Have to agree with that

what a load of , I bet all of SL are ing themselves

I think the announcements were generally positive and we can’t really make judgements yet until everything is in place.

The baffling thing is the marketing of it all.

Raising expectations then not really delivering.

It’s another exercise in how not to do it by the club towards the fans.

That's the problem. It's not what we have announced it is how we have announced it. They should have just kept quiet and then announced everything in one go.

Doing it this way though they have probably increased the number of hits on the website, google searches, twitter mentions (hashtags etc) and facebook posts. All publicity is good publicity is presumably the way they are looking at it.

I dont mind it. For one, no one actually promised a massive announcement that I'm aware of, they just posted on their twitter page "wait until Thursday" and for two, I'm guessing it is all about traffic through their website and social media, which is actually very important these days. It gave me something to check in on every hour, and i quite liked checking in.

Spot on this for me.
Can't say I'm surprised with any of the announcements other than the 3 youngs Bucks signing contract extensions.
Thankfully KR alluded to other signings so here's hoping that we have some proven and improved talent in the pipeline. If not I think next seasons attendances will plunge significantly below the 10k mark and the road to mediocrity will continue.
I hope future signings will include additional resources for this season as with the present set up I can't really see much improvement to come.

What have the club gained by this extra traffic? How will it be measured?

Not 100% sure but you can easily see how many clicks/visits your social media pages and website get in a day/week etc, and i guess its something sponsors look at. I know i'd rather sponsor a team that has a few hundred clicks a day over one that has 10 or so. Just trying to cut them a bit of slack. They tried something different. Its got people talking, even if its talking about how it didn't work.

People have been saying for ages "why don't our marketing team try something different" so they did, and everyone went "yeah but not that". like everyone went "we need new signings!" Heres some signings! "yeah but not those". They cant win.

Yeah ok I can probably buy into that however, having a team that people want to watch, create headlines for the right reasons and have a general positivity around the place would probably attract more

For me a major issue is that we have problems in several positions and we’ve seen fit to bolster a position in centre/wing/backrow with Bibby who doesn’t improve us and where we’re already stocked.

Then we re-sign the likes of Clubb and Hankinson? Those type of players need to be off loaded alongside Sammut, Isa and TT. They’re nowhere near good enough for this club anymore, if they ever were in the first place.

We still need;

1 x prop (doesn’t have to be outstanding but to compliment Clark and Flower)
2 x HB (at least one but with GW expecting to leave we’ll likely need 2)
1 x hooker

In the possible list we may need a 13 dependant on SOL, though I’d be content with a prop occupying 13 and us going with 3 props seeing as all props can pass these days and the role of a traditional 13 bring the link to the HB’s is almost redundant.

I’m glad we’ve tied down Burgess, though I would want a longer deal and very happy we’ve also tied down Smithies who may well fulfil that 13 role come to think of it.

A poor marketing play in my opinion which has directly resulted in today’s overwhelming negativity. Much, much better quality signings required.

I completely agree, we just don't have that in us at the moment, unfortunately.

I wonder if something else was planned but Lam having to go back to Australia has kaiboshed it for now.

I agree. Clubb should have been let go at the end of deal. Not given a new contract extension. As to the PR, billing Clarke as one of the most destructive forwards in the league is ridiculous. Who does Rads think he is fooling? Signing Clarke might be a good move as a squad player but coming out with rubbish like that is just silly. It turns a positive into a negative as it looks as if we think a Cas cast off is a superhero.

I've been that.
I don't particularly want him but think that is what we are going to get. If we win all of our games in June I might start to reconsider but in all honesty zero wins wouldn't be a great surprise

They can win, like MattyB stated earlier up. If they announced who our coach will be? What’s happening with Williams/Lockers and Tommy? Plus our new signings.

Don’t build it up to announce a lot of crap, it’s like being told don’t have any tea we are going out for a special meal and then getting a ginsters pasty fed to you in small pieces.

I nearly threw my phone through the window when they announced Clubb and Hankinson. Everyone knew about Bibby and Clark, so much so that we were bored of hearing about it and they announce it like it’s some sort of surprise. The geniuses they are will be getting messed around by Hastings until he decides where he wants to play and putting off Williams leaving until they can cushion that blow, but we all know Williams is going to Canberra so just get it over with and announce it FFS, I wish the club would stop treating us like idiots.