Good post. Doesn't matter how many fancy offloading backrowers we have if we're getting skittled in the middles or failing to get out of our half. I'd hope Savelio targets a place in the front row personally as think him, Taylor, Satae and a fit/firing Bowden could be our best grouping.

Well, tbf, it was based mainly on the strength of your pack and both Sneyd and Kelly are halfbacks. Arrogance is neither here or there, indeed ‘confidence’ is often seen as valuable in a halfback (especially). I’ve not seen the post you’re referring to it, but Sneyd does what he does very competently; I doubt RBA would rate him worse than that - or, even if he’d drop the ‘very’, i don’t see that as conflicting with his prediction.

What is the context of Kelly being a disgrace? As a player, or the stuff he’s done off the pitch? I imagine the latter?

I can see Hull finishing anywhere from second to seventh, giving myself a very good chance of being right. I see them as being among a bigg-ish field looking to narrow the gap to where Saints were this year gone. Jones and Ma’u looks a brutal second row.

Off topic, it seems a bit odd that Faraimo didn’t have a sponsor when the squad numbers were announced. I know he’s competing for the wing spots with Swift, Fonua and Naulago, but wings are usually among the most in demand, after the goalkicker, and you’d expect him to run in a few tries during the season. Price probably reflects that, of course.

I've not seen many top 2-3 sides with a merely competent HB pairing frankly. Without wishing to be patronising this is why they are so very expensive and important. And interestingly there's quite the buzz of brilliance afforded to Gale today.

I see us as in the 5-8 slot or thereabouts, depending on injuries, so a tad below you. I have read too much about Lee Radford's shortcomings to believe we could be runners up in a comp with loads of clubs having marquee players, benefactors, bigger fanbases etc. That said I'm really looking forward to this season and prop depth apart like the look of our squad more than most years. Big turnover in the squad by definition gives you grounds for hope as you know it is likely to be different.

I think our opening fixtures will be critical and given their high level of difficulty, defining. A decent return could set us up nicely, but there won't be patience and time to gel afforded.

I think it's pretty obvious that we were looking for anther prop when fonua came on the market and the club went for him instead which leaves us really short in the front row. satae looked OK but was really unfit and blowing after a couple of runs so hopefully he will be better after a full pre season with us. We will still be heavily reliant on taylor and we've seen his form dip in the last year or so due to him having to carry the rest of the pack - hopefully our improved back row will improve things and I expect we'll see ellis playing prop whenever he plays.

Whilst our recruitment looks good on paper, the squad is really unbalanced with far too many back rowers and outside backs so I expect we may look to move some players on during the season if we can.

Our attack definitely needed improving but our defence was much worse and we finished the season conceding only 21 points less than the worst defence in superleague. This is the critical area to improve. If we don't then 2020 will be another washout and radford won't last the season.

We could finish anywhere between 2nd and 8th but my feeling we'll be 4th to 6th, depending on if we sort our defence out and how other teams go

Cheers Mrs Barista, interesting your point about Savelio, he could well be an option at Prop he's certainly a strong lad, my own thoughts on him were he d be used as cover and to spell Sao at loose forward possibly as well as second row, one things for sure it'll be very interesting seeing how we line up come first game. In an ideal world Matongo will find some consistency and possibly be more assertive and demanding the ball becoming busier.

Il throw this out their, I think if Faraimo finds himself short of game time this season I wouldn't be surprised to see him head out and his wage possibly be used to sign a forward, don't quote me on this though unless it comes true hahaha

Simply surviving in this league is enough for me. Considering the strength of our opponents and us operating on an annual budget of 27 quid, it’s nothing short of a miracle that we are still operating.

I agree we should just be thankful we still have a club left to support.
Despite having one of smallest fan bases and only spending £27 annually we still employ the marquee player rule, how do we do it?

Like you escaping relegation will be a relief with our squad.

Surely the extra prop people are saying we havent got and need is already here - Beinek - seems to of been involved heavily in pre-season and its now time for him to step up - failing that i like Fash who can also do a job

I'd like to see Beinek step up and impress this preseason

I'm sure every team in the league would say they need to improve their squad depth in at least one position. Regardless of some people on here downplaying our chances next year, our own chairman has come out and said his expectation is to be top 4 and last 4 in the cup, therefore I don't see why any fans should have to manage expectations based on our front row, our turnover or whether our players are in the bookies top 25 favourites for Man of Steel.

I would imagine the Big 4, Cas and Catalans have similar expectations. Not everyone will succeed. Hope, optimism and realism for me. We're entitled to nothing, obviously. It's heartwarming that people are now convinced of Radford's capabilities though - he's had a rough ride for a long time on here.

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Think it's fair to say the majority have cut him a fair bit of slack too during his tenure. The rough ride you mention is to be expected when you look at what he has had available and what he has delivered and continued failings towards the latter part of a season, the wild differences in performance.
Also the jury is out if he is the man to move us forward but it really is a season in which he has to prove that or he should rightly be replaced after the recruitment for 2020. "It's heartwarming that people are now convinced of Radford's capabilities though - he's had a rough ride for a long time on here.'"

The old, [igun to the head[/i philosophy again eh.