I did write on here Thursday night that I’d joined the doom n gloom brigade.
On reflection and having seen some of the other 1st round games.
It’s a long old season there will be plenty of twists and turns to come.
Lewis Martin looks the part.
Hopefully Balmforth & Staveley can prove their fitness and kick on.
Losing Sutcliffe one of our only few rugby intelligent players was a blow.
If we can keep Sutcliffe & Truman fit then we can improve.
Oh by the way an attendance of 20k is also a very positive point worth noting.
Something our dobbin friends on here will never achieve on their own poorhouse lane patch

What has physically been built since the ground was purchased (not by the club apparently) 2 years ago? Genuine question - I remember Mike Smith talking about 14,000 capacity plans about 15 years ago but I'm not aware what the ground purchase has actually delivered in terms of new facilities/capacity.

The land around it? It's not worth anything, what are they going to do, put up a fancy money spinning hotel up on Preston Road, behind the Go-kart track?

They have got a new screen on shipping containers now, to be fair.
And the burger van sells cans of Fanta apparently. Onwards and upwards.

It’s clear that the one game barometer is the only one needed this season.

I wish it was different but there is no
catalyst coming.

Nothing can change for us this season.

I can see us finishing 10th at absolute best because of the Coach , Chairman and a small number of the players.

I’ve posted for a few years now that the common denominator in all this is AP

If this was a small company on the stock market then shareholders would have voted him out with no bonus

Think about it - would you have given Adam the job for this year ?
No one would as we’ve failed under his leadership

However it’s his money and fair play to the guy as he’s tried hard and gone through a lot of stress.

So hopefully he gets that extra investment from local business people.

So for me it’s a long season watching live every week from Melbourne and I may even be over again this year to see a match and spend some more cash on Merch

Where are we going
Not were are….. lol

We lose at home to Broncos then
Smith may as well leave then

If Broncos are our only win and we lose
at Rovers then he may as well go then

Adam is more to blame than Smith almost. Adam is clearly a soft man manager who accepted this rubbish
for years under Radford and Hodgson

Lots of people unhappy with the State of play and rightly so. We brought Smith in to turn things around. No signs yet but only 1 match in. IMO this year will be tough. But I believe as he's told us again and again there's no quick fix. It is gonna be rough. What's our choices? Get rid of him? . Some say don't go although I believe some don't go anyway. If we all stopped going we would have no club. So that's a good plan. Then what?. Some of us are just addicted to our team. Yes we complain we crumble etc. But we still go. We can't help it . It's in our blood..

Think this season will be similar to last season, more lows than highs, we will beat London and win a few games, but lose plenty too, particularly when we get a few injuries, like we have now.

We have to show some kind of improvement. Particularly

Discipline
Not let our heads go at a few behind
Young players embedding and looking like SL players.

Agree with much already posted.

Take issue with the "we must buy tickets/buy merchandise or the club will fold" narrative, because it is this very behaviour that has enabled successive owners to milk the fanbase for minimal returns for a very long time.

The two cup wins (incredible as they were) papered over the huge cracks - the fact Radford clearly targeted the Cup every year meant our seasons ended when it did every year; they just went on longer when we got to the final.

Home form has been shocking for a very long time, atmosphere at the KCOM/MKM practically non-existent, and these crystal clear warning signs ignored because season pass sales, merchandise,etc - that is, the cash cows keep stumping up regardless

When I first started going to the Boulevard in the 70's, we were cr*p, but the (frankly poor/limited) players put the effort in and seemed like they cared. I have not seen or felt this for what, six seasons and counting?

Ask yourself as I have done, in what other part of your life would you continue to accept it?

I don't agree that 16/17 paper over the cracks, we not only won the cup but where very competitive in the league and probably should have won the GF in 17.

We built a good squad of overseas and local players and had a couple of good young players coming through. Unfortunately Radford made errors in recruitment and retention, released the wrong ones and kept some too long.

That should have been the start of a long successful period for our club, we just didn't get it right.

That is fair comment, although I think we sometimes have a collective memory gap of how poor we were under Radford immediately before the cup wins.

What is clear is that recruitment (Motu Tony obviously a large part of it) was crucial, and carried out very well; certainly has been very far from the case since.