If its made up or not the bottom line is we have not progressed on the field that matters. That is the KC and all the pitches where the first team play. We can poiunt to junior development but thats still a good few years off yet.
Mr Pearson has budgeted for losses initially. I suspect publicly or not he will have expected to start to see a return on his investment from 2014 onwards.
I personally can not see how that will happen now. Even if he wields the axe and gets rid of the ones who clearly did not deserve to wear the shirt last night, there is nothing out there to tempt in, that will make us progress.
We could always get rid of the coach, but again who do you bring in. I genuinely feel (and very little will sway my opinion here) that last night was player power at its worst. We did not compete for a single minute of that match. Right from the first set we were down and out. That despite tweets from AP saying that the team were well up for it. He was / is being taken for a ride. Thats before we get onto the faithful who were either there or paying good money to watch on TV.
Player power seems to rear its ugly head at our club far too regularly. I strongly believe it is the cancer that Bomber elluded to 10 years ago. Its has never really been cured. If rumours are to be believed then Radders will step up to the plate. The same Radders who has been at the club almost entirely throughout the period in which that cancer has run through the club. Will he be the answer. I doubt it.
What is required now is root and branch clearance. This will also mean going back to the drawing board and preparing for yet more periods of transition. Some of us will see that through as it is what we do. We have after all seen it all before. Sadly though for Mr Pearson, many will not. The glory boys, bandwagoners, call them what you will, will depart. Pass sales will drop off that I have no doubt. Merchandise will also drop off. The corporate income which is why we play on Fridays will drop. The brand is failing and nobody in business wants to be associated with a brand in decline. Thats all revenue that is required to build the club back up. Mr Pearson is not that wealthy. It is for me genuinely worrying. Sadly there are no quick fixes to cure it. First team wise we are right back at 2011 if not further back.

A good post and an excellent analysis of our predicament.

All very depressing

There is only SO much pain one can endure!

Radford, the guy who goes out drinking with the players, is not the guy to turn this around

Indeed.

We've had a better season than last season. Not by much, and the journey certainly didn't improve, but 'on the field' we had the same finishing position in league and playoffs with a cup final thrown in. Granted at that rate of 'improvement' we'll be challenging the top 4 sometime in the next millenium, but there you go.

The point is that the situation is dire enough without making up fake targets to make it seem even worse.


Which is supposedly what Pearson instigated when he took over. I lack confidence that a second attempt would be any more successful unless someone finally gets to the bottom of where the problems lie, because clearly they haven't managed that yet.

Generally I think we do not agree on this season's progress. Wembley was great, I will grant you that. The league though has shown no improvement IMO. Far far too inconsistent to even contemplate a challenge. This despite reaching the dizzy heights of 4th at one point. Our start was shocking and they way we have ended, Sts and then last night rerally do not warrant much more comment. If Catalans had, had a player with even a modicum of intelligence last week, we would have been spared last nights debacle.

I too feel no confidence in another root and branch clear out, but I have even less confidence that we will see any improvement next season at all. That said, as I said earlier the players are not out there. Our only hope is that the younger players rise to the challenge next year and install some pride in the shirt they are so privilaged to wear.

It's not open to agreement or disagreement. Our league and playoff finishes were identical to last season and we went much further in the cup. Therefore, by definition, we had a better season this year. The fact that we managed this almost entirely off the back of an improved defense is why we've been so inconsistent and why it doesn't [ifeel[/i like a better season.

That's debatable. Four fewer league points for a start. Seven points off the top four compared to four in 2012. Our home record went from 10-2-1 to 7-0-6. Last year we had a big play off win followed by a gutsy defeat, this year a workmanlike win and our club record points conceded.

I guess that most fans were realistically hoping for 5th in the league and a cup semi at a minimum, so on the face of it 6th and reaching the Challenge Cup final isn't a disaster but there have been far too many poor performances. At least as many as last season.

Not if you use the measures everyone was using in the closed season to indicate what they'd consider a better season.

I've been clear all along that our performances haven't improved overall (or at least not much on average) but the fact is we've improved in the only measures anyone was quoting.

Pearson has been badly advised by the people he trusted in.
McRae and Gentle are responsible for this . Our first team recruitment has been terrible.
They have advised AP who they wanted and he has stumped up the cash. Players that have been brought in from other Clubs are average at best .
Some tough calls for Adam to make in the next few months.

They need to be made in the coming weeks not months. Pre-season training starts in November.

I'd agree with being patient if we'd actually made any progress but we haven't. We're still making the same fundamental mistakes, still look like a disorganised rabble, still lack basic skills and still look like a bunch of amateurs as soon as we get near the opposition line.

If gentle were a good coach then we'd have seen an improvement in these areas. The fact we haven't speaks volumes to me.

The players need to shoulder the primary blame for last night. It looked to me like most of them turned up expecting to lose and then did their utmost to make sure it happened. In this game you only need to be a small % off your best and you're in trouble as we saw last night. Having said that, it's the coach who sets the standard and who prepares the team both physically and mentally and that clearly wasn't done well enough.

Does anyone ever see gentle on the TV or in person and think "There's a real winner"? Does he seem like someone who can inspire people to perform beyond what they thought capable?

His recruitment has been average at best although I'm unsure if it's his recruitment or mcrae's (if it's mcrae's then why?) and whilst we have had some good quality youngsters come through, I'm unsure how much of this has been down to gentle and how much is just down to the individual's talent (He may have done a great job as far as I know).

But the crux for me is the on field performance. We are way short of the skill levels of the top teams IMO and after 2 seasons in charge gentle hasn't sorted it so I can't see when or how he would. To those who are saying there's no point changing coach, I'd say it's an absolute necessity if the current incumbent isn't up to the job as another season of this will see people leaving in their droves if the damage hasn't already been done

Still can't believe what I witnessed last night, very disappointing. I would say that when the momentum of a game gets away from you like that it is so difficult to regain a foothold, I don't subscribe to the view that the players weren't trying, just not good enough and not well coached.

What I have real issues with is the fact that all week Huddersfield will have been talking about starting well, score three unanswered tries against FC and it's game over. Our attack is so poor any decent lead in a game sees the opposition home and dry, we just can't cope with the pressure of chasing a game as we know we can't create anything. Why the team didn't expect the Giants to come out like that I don't know. This is what frustrates me so much, our basic tactics, knowledge and core skills are way below full-time professional level and have been for some time. This hasn't changed under Gentle and I fail to see what the solution is barring his sacking.

You can't excuse the lack of basic skills, what happens in training.

What were peoples expectations for this season?

For me I didn't expect top 4 but did expect top 6, so pretty much bang on my expectations there.

Challenge cup final i always thought was capable of doing, but if i'd have known we had to go to Catalan and play the favourites along the way, i'm not sure i'd have expected a cup final, so exceeded my expectations there.

I heard loads of Hull fans on here expecting us to get beat by Catalan last week, so they exceeded their expectations there surely?

It hasn't been pretty rugby that we've produced, but we've been a tough nut to crack and been competitive in most games this season. If Saints get beat tonight, i'd say we would have had a better season then them, so that would leave 4 teams in the whole of Europe who are better then us at the moment, hardly a crisis.

So to you people who are so disappointed, just exactly what were your expectations for this season?