Depends what people’s expectations are tbh. My expectation was we would get a player who would put in a good shift for 40-60 mins a game. I didn’t expect Provtor to be a pivotal attack player or blockbusting runner because I don’t believe he ever had been, I expected good solid defence to stiffen up our middle and being some structure. For the most part I’ve been okay with what he’s brought, The middle isn’t really the issue. I’m fact the middle defence has been as good as I’ve seen for many years. Nearly every try has been conceded out wide on the edges or from kicks.

I’m happy for him to keep putting in solid displays in the middle. He’s not been short of effort either and is regularly completing back to back tackles and works hard. I just think we need to adjust our expectations.

Our strike forward is Tanginoa but unfortunately he’s been sat in the stands. We have felt his loss considerably imho.

Our pivots remain the issue as we are repeatedly getting in positions to post points but seldom convert pressure. Add in some ball retention in in key areas and discipline.

Our squad is the lowest quality squad ever assembled in SL . Only four SL quality players in the squad , Jowitt , Murphy, Lino and Tanganoa . Jowitt and Murphy are out rest of season, Tanganoa missed pre season , injured on return suggesting he was not ready and missing for long period . Lino is not the messiah and not able to win games on his own . The squad would struggle to make top 4 in Championship , this Sunday's team would finish bottom four in Championship. The building of our squad for the 2023 season is criminal . Everyone knew that of all seasons don’t get relegated this year , Leigh , Salford , Hull KR , Cas all got the memo.

This is the salient point for me, we barely escaped the drop last year and we knew that Leigh were bringing a quality squad up from The Championship yet we have allowed our squad to massively diminish in its own quality.

We’ve taken a risk on low cost, unknown quality players and at the same time we’ve appointed an untested Coach. We’ve gambled against the odds in a high stakes game and the signs aren’t good at the moment

You are totally correct, our squad is the weakest by a long distance. There are 2 ways to solve tis, invest in better players which we all know is not going to happen. The other would have been to appoint a coach who has a track record of getting teams to perform better on the field than they look on paper and we didn't do this which for me is Negligent from the board and is all part of a managed decline.

Long way to go yet before we write off the team and coach. Let's see how it goes.

Depends what you are classing as SL quality. If you mean who would be starters at other clubs then i agree, although i’d add Whitbread to the list as well. Lyne has the ability but is the ultimate case of a player that stayed somewhere to long and went stale and whether at 30 he could hit the heights again i’m not sure. But i think should we drop then a few of our squad would get signed up as squad players. We have players like Kershaw, Ashurst, Hall, maybe even Kay & Hood who are all competent enough back up at SL level and some promising youngsters who clubs would be interested in to pad their squads out with. But as a whole we are a bit behind the others.

But as you got bang on, this time round there is no weak team to save us. I still feel our best hope is Leigh but they have started well and will likely keep improving. They also have cap space and the money to improve their squad whilst we don’t. We have had worse teams than this and managed to avoid the bottom spot/drop. 2011 & 2015 spring to mind. Then though we had an experienced coaches who’d been there and done it all before in John Kear & Brian Smith. This time we’ve gone all in in Applegarth who has had no senior coaching experience bar one season as the junior assistant last year and asked him to to get a tune out of the worst squad in the league. I feel for him as he was always up against it although i’ll counter that slightly by saying for me he didn’t spend the money he had wisely enough. We lost some key players last year and they were not adequately replaced.

There is a long way to go and it’s not over yet but even in the dark years i’ve thought we’d dodge the bullets. This time i’m really not convinced we can.

Just out of interest how long do you think we should see how it goes for before we make a change? 6 games with out a win, 8 games? Leave it too long and we will be too far behind the rest so whoever comes in will have no chance.

For me 3 games on the spin without scoring proves that it is not working and changes have to be made.

Salford (A)
HKR (H)
Sts (A)
If we lose these three games then we face two absolutely crucial games against the 2 teams most would have had us competing to avoid relegation with.

Cas (A)
Leigh (H)
Lose both of those and I would suggest to you that it’ll be too late for a new coach to come in and turn us around Enough to make up the lost ground

So how long do you suggest we wait?

For exactly those games.
If we keep losing then of course something has to change but it's not time yet in my opinion.

I think it's futile to be discussing how long we have to wait before we change. Reading between the lines from what our directors have said, it's like it or lump it it, we are going with this and no more. If championship awaits so be it. As they say the die is cast.

We got no choice ,There will be no new coach ,no new players.We are stuck with what we got The board have done a great job off the field, but when it as been choices on the Coaching staff and brining in players to strengthen the squad that Chester took over it as been a disaster but even I was shocked by the choice of this Coach and the way he ignored the spine of the team .

To me there is only 6 that's a problem in our spine, when they are all fit.

Just my opinion, the rot set in whilst Chester was still here. I think he stayed two years longer than he should have done. He was allowed to sign poor players which we are still struck with. Also let's not forget that really nice thing we did by honouring a contract that wasn't signed. The guy did well out of this club but left it in a mess.

I would argue hooker as well, we haven't had a good one since Tyler Randall left. Hood is ok at best, Liam Kay Try's and does have an impact but he isn't a hooker and Bowes has yet to convince me that is SL standard but is still young so has time.

Well I would suggest that if we are still winless after those matches we are dead and buried!

It would leave 18 games to play but we’d almost certainly be 8 points adrift at the bottom meaning we’d probably need a near 50% win ratio to overhaul Cas or Leigh who would have to lose all but 3 of their own remaining 18 matches for it to happen and that’s not very likely.