However bad we are, there's no way on earth the struggling sport that is rugby league can afford to choose to reject a club with upwards of 10K support.

Maybe not, but gauging the discontent amongst fans I’d say we are still some positive investment news and a couple of signings away from being close to 10K crowds for next season anyway just don’t think it will happen, Start again on the pitch like the last two seasons and more people will just walk away for good and then it all falls apart.

Can't imagine what these would be. It'll be a B grade surely?

That's why I would be keen to see a breakdown of the scores. We definitely won't be getting top marks for performance nor finances but can we hit top marks on fandom, stadium and community (worth 10.5) maybe? And then pray that finances and performance scrape us the other 4.5 points between them?

Yeah idk either but given how marginal it was and we've lost playing points I just don't know what would have improved.

Some people worry too much.

With Litten, he didn't play much this season, but probably our best performance of the season, the victory over Wigan, he was a stand out player for us that day and he only came of the bench.

That's what we do, we write them off early. Like Jez Litten and Dean Hadley, who'll both be playing in the showpiece game this Saturday.

Apparently we need some Australian who can't get a game down under, instead.

Was reading about the Melbourne side in the run up to the NRL grand final last week, would make his head spin. They have a deliberate policy of looking for and giving players a chance who’ve been dumped/rejected elsewhere and even worse do the unthinkable of trying those players in different positions to what they are supposed to be specialist in.

No better example than halfback Jahrome Hughes. NRL player of the year halfback was dumped by the Cowboys and Gold Coast playing only two NRL games until he was 23, Played all his junior career at fullback and didn’t play as a halfback until he was 25.

It’s absolutely mental that looking for a long term Billy Slater replacement Melbourne decided to target players who could play a bit of halfback as well as fullback and had been rejected by other clubs. They signed Jahrome Hughes, Cam Munster, Papenhuyzen, Nicho Hynes and Scott Drinkwater.

I’ve never been a ‘play the youngsters at all cost’ type of fan, but there’s absolutely no argument that the most successful sides on both sides of the world have the most faith and patience with young players.

Absolutely spot on, the internet expert is not always right give these kids a chance.

I think the key is finding the right balance and agree that the most successful clubs manage that balance. For me, we struggle to do that. This year for example we have overexposed a lot of our youngsters but in the past we've done the exact opposite and blocked youngsters pathways. As has been pointed out, two of our ex youngsters are now about to feature in the Grand Final and both left us when they did because they couldn't get game time with us. If you look at someone like Saints for example, they had to make a decision a few seasons back regarding sticking with Coote or backing Welsby. I guarantee FC would have stuck with Coote and Welsby would have ended up moving on.

I like the approach the club seem to be taking now. They recognise that the youngsters are our imminent future but not our immediate present and are bringing in players to help mentor and guide them over that period. Time will tell if the club gets it right but it does feel that they have a balanced plan in place.

Some of the youngsters will get some game time again next season due to the new player welfare minutes played ruling coming into effect for 2025 .

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Going back to speculation on our IMG grading, HDM have revealed that we have scored 2.8571 points for performance. Didn't realise that we got nearly 3 points for merely being in the top flight.

If Dan Tomlinson is trailing a Grade B, I think we all know it will be a Grade B, and rightly so.

I think it would be based purely on our drop in performance score, which is the sole focus of the article, however we don't know how w will fare on the other grading categories. We could improve our score on social media stuff, or if any investment is sorted, loans paid off, etc then we may improve on the financial category. Hopefully we do, and that is enough to negate the loss of performance points.
Whether Tomlinson (or even the club) know anything or not yet about our overall grade, not a clue!