You can play inexperienced players in a team but to be successful they need to have a good squad around them. This is why it works at Wigan and St Helens who bring in academy players who do not look out of place.
We currently do not have this luxury because sadly many of the academy team are better than our older players. It’s ok to play maybe one or two but we are nowhere near good enough or strong enough to rely on them for every game. I think we can all agree the majority of our recruits this season have been no better than those we let go and let’s not forget there were more left than brought in.
We were once seen to be on the up which encouraged players to sign for us but sadly over the last few years we have just bounced along the bottom. The crowd numbers are stagnant and if we do survive who will sign for us to generate interest especially if we start to lose our out of contract players, especially the ones than can be considered box office.
If we are not careful we will sleep walk into relegation and having to start again but in a redeveloped stadium.

Agree if above happens we are in the brown stuff big time.

Rumours Warrington are bringing in 3 prop signings and Mike Cooper hasn’t had his contract renewed. He’d be a good signing possibly alongside Dudson.

Agree the recruits have been well mediocre to be kind and god awful to be blunt , but I’m still of the opinion that this team although no world beaters is good enough to see us through this season and onto pastures new going forwards . Poaching needs to give em the rounds of the kitchen as to their performance and attitude of late . If some of our so called stars think by playing like they do will get the a gig at another club they are living on cloud cuckoo , even the top tear of the championship would turn their nose up at them .

I think Warrington are the biggest indicator of if you don’t have the fire power up front, it doesn’t matter who you have behind them, they simply won’t lay the platforms for any play.

In fairness to W Poaching he as been left with a ageing team even most the imports are getting past there best .Think it is a case of hope W Poaching can keep them fit enough to get 2 or 3 wins

Totally agree.

All teams need to have sufficient forward power, to allow their backs to perform.

Most definitely alegend ,by hook or by crook we need to get this team over the winning line enough times to Secure our future .on a different subject but still very relevant,I’ve just watched Craig Bellamy and his coaching career ,and how he put systems in place to weed out the players not up to it before they get to sign ,and was saying the system is running at around 90% success rate . Basically the players go into the outback on a gruelling mental and physical set of challenges and are rated by independent trained staff ,those that get through get to sign for the club and those that don’t are shown the door . I reckon if we put this system in place at Belle vue nowadays we wouldn’t be able to raise a team . I know it’s a world apart and it isn’t feasible but it’s easy to see why the Storm and the top NRL teams are light years ahead of our holiday camp recruitment and training techniques. Tough love I’m afraid is the only way going forwards ,we simply don’t seem battle hardened and come of second best in most encounters and facets of our games .

It's not holiday camp recruitment, it's budget recruitment.

When you have unlimited funds and you are the top pick for every player, its easy to just weed people out.
We have limited funds and are the bottom pick.
You can do the outback test by all means but our pass mark will be much much lower.

The Storm spend as much as any other NRL team, within 95% of the cap, no less. I’ve seen the interview with Matty Johns face to face. Bellamy created a dynasty at the Storm and called them ‘soft’ when he took over. The Storm are well known for not signing many Origin or international players, but creating them. Obviously we are a million miles away and so are every other SL for that matter. But creating that culture and sustaining it, only Saints have managed to do something similar over here in SL since it’s inception.

Yet against Hudds we were mullered in the forwards, their post contact metres, their dummy half play, they were far superior, but if TJ doesn't put a foot in touch, we win?!

How did we finish 5th 2 seasons running signing players that basically no-one else wanted? Grix, Finn, England, Hurst, even BJB's stock had dropped by that time. Like I've said before, most of that 'team' hasn't been replaced adequately, I know it's not an exact science, and a bit of luck is involved, but that's the bottom line, out of about say 20 signings in the last 3-4 years, there's probably about 4 who you could call a success. Westerman, Tanginoa......yeah i'm struggling now to come up with anyone else?! Like I said on here the other day, I reckon in relative terms, we've shelved out more money on players that haven't delivered, than on those I've mentioned that no-one else wanted.

This season we went for a smaller squad but we just forgot to ensure that those we signed were of better quality.

Kettykat B Smith came did it and it worked ,players did not like it, so he went .Are we now reping the result of that of that or is it to long ago T Smith is brother seem to improve teams were ever he goes, and if you look at HKR now it is not because of money more of getting a team fit and to know what to look for in a player .Know W Poaching as not signed a lot but think there as good if not better than most of the players signed in the last 3 year. So hopefully he knows what he wants in a player which is a start

Yeah but the likes of Lineham & Gaskell are still 'name' players if you like, it's subjective if you think they were actually any good at their previous clubs, it's an opinion I suppose, but even those 2, along with Kopzack, Brough, Atkins to name but 3 are 'bigger' names than Grix, Finn, England etc