I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had conversations with Carl in the past that have resulted in some unsatisfactory outcomes.

On the occasions I’ve had words with him, we haven’t always been able to see eye-to-eye but fortunately we’re able to agree to differ without falling out. I’ve made suggestions that haven’t been taken on board but I respect that I might approach something from an ideological point of view, whilst Carl and the club probably have to see it from a more practical point of view.

If some of my ideas are implemented I’m more than happy.

Like you, I passionately believe in the Dons. They’ve played a big part in my life and I love rugby league. I do believe that the more we can all try to work together, the better our chances are of achieving the best we can for the club.

I have emailed the club twice before and received no reply.

My concern with the club is that under CH we have not progressed with the any of the objectives set by Club Doncaster.

As has been reported, the clubs budget was set to compete with the best sides in the division.
Gavin Baldwin stated that the board had fully backed CH and GT giving them the largest budget ever, with it being enough to challenge for a top two finish .

All the hype and optimism at the start of every season soon faded away after two months of poor performances and an embarrassing performance at home to Toronto.

The clubs marketing team spared no expense promoting the Toronto game and with a large crowd and tv audience watching , we dished up what must go down as one of the most embarrassing performances ever seen.
Hard direct running and fast play the balls where met with missed tackles, one dimensional offence and the white flag of surrender hauled up with only fifteen minutes on the clock.

Players capitulated as the Wolfpacks forwards dominated the exchanges setting a platform for their backs to run riot.
Scoring at will producing a score that has yet to be surpassed even against the supposed league minnows.

Since then little has improved ,if by some miracle we do finish 5th ,then another embarrassing trip to Cumbia awaits us

CH is the man that has to be held accountable for our short comings , yes GT and his recruitment was awful and our playing style predictable , but CH stated he had appointed GT as he knew the division.
GT had to go as was stated by Gavin Baldwin, surely if he had any morals CH would follow.

KLD, I’m sorry to hear that your two emails didn’t receive a reply. Have you thought about approaching Carl at one of the games to have a chat with him personally? Sometimes it’s much easier to have a face-to-face conversation with someone, rather than talking via emails. You can more easily ask follow up questions then.

With regards to the objectives set for Carl by Club Doncaster, according to Club Doncaster the only one that he has failed on is that he has not increased attendances. The other objectives have been reached. They’re the words of Club Doncaster, not mine.

When GT was appointed, his CV showed that he had won this league with York. If any team in any league can appoint a man who has been there and done it before (and quite recently), it would seem like something of an achievement to get them. Things didn’t work out as planned. Carl can be held accountable for this but sometimes it’s only after the event that mistakes become obvious. He allowed GT a fair and reasonable amount of time to sort things out but I believe he acted quickly and decisively when it became obvious that we weren’t performing to the required levels this season.

You state that little has changed since then. On-field matters are the responsibility of the coach, not Carl. You may be concluding that Carl has made a mistake in appointing Richard Horne? Not wishing to be disrespectful to the players we have as I believe they try hard week-in, week-out, and as I mentioned on another thread, I have the utmost respect for any player who puts on a rugby shirt and puts their neck on the line for our entertainment, but a number of this squad fall short when it comes to being the best, or better players in this league. We must keep this in mind when we draw conclusions about where we are at presently.

Toronto are clearly a cut above everyone else and Barrow seem to be a fair bit better than most of the rest. We drew 24-24 with Barrow at home and lost 14-10 when we played them away. Even with the majority of the GT squad still here, we aren’t a million miles off. Yes, we want to be beating the likes of Barrow, I accept that, but the two games against Barrow are a fairer measure of where we’re at in this league than comparisons to Toronto.

There are a group of teams, including the Dons, in the top half of the table who are all capable of beating each other on their day (Whitehaven, York, Keighley, Dons and Newcastle). Richard Horne needs to recruit the types of players he wants for next season as his style of rugby is certainly much different to GT. With some good players added in key areas, we can improve considerably on what we’ve done this season.

I agree with you that GT had to go but I don’t understand why Carl should have to go. He made a mistake appointing GT but he’s done all that Club Doncaster have asked of him except get attendances up... and from the fans point of view not always answered everyone’s questions as effectively as we might like on In The Dugout.

We need to try to work with him to help get the club to where we all want it to be.

The only real difference between us and Whitehaven is that they have won half a dozen tight games.
Whereas we have shaved the odd one.

Nothing really, apart from style, has changed between GT and RH.
The results haven't much.
So you could argue that it IS the team.
But you could also argue that RH is no better than GT.
.

You make some fair points S/O but RH is trying to play a different style of rugby with players that were signed up with GTs playing style in mind. It's a bit like trying to play chess with draughts. I would like to think RH has been using his time in charge to see which players can adapt to his playing style and replace those that can't or aren't good enough.

It'll certainly be interesting to see who is kept on... and probably even more interesting to see who he signs!

I can't see ANY difference between the playing styles.

I am afraid it is just one man rugby,no players backing up,no forwards who can make any decent break,and far to many basic errors in every game.

Without over-egging it, the guy came from a big club. He played big-time rugby. By osmosis alone he should have absorbed the big-time mentality while at Hull.
The plays, the techniques, the whole bag of mashings.
In short he should have been a cut above a lot of the coaches in this division.
He ain't.

Don't care about jam tomorrow ...

DM your loyalty and constant brown nosing is very admirable but your doing more harm to this club by standing by and accepting all the BS this club spouts! if carl was to go to your house and murder all your family you would still defend him in court! we can't keep changing head coach's and thinking they are the problem we need to look at the bigger picture, the fans can see through his constant lies and year on year failures and they have had enough.

I don't think DM is brown nosing, everyone has their own opinion.

Fact..... A CEO leads a business, he is charged with the overall day to day running of said business, he is responsible to the board and shareholders to make that business a success.

Fact.... As CEO his decisions govern weather he takes the credit or the criticism. That is why they are paid the money they are as the buck stops with them.

However that doesn't seem to be the case at Club Doncaster,
You have three years of mediocrity, blaming all and sundry for the teams short comings, instead of holding up your hands taking responsibility for your own poor decisions.
Carl you talk the talk but you don't walk the walk.

Then you come out with the ludicrous statement that you have turned down a job in Super league to stay here

You are here because you are a cheap option for CD you have a job with hardly any responsibility no hassle ,and by the looks of it no accountability.

Somehow I don't see you as a Gary Hetherington or Marwan Koukash .

Was this neccessary, really? Call a bloke out for his enthusiasm and turn into an attack and post about his Family in such a way JC on a bike what is this board becoming. I take it that the warning from one of the Mods does not apply to certain folk.

An attack? and a post about his family? I can't tell wether your saying that tongue in cheek or your the biggest drama queen that's ever lived! nothing in my last post was meant to be personal I was just trying to get across everybody should have a breaking point and for quite a few fans its already happened, I get the feeling you wont be happy until you've hounded out all the new and negative posters and there's just the 3 of you again agreeing with everything the club do!

Agreeing with what the club do. Really? You need to check out a few things my friend.

My breaking point was the display last Sunday.

Richard Horne hasn't been in the job long enough to be considered in those terms. I don't necessarily subscribe to the common view which has developed in football that a group of players belong to a previous coach/manager and therefore must be replaced wholesale before an incoming manager/coach can be expected to make progress. There may be the odd player who doesn't fit in for whatever reason but in general professional players should be able to adapt to a new coaching style and a professional coach should be able to get what he wants from the players on hand. Rugby is a team game and the success of the team is not measured by the quality of individual players but by how they come together as a team and interact.

That is where the coach's skill comes in. One of the most successful football coaches was Brian Clough. His ability to take a group of fairly ordinary players in individual terms and turn them into a team capable of winning the then European Cup and then (with one or two significant additions to the squad) successfully defend it speaks volumes for his personality and methods. Bill Shankly at Liverpool was another who achieved a similar thing a couple of decades earlier.

So let us give Richard Horne time to establish himself in the job here and hopefully mould a team which will be better than the sum of its parts. The Dons are still in a play-off position and, given reasonable luck, will still be there after this weekend's round of matches. That we are in this uncertain position is disappointing to all of us and is entirely the fault of the players who largely could not stick to a plan and who's indiscipline lost us games which we should have won.

I don't think anyone is making a personal attack ,
I have nothing against CH personally ,my criticism is purely from a sustainable business point of view.

I think people are just cheesed off at how the club is limping from one season to the next with no direction and a Nero like CEO who fiddles while Doncaster RLFC burns.

I fear the club will never get those fans lost to the game back ,as interest in rugby league is dying due to the constant moving of the goal post to favour expansion teams.

The facts don't lie ,we have a hard core support numbering in the low hundreds ,it says it all when we cant even fill a mini bus to travel to away games.

CH spoke about our travelling support to York, but lets face it ,York is easily accessible by train and has some nice hostelries to sample on your way to the game ,that is a one off.
Most games see us take ten to twenty fans if we are lucky and that includes the players families.
That should tell Club Doncaster all they need to know.

I’m not the brown-nosing type. Anyone who knows me personally will confirm that. In fact, as most of my past bosses would testify I can be a pain the backside due to my constantly asking pressing questions. My main objective is to get jobs done, not score brownie points along the way.

I agree with the first three points made by KLD with regards to the role of a CEO.

What poor decisions do you want Carl to hold his hands up to? I’ve got him down for making a blunder in appointing GT and for not improving attendances. His other business decisions seem to be doing okay as the finances of the club are sound.

Do you want him to take responsibility for everything that happens on the pitch, week-in, week-out? If it was his responsibility, he’d be the coach. The coach has to be left to get on with the job he’s employed to do.

With regards to Carl’s specific job description, should he have sacked Paul Cooke sooner? Was GT allowed to stay too long? Should he have already sacked Richard Horne?

It appears that to me that the only way the club could have possibly stopped our decline over the last three years would have been to have changed the coach with more regularity but I’d question whether that is the right or fair thing to do.

I understand that people get frustrated by some of the things on ITD. I understand that Carl doesn’t answer questions as effectively as he might. How would we react if every week he came on to say, “We gave away too many penalties. I can't stand it anymore. If anyone gives away two penalties next week they won't be paid. I might not be back next week as I think I’m going to slash my wrists.” The guys damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

We need to cut him a bit of slack, show some compassion. We need to help him to do a better job, not castigate him as a villain. We need to work with him, not against him. Club Doncaster are happy with Carl, let’s all work together for the greater good and try to help the club we love get to where we want it to be.