Him and the full coaching staff setup have my full support and always will. However I was surprised by this. We have a thin squad and with injuries this year, we may be in for a struggle again. That said, our full strength team is capable of beating 6/7 teams.

Finishing bottom last year with 5/6 absolute hammerings for me doesn't warrant a contract extension. The club and Dennis are always talking Bout stability, I think it would have been better to analyse the performance of the team and Dennis' contract issues 3/4 months into the season.

Onwards and upwards anyway. One thing we can now say is that our current team is Dennis' team. He's worked with them around 14 months now so hopefully they are building a good working relationship with each other

Looks like a clearout at the club is happening. Paul Hansbury, kit-man, is the first according to Twitter, with more to follow.

Very sad news if Paul goes real shame. I understand one of the lasses from the office has gone too, won't say the name unless confirmed but she was always friendly and helpful and appeared on top of things when you asked her anything.

True about 'Big Lad'. He's absolutely gutted. Bad and sad news. Is something amiss or is the regime simply cutting its cloth accordingly?

Been a stalwart in good times and bad.

Best of Luck Paul.

Hopefully simply getting leaner. RFL seem to have altered the off field requirements quite a bit, presumably to help clubs spread the cash thinner.

Does make you think if a total finance re-think, for the game as a whole, is coming. So much happening to save cash.

Wonder if it is going to see the end of 'expansionism'?

We are never going to challenge RU or soccer, better making sure that our domestic game is fit and well and managing its finances.

Rule has cut all non-essential spend. Does a kit man need to be on a salary? I know a SL club not too far away from us has a young lad doing it.

But the point is that we are reverting to the semi-pro era, which was what Lewis was trying to leave behind.

Where, in those days, the TV revenue (from the Cup then) was a happy little bonus, now it's the gate money that is the bonus! We have been trapped into living almost entirely from the Sky cash.

This is OK while Sky pay up, but the game cannot stand on its own any longer.

If Sky up the ante we will be OK but as it stands at the moment we are on the way back to semi-pro status imo.

The game was fine then, until the bigger clubs started the contract system and ran out of cash.

Cutting spend and helping to make the club sustainable is his brief. I have had a chat with James Rule and increasing income for the club is Priority One.

Getting more people through the turnstiles and the efficiency of the non-playing staff are two important ways of doing that.

I think that the RFL will pay far more attention to the financial aspect of running a club than they have hitherto done, and I think that there are some very important issues to be addressed.

Quote: Snake Plisskin "They need to get TIW back up so I can laugh my booty off watching half of them have break downs over this.'" TIW is still down. Here is a new one to try:- forums.rlfans.com/ Not much on, but it has only been up for 12 hours.

Quote: Snake Plisskin "They need to get TIW back up so I can laugh my booty off watching half of them have break downs over this.'" TIW is still down. Here is a new one to try:- forums.rlfans.com/ Not much on, but it has only been up for 12 hours.

Always sad when someone loses their job but sounds like a sensible business decision to me.Why employ somebody to do the kit full time,12 months per year when the season only lasts 7/8 months.I wouldn't be surprised if an outside contractor will be doing it for half the price and that is just common sense.

For the sake of fairness I have seen Paul selling tickets, answering enquiries and manning the shop as well as Kitman duties. I suspect he carries out other tasks too.

Very true - Paul has been around for a long time and in the old Widnes set up was a general utility man. But things have changed, can't think of any of the 'old' Widnes staff still there.

Sadly this is what is happening at more than Widnes RLFC. At least Widnes started at the top. Salford still have Simms taking a salary!

Surely a other topic for this would be far better?

In the interest of providing accurate knowledge of the role of a 'kit man', I think the majority of fans would be very surprised at the amount of 'roles' that the 'kit man' actually does.

It is not just a case of watching the game, and then washing the kit ready for next week.

I have worked with Paul and know first hand that he works far more than what would be considered normal full time hours and for what would be considered peanuts as a wage.

'Cutting the cloth accordingly'?

I'm sorry but this simply doesn't ring true. There would be plenty of less important roles and 'people' that would be far less of a loss than Paul and they would be drawing considerably more in terms of wages!

Well the people who cut the cloth and count the pennies have made their decision based on facts and figures none of us here are privy to so I will take their word for it.Surely nobody thinks this is personal.Obviously PH performed other roles such as phone answering,ticket selling etc because he had the time for it due to the kit role not being time consuming.Too much over reaction to this.Lots of good people have been shown the door at Widnes - Neil Kelly,John Stankevitch,even the great Doug Laughton IIRC. Heck even LFC showed their legend Dalglish the door.It happens,that's life.