Your constant optimism and refusal to lay any sort of blame is very commendable but its akin to a fly smashing against a window that keeps believing its been set free! carl has been brilliant for this club and I know all fans appreciate what he's done but does that mean us supporters should just put up with failure after failure and be happy with that? if that's the case i'd advise you to adopt Bentley comps or toll bar as your team as its a damn site cheaper and less stressful.

Listening to the club apologists I would still like to know where the buck stops and will anyone take responsability for a season even worse than the last ?

Just asking like...

As I understand it the Dons had a very large debt for unpaid taxes & there future was very much in the balance until the Rovers came along & purchased the club.

We seem to live in a world where everybody wants to blame somebody for everything that doesn't turn out as they would like. We need to accept that sometimes others are better than we are and the way forward is to improve to the higher standard. Looking for a scapegoat might provide personal satisfaction for us occasionally but it doesn't actually solve anything. I prefer the learning by mistakes and experience route.

In snooker in the 1980s Steve Davis came virtually from nowhere and by his level of dedication and attention to detail set the bar higher than it had been probably since the days of Joe Davis. The other players could have sat back, found somebody or something to blame and carried on operating at their lower level. Or they could dedicate themselves more, practise harder and stop swilling gallons of beer and thus raise their games to the new level. They chose the latter route paving the way for the emergence of Stephen Hendry and the others who have followed. A similar thing happened in golf when Tiger Woods appeared on the scene in the 1990s.

Team sports like rugby league are slightly different in that the participants are dependant to a considerable extent on their colleagues to achieve success. However there is a similarity in that with better players around them ordinary players will be encouraged to improve their performances to the benefit of the team as a whole.

If you really need to blame somebody (the buck stops here etc) then blame the players who are the ones on the pitch making the mistakes or failing to stick to the game plan. No coach worth anything would ever send his team out to make mistakes and get beaten. So at the point where they cross the white line the players are as prepared as they can be to take on the opposition and try to win the game. If the opposition are better in personnel and technical skills they will, or should, emerge as winners and the losers have to go back to the "drawing board" to analyse what went wrong and work out how to put it right. This might involve bringing in better players, or changing the tactics or applying the tactical plan more precisely.

So let us not waste energy on finding somebody to blame all the time. Rather let us focus on ways to improve ourselves up to the standards set by the better teams. I think you will find that is the way the NRL operates which why Australia is head and shoulders ahead of everybody else in the rugby league world.

Having re-read my last post I realise that I forgot to include Carl Hall in the blame hierarchy.

Carl these days is a couple of steps removed from what is happening on the pitch. His role is to appoint the coach and generally look after the well being of the club. When he appoints a coach he does so in the hope that the person appointed will take the club forward and achieve the success which the fans crave. Bigger clubs can afford to attract the best coaches. Clubs like ours which can't do that may have to resort to appointing coaches with little or no experience. Whatever way it work out nobody can accuse Carl of deliberately getting it wrong. Carl has in the past apologised for what some have seen as 'his mistakes'. If I were advising him I would encourage him not to apologise because he has nothing to apologise for and such a course of action only serves to make him seem weak.

Carl has been around the British rugby league scene for something like 25 years as a player at the top level and administrator. His circle of contacts in the game is probably second to none and we are lucky to have him at the club. So let us all get behind him and give him our full support. Oh and I do not apologise for being fully behind Carl myself.

Surely the minute I hand over my hard earned money at the turnstile I've got every right to vent my frustration at poor performances, were 4 yrs into the magical 5yr club Doncaster plan and we've just finished 6th in the bottom division! how can any true fan be happy with this and not want some explanation?

How many times have they gone back to the drawing board?

Surely we have the right to complain, we are customers and the product being provided is sub-standard. If no one takes responsability then how can anything change ? Nobody needs to be sacked but when change is needed tough decisions have to be made, new things need to be tried otherwise the remaining faithful will get even more fed up and find other things to do on a sunday afternoon so your hardcore 500 supporters becomes 400 and so it goes on.
The current crop of players clearly aren't good enough so let's blame GT for that but he's gone so I expect RH will try to change things. I would have preferred to see Pete G given the job to the end of the season as there seemed to be a definite improvement both in style and attitude but the heirarchy panicked.

After the sacking of Thornton,a proper selection process by means of inviting applicants for the job, should have been followed. But instead the powers at be went for the easy and convenient option of appointing Horne which had the apparent benefits of dual registration players. Horne hasn't stopped the rot and because of the sham that is Club Doncaster I have doubts about him being given the backing to form a team capable of a push for promotion next season.However let's wait and see what happens between now and next February but it's going to take something special to get the missing supporters,including me,back through the turn styles.

Well we could all name a core that we would like to keep.
Which might be more tactful than saying who we would like rid of.

Will have a go later.

Meanwhile perhaps I could start a new thread to that effect.

I couldn't agree more.

What would sacking Carl Hall actually achieve? We'd have the same coach and we'd have the same Club Doncaster. You'd not noticeably see any difference as most of the work he does is behind the scenes work anyway - work that Club Doncaster are clearly happy with.

The club and Carl need to identify the weaknesses in our previous strategies, learn from those experiences, and put them right going forwards.

Carl has had 4yrs working with club Doncaster to put things right, surely there has to be a limit on how long we can put up with this?

Why is it then when companies are under achieving they appoint a new Chief Executive who come in with fresh ideas etc who's brief is to make the business successful.

How many more chances are you prepared to give him?He's had his chance in each of the last three seasons so what makes you think next season will be any different? I think you'll be sat at the top table with him at the next forum,either that or cleaning his shoes under the table.

Hally, the four year time period that you mentioned needs to be looked at more closely:

In 2014, we finished 4th in the Championship under PC. This was an excellent achievement no doubt brought about in no small part by Carl’s vision to bring Paul Cooke to the club in the first place.

In 2015, we chose to go down the route of youth, and it backfired. PC didn’t become a bad coach overnight but things didn’t work out. Believing it was necessary to bring someone new in, Carl replaced PC with Gary Thornton towards the end of 2015. Again this was quite a decisive move.

In 2016, GT put his first squad together and we eventually lost to Barrow in the play-off semi-finals. We’d not achieved our promotion goal but had started to rebuild after the relegation season.

Carl gave GT another chance in 2017 but when it was clear that things weren’t going to plan Carl took decisive action to remove GT and brought in Richard Horne.

This covers the four year time frame. Apart from appointing GT in the first place, what has Carl actually done wrong?