're taking a pounding at the moment but we are in a transitional stage. Second half of the season we'll start to fire.

No relegation and a salary cap are good. NFL is a very good example. 2001 they won one game, the joint worst record in the comp. Two years later they lost in the Super Bowl. There is hope.

You are comparing Harlequins RL to the Oakland Raiders? I've seen some dillusional posts in my time, but this takes the biscuit.

"Transitional stage" is just jargon used to try and hide the fact that your crap. Ask yourself what it's a transition between. What were the players performances/off field work/marketing/attendances like before the transitional stage? Were they really that much better? It can only be called transitional if you have something different to transit from. If I've never cooked an omelette before, couldn't cook an omelette yesterday, and I can't cook an omelette today, and I can't cook an omelette at the weekend, but I will hypothetically be able to cook one at some unspecified point in the future, just where is the transitional stage in that set of events? In my mind there is none.

Excellent post.

It's more in hope than anything. I want to watch top flight rugby league and I want my local team to do well. I'm trying to have a little faith in the club I support. End of story.

Much truth in that. But it doesn't prove that we're crap anymore than your culinary shortcomings make you crap. If Delia called in tomorrow, you could be transformed.

We are always in a transitional state. I remember Dan Stains saying exactly that at an end of season speech years ago to the puzzlement of some on here. He was right and to prove it, he was out on his ear a few months later.

Well there's some hope then!! Let's hope its not months eh?

What about transitioning from a squad with a heavy reliance previously on Aussies "encouraged" by the RFL who provided a different quota rules especially for us, to having a squad with heavy reliance on the youth production line.

How does that compare to your omelette?

Like going from functional, mass-produced battery eggs which make a filling if unspectacular omlette to using eggs form the chickens you rescued from an abatoir and keep in the back garden in the hope they eventually produce a steady supply of tasty meals.

I kept chickens last year - no one tells you how much they poo