I wrote the same on TIW site yesterday but we are the only English side in the Championship who is going anywhere out of this division.

The sad thing though Rich, is if we somehow nabbed a franchise how the hell can we go into SL off the back of all this ?

I appreciate the whole point of franchising but we should be hanging our heads in shame if we go up off the back of performances like yesterday and seasons like this which seem to repeat themselves for Widnes.

Performances don't matter anymore you have ticked the box. Why would anyone waste money to get a competitive team on the field when you don't need to. Save your money, no need to care about what the fans have to watch, and that shows now in your league crowd average which is now below 3000.

Yep on it's way all the way down to where Leigh are despite their fantastic season... It'll be pretty dismal if it gets that low.

FYI
Barrow Raiders 1,823
Batley Bulldogs 1,258
Dewsbury Rams 1,150
Featherstone Rovers 1,932
Halifax RLFC 2,454
Keighley Cougars 1,205
Leigh Centurions 2,339
Sheffield Eagles 1,373
Toulouse Olympique XIII 1,537
Whitehaven RLFC 1,103
Widnes Vikings 2,979

Your Halifax and Widnes attendances are wrong

Like I said... if we lost another 600 fans and reached your sort of attendances it would be dismal..

He's not wrong Billyfax... he's used the Leigh Attendace calculator...

There's a balance that needs to be struck. Although I don't feel we should divert too much in the way of funds into the first team, we need to keep attendances up so it's vital we can compete on the pitch to a degree.

That's for the RFL PR department to worry about. SOC is doing exactly what anyone else would given the conditions laid down by the RFL. Don't worry about it.

We need to play as a team and work for each other.Why does Cullen drop Ford to the reserves and plays well for them in the centre.He is not a fullback.We need to play people in their postions to get the best out of them.I wonder why Mullaley,Lawton,and others not get put into the first team.Heckenberg was awful for the reserves and i believe just as bad for the first team.Play players on form and not cos of their name.Cullen gets rid of our scrumhalf with no replacement, so to me this seems he has lost the plot.

We had a full back. We had a great championship full back. He was called Gavin Dodd.

I know Chris mate and we let Hardman go aswell.Seems no logic in some of the signings.I would like our backline to be 1.Flynn/Grady 2.Gardner 3.TKL 4.Ford 5.Gaskell/Flynn 6.Thackeray 7.New kicking scrumhalf. I think flynn has great hands and a good jump and could be a great fullback.

What a difference a couple of weeks makes, we lost to fev and the majority of us stayed and aplauded the effort, and me for one the result, I went to the game thinking we were in for a drumming and came away thinking we could have won that, the team persona was fantastic, they looked like they were working for each other and had the never say die attitude and belief. A couple of weeks down the line a different story, I only hope the recent changes have been bourne from off the pitch differences/attitudes that need sorting out, that we are not/should not be party to, because if its some ploy/money influence/strategy for the future, then things aren't paying off.

Good post. I think what frustrates me most is that no team in particular this year has been untouchable. We could easily have been the team challenging for honours this year but instead we're getting hammered by Batley and Toulouse and the effort from the players feels like it is completely lacking. Now if we'd had the likes of Haggerty, Pickersgill and smith available every game I think we'd have got off to a better start but we've made some terrible errors to go along with our injury list.

Funnily enough the things that we all took out of that win was the pride and passion the lads showed for the shirt, grit in defence (1st half) their team spirit and support for one an another and a unity I haven't seen in a Widnes side for a long time!

Go to Batley at home and the exact opposite for every point, that is unbelievable tbh!

Also a note the side that beat Batley away was probably the weakest side on paper we have fielded all season in the league... make of that what you will!

Made similar points on TIW mate and fully agree he is a real top quality winger now IMO but we never get the ball to him so why not give him a crack at full back? He could be explosive through the middle, if it doesn't work don't make him a scape goat just move him back to his wing spot, if it does work we could have a star full back on our hands!

I think Ford is an attitude issue (surely) he had to be forced back on againts Leigh and you'd of thought a move to Centre for a few weeks at least would of been option 1?

Hardman IMO would compliment the likes fo Thacks & Kohe brilliantly problem at the time was we wanted more flare and looked to full back / centre for it whereas now we have it there and want a solid player at the back

Aim number one completely agree with off the cuff bring in a kicking scrum half that we have been missing ever since I can remember to compliment Thacks, even if at a cost surely won't go over Websters wage (if Smith was moaning at it etc) and any fee would be re paid on the pitch I am sure!

At the end of the day though... WE WANT OUR DODDY BACK