Ultimately, in RL 2024, you finished in 13th place and your performance rating for 2024 should be reflected accordingly. Also, how can you receive points for winning a trophy (1895 Cup) that twelve clubs weren't eligible to compete in. Although I did enjoy watching you make more noise at Wembley than the Wigan and Wire fans! (I stayed back to watch your rather one-sided stroll to victory).

Anyway, welcome back after your little sojourn away for twelve months, I suspect we will be locking horns in 2025, anxiously watching each others results!

That's just ridiculous!! I didn't realise that.

I've no axe to grind against Wakey as they are getting things right both on and off the pitch and will be as asset to SL but an A grade? no chance.

Does it really matter? If the club think we bring in more revenue on weekends I don’t think an extra 0.1 of a point will change anything. Also, the bigger the crowds the more points we get for stadium utilisation, so you could chase the TV viewing figure points on by picking the best kick off viewing spot but end up losing more points then you’ve gained if the crowds drop because that kick off time might not be convient for match going fans.

I keep banging on about it but looking on the performance points breakdowns, if you take away the performance points Wigan only score the same as Wakefield for all the off field stuff, I doubt they’re losing sleep about it. Look after the performance stuff first and everything else will look after itself. We really don’t need to over think it.

I don’t think any of us would argue that we aren’t deserving of a B grade due to our appalling on field performances. However the whole grading idea and method for me is completely flawed and not worth the paper it’s written on.
It’s great to see Wakey back in SL but the fact they have gained performance points in a league lower and a competition SL clubs weren’t eligible for just doesn’t sit right. Again the loss of points due to not being able to include the suburbs/surrounding area for both ourselves and KR and two clubs in the same city despite both achieving very good attendances. Thats before we get on to the screen issue and viewing figures etc, all of which point to me that the IMG grading is pointless and a worthless expensive exercise.

Hopefully having being downgraded to B will have an impact on us in terms of refocusing and getting the mindset reset and flushing out the general malaise within the club.

All in all as much as the likes of Cas have made some changes to their ground the Jungle still is light years away from the modern stadia requirements set out years ago and they haven’t performed much better than ourselves either yet are grade A due to the skewed logic in the grading.

For all Bonaire gets ridiculed for negativity but on the subject of IMG and their input into turning the sport around I think he’s been pretty much spot on in his view.

The game can ill afford to lose money but at £450K per year over 10 years to IMG the sport is literally haemorrhaging cash that it will simply not get back. I’m do believe in the old adage you have to speculate to accumulate but there’s not a cat in hells chance this IMG will offer anything remotely like value for money and it’s simply another in the long list of white elephants and hair brained schemes by clueless RFL and SL chairmen.

In relation to the 1895 Cup only 4 clubs out of SL could qualify for the Challenge Cup so in essence over 20 clubs are excluded from playing a SL side is that right?

Yes we took a lot to Wembley it reflects how far we have come since relegation. The owner has put in 2 to 3 million (his words) on and off the pitch so we are looking pretty good going forwards

Although I don't think it is central to IMG's remit to incentivise investment in player pathways, it is still included as a minimum requirement. Based on the proposed standards from March, Clubs that don't have an RFL-approved Talent and Performance Pathway lose 0.25 in the first year that is the case, 0.5 in the second and a whole grade (e.g. A to B) in the third and thereafter.

Onfield performance would have been better based on games won, rather than finishing places, imo. Maybe a Championship win being worth 0.4 of a SL win or something like that.

Edit: Is there any evidence that the £500k paid for IMG services is an annual, ongoing commitment?

500k p/a is pennies for big consultancy work. Probably got a few oxbridge interns coming up with all this guff, which would explain a lot.

Someone once showed a picture of the IMG “team”.
Intern was the word that sprang to my mind.

When will we ever see the new owner of FC being announced ?
Didn’t I read Adam was going to clarify ownership details very soon ?
I’m in Hull for another week
Glorious weather !

Don’t think I’ve ever seen any quotes from anyone regarding clarifying ownership. Lots of people are reasoning that they wouldn’t organise a fans forum and dinner event for early November after the season we’ve had without some good news announced first, I absolutely think they’d be capable of being so tone deaf though and people are giving them far too much credit.

Thirkill leaves his role as Leeds Rhinos President next week so I wouldn't expect any news before then.

Been trying to process my thoughts on all this since news started breaking that both Wakey and Cas would be getting A's on Tuesday night. With further news breaking regarding where clubs (not just us) lost points, I thought I would wait to try and compose myself a bit.

I still think that IMG need time. This is still very much the first phase of a long term plan for the sport. And the sport desperately needed someone coming in with a long term plan. The sport has been stagnating for some time and the constant chopping and changing every few years (licencing for a few years, back to promotion and relegation for a few years, Super 8's...) hasn't helped. IMG have had great success with other sports so I would say that we need to give them time rather than tearing everything up and starting again once more.

That all being said, it doesn't mean that they aren't open for criticism because this has certainly been a rough start and it's highlighted plenty of flaws. On the FC side of things, I do believe that knowing we had a provisional grade A last year gave the club complacency and certainly contributed to what we saw last season. Whilst this may prove to be a good thing for the club in the long term, it was a real slap in the face in the short term. Clubs can't be allowed to be in that position where they can contemplate throwing a season. Performance has to be the bulk of the grading going forward. As others have pointed out, you get the performance right and a lot of the other stuff sorts itself.

So I wasn't surprised that we dropped to Grade B. Hoped we wouldn't but expected it and think it was fully deserved. But then you see that we lost points for our LED screens. Screens that are classed as UEFA standard but not good enough for IMG? That's just ridiculous. Then we're losing out because they aren't classing certain "Hull" areas when we're already in that unique position of having to share our area with another club. That's a flaw that counts against both ourselves and KR. Again, ridiculous.

I'm delighted that both Cas and Wakey got Grade A's but how a team that has just spent a season in the Championship can suddenly be a Grade A club is beyond me. And another team that has been struggling in Super League for a number of years has ranked a lot higher than Salford (a competitive team for many years) is just mind boggling. This again comes back to me saying that there needs to be more emphasis on performance than anything else and that includes taking into account what league you are in better than it appears to have been done so far.

Then you hear that Oldham got penalised for moving from a smaller stadium to a better and improved stadium that increased their attendances significantly. How was that remotely fair? And the talk that Doncaster lost a point because a gantry was 40cm too short or something like that for IMG's liking? Give me a break!

So, yeah, plenty of flaws both in how the criteria is applied and the ways teams can potentially manipulate and exploit it. But I don't think it's an all hope is lost situation just yet. As long as there's acknowledgements that changes are required to the criteria as well as by clubs themselves.

Oh yes, and add greater emphasis to youth development. That is key to the future of the sport and something all clubs should be striving to improve on.

Said it before in a different thread, IMG is just the latest reorganisation of the deck chairs on the Titanic by the clueless buffoons who have driven RL (in the UK) into the ground with their nonsensical "leadership" for decades now.

The game is on life support, with only the ever-dwindling number of diehards somehow keeping the zombie shuffling along.

Another article in the HDM with AP talking about green shoots, how they’ve added leadership, competitive squad and talking up the coach etc. Not complaining as he’s got to do it at season ticket time but just doesn’t strike me as a man who’s sold up.

Yes I also getting that sinking feeling he's still captain of the ship.

Club also advertising this dinner on social media, when the fastest way to shift these £60 tickets would be to tell us there's a special guest from Leeds attending. I'd rather sit at home and chew £60 of pound coins that listen to more of Pearson's false promises.