P.s. the 10 club idea would kill pro Rugby League and It's not as if other Sports don't have there e teams, yet for some reason RL fans are very quick to highlight (probably as no P&R).

Surely part of the franchise system is so if one year goes pear shaped the second can be transformed? Hence the benefit of no relegation. Widnes are the new boys in SL simple as that whichever way we want to look at it so when people use 14 games to try and say there are 4 too many teams in SL it's a bit ridiculous.

Every year there will be crap and good sides it's as simple as that, people would have been saying similar about Salford & Wakey last year who have done alright this year.

I just want him to put right the huge mistake HE made in appointing Denis Betts, by sacking him. This is the cause of most of our problems. If he had got a good coach in the first place he may have saved himself a fortune. Instead he tried to skimp in the cost of the coach, and that is always a recipe for disaster.


And this effectively proves what I am saying about Denis Betts, and why he shouldn't have been hired in the first place. You also seem to forget that Scott Moore played in some of our worst performances and defeats. So, his presence, or lack of it, can hardly be described as a major factor. As for Watts - who knows?




How would it kill pro RL? SL will probably revert to a 12 club league, imo anyway. If things carry on the same way, that [iwill[/i be without us.




We know all this, Joey. People aren't angry because we are simply crap. We are utterly hopeless, uncompetitive, and are heading towards having the worst ever points against total. I could prove a far harder task to turn us around than either of those two clubs. Wakey did better than we are doing now with half a team of kids, under Kear. It's even more ironic that you mention them as a prime example, given the circumstances. And it shows just how much the club have ed up.

The fact of the matter is, the current board have failed to turn around poor form for the past 4 seasons. That's not exactly a confidence boosting statistic. There's certainly no hindsight from me, Joey. I said last season that this was likely to happen. We were dross in the Championship last season, had no momentum coming up, and kept on the incompetent , as coach, who made us so poor in the first place. I, and several other Widnes fans, have been proven correct in our dismal view. Go back over the posts on here and the TIW site, of mine and the likes of "Own Brain" and "V4E". No hindsight here, Chief.

Spot on Pepe

I've tried to keep to myself lately, because frankly it makes me sad. Steve O'Connor now needs to get his head out of his , we won't get 7000 VSH members with a team made utterly by inept coaching and conditiong, we need some on field momentum - which tends to have a snowball effect of its own. But you need first team investment AND SOUND first team investment at that. Finger wagging at supporters won't make the squad and coaching staff better (the quality of which is turning people away) admitting he's ed up and then making some hefty contract offers will. The infrastructure at the club is first rate, all the obvious stuff and right through to performance analysis etc. The problem is having the staff to properly assess situations, formulate solutions and generally understand the needed standards of super league, we don't have the staff for this. Get your head out of your and deal with it O'Connor. Its time to man up and make the ruthless decisions.

I'll copy this into here as it was this topic that got me thinking about it.

Yes things aren't all rosy but...

Most people inside and outside of Widnes RL fans had us tipped to finish bottom. A lot on here said they wouldn't be bothered with that as long as we remained competitive in most games.

So right we are bottom but unfortunately we haven't been competitive in most (but in some) and got 2 wins and ok yes two big, big losses in Hudds & Catalan. This is probably a good point to re-assert I'd prefer a new experienced and well structured head coach.

So what season are we having on that basis? SIMPLY underachieving? We haven't lost every game like some predicted. We are all disappointing and a few individual events (sackings) have added to this. But overall we are just a bit worse than many expected. Wire, Saints & Leeds are also 'underachieving' from what was expected of them?

That is why I really don't get the maintained anger and desperation to cause mass hysteria over our situation!

The money currently in SL is based on a 14 team league if that reduces the money WILL go down. That will mean two LESS full time teams, two less academies bringing through kids and at least 50 less full time pros.

Players like Davies, Marsh etc who all have potential but (maybe in Marsh case) get released from top clubs may not get a 2nd chance. All these proposed plans for 2 x 10 team leagues all miss the question of where will the money to fund them come from? WE have had 2 x 12 team leagues with P&R before so it's not an all great new idea!

I think putting predictions of our imminent removal from SL after 14 games is the OTT point. I'm sure SO'C is again aware of on field requirements and will act on that accordingly. Yes I hope it is sooner rather than later but it doesn't have to be imminent.

We have been “simply underachieving” for the last four years, Joey.

Only two big losses eh? Are you sure about that? I think you might want to check the Super League results page again, mate. Your post is just a load of spin, Joey. It masks the reality of what is actually happening. We aren’t just under achieving a bit. We are falling well short of where a fully pro Super League club should be. We are truly abysmal. Fans, who cough up a small fortune to follow them, are quite rightly angered by what they see, and are now voting with their feet. That is a very, very dangerous situation.

Once you accept, as you have, that the coach isn't good enough and think he needs to go, to be replaced by a "more experienced, well structured coach", you must accept that the team is more than just under achieving a bit, or that would be a pretty OTT point of view. You then must accept that SOC has made a mistake in giving him a 2-year Super League contract too. This is pretty much all I am saying. So perhaps I'm not so OTT after all? - well, not unless you are too.



I'm am far from hysterical, and I'm not one of the brain dead loonies on the TIW forum. I share few of their views, and my thoughts should not be linked by you, or anyone else, to these inane and childish people with their ill-tempered and childish polemic.

I am neither hysterical nor OTT. I think deeply about the situation and look ahead to possible/probable pitfalls. My thoughts and concerns, on these boards, have proven to be justified time and time again.




It isn’t OTT, Joey. The majority of RL journalists are now of the opinion that Widnes should not have been given a licence, including the decent ones like Andy Wilson.

Like I said, I think the league will end up at 12 clubs. Super League has been at that number for most of it’s existence, so I think we can safely say that your prediction of the collapse of RL, under such circumstances, as simply wrong. If you listen to the majority of RL journalists, again they seem to be in agreement that 14 clubs are too many. They like to remind everybody in the sport of this every time Widnes take yet another thrashing. I guess that nearly everyone is OTT except you then?

So, should the Super League be reduced to 12 again, who would you kick out before Widnes?

Somehow I missed this post. That is a very interesting angle. You are right too. With our two biggest wage earners now gone, SOC may now have the money to dump Betts and stay within his budget for this season. He may not have to dig too deeply in to his pockets in order to bring the odd player in either. There will be a few players moved on next year as well, so that should give him the chance to replace them with some better quality, without digging too deeply into his own pockets again. With a good coach, that could be enough to lift the team off the bottom next season.

If he insists on hanging on to Betts for much longer though, I don't think it would make any difference what SOC does.

Fingers crossed, eh?

Why have you used my OTT remark for points where I simply haven't used it?

The only point I said was OTT was predicting we'll be gone by 2015 based on our first 14 games.

P.s. 14th 13th & 12th from last 3 franchise years.

2009 - Cru - Salford - Hull FC
2010 - Catalan - Quins - Salford
2011 - Cru - Wakey - Quins

2012 - Widnes - Quins - Wakey (as it stands)

By many 12 / 10 team supporters Catalan would have been well gone yet within 2 years are one of the top sides? Hull FC & Cru both made plsyoffs too.

SHIT TEAMS CAN GET BETTER!

So that is the only area of which you regard my post as OTT and hysterical?

It seemed to me that you found the general tenet of my point of view to be hysterical. That is why I used it elsewhere. If I was wrong, then I apologise.

Like I said, many in the RL media are saying just that, so maybe not that OTT?







Do you think that Les Catalan were going to be dropped? Do you think that the same patience would be shown, by the RFL towards Widnes? Do we have the same Aussie quota as they had to build a side? Did they get the recruitment of coaches so disastrously wrong? Do they hang on to their coach, when he proves himself to be incapable of actually coaching? Do they limit themselves to only unproven, young English coaches?

Would Hull FC and Crusaders have improved quite so dramatically under Betts? Do you actually think that?

All of the teams you mention would know, full well, that they are bullet proof, no matter what, in the licence system. We are not. We are in a small group of clubs that are very vulnerable and have a great deal to prove. Couple that, with our week in week out humiliations, coach and the ipitch, and it is going to be difficult to attract good players to turn things around in quite the same way, without spending a lot of money - probably up to the cap. Unfortunately, SOC has stated that he is not prepared to do this. None of the teams you mention were quite so catastrophically bad as us. Perhaps you should consider that aspect of the situation, rather than just looking at league ladders. That will tell you very little about the overall situations these clubs were in. I could point to Halifax and Leigh, and it would be equally as meaningless.



Some get better, some don't. Some have a lot to prove, some don't. Some spend to the cap, some don't. Some ensure they have the best coaches they can get to ensure that they improve, some don't.

Just because you say that and it happens now and then doesn't mean it will happen for us.

This is a classic piece of deluded complacency. I hope the club don't think the same way. For us to achieve this, major restructuring of the coaching and fitness departments need to take place. If this does not occur, would you still be so confident, Joey?

So, I'll ask again, if the SL drops back to 12 clubs, which is a real possibility, who do you think will get the chop before us, as things now stand?