I can see rovers winning this one but with that said, it may be best for them to lose and concentrate on the league.

A rovers win would be good for my team though, it gives us the possibility of another championship standard team in the next round

I’ve got a lot of respect for and faith in Tony Smith. However, I do find it very hard to feel anything better than ambivalence about the patience mantra. https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/r ... al-5272037 Cas are cited as an example of a gradual turnaround but went from 12th and 20 points in 2013 to 4th and 36 points in 2014. We’ve had strategies that stressed patience for the best part of a decade, excepting the couple of seasons when we had to show some urgency and actually achieved our on-field goals (‘17 and ‘1icon_cool.gif. I appreciate the need for hard work and know that there are no easy answers. But I think that communication based around a real and immediate drive for improvement would help change some of those perceptions he talks about. ‘Patience’, just like the sodding 5-year plan, feels now too much like a passive acceptance of crap and low expectations. Taken too far patience just buys the need for ever greater patience. There’s no karmic pay-off (not that I think TS thinks there is, he’s not daft).

I’ve got a lot of respect for and faith in Tony Smith. However, I do find it very hard to feel anything better than ambivalence about the patience mantra. https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/r ... al-5272037 Cas are cited as an example of a gradual turnaround but went from 12th and 20 points in 2013 to 4th and 36 points in 2014. We’ve had strategies that stressed patience for the best part of a decade, excepting the couple of seasons when we had to show some urgency and actually achieved our on-field goals (‘17 and ‘1icon_cool.gif. I appreciate the need for hard work and know that there are no easy answers. But I think that communication based around a real and immediate drive for improvement would help change some of those perceptions he talks about. ‘Patience’, just like the sodding 5-year plan, feels now too much like a passive acceptance of crap and low expectations. Taken too far patience just buys the need for ever greater patience. There’s no karmic pay-off (not that I think TS thinks there is, he’s not daft).

It’s more what he’s saying than what he’s done. I believe/hope that he is trying to solve our problems with utmost urgency. I worry that quotes like those in the article linked send the opposite message and that might hinder those efforts.

For me, he gets a pass for last season. The career-ending and life-changing injury to Mose Masoe and Mitch Garbutt’s struggles to get on the pitch meant an otherwise merely weak squad became completely uncompetitive. There was something wrong with the squad that lost to London twice and did the usual in golden point against Salford in 2019 - the echoes of 2016, in the ways we would find a way to lose were worrying. So all change for 2020, bin-off Joel Tomkins et al. and sign some hungry youngsters and projects from the Championship. I’m going to try very hard to avoid the x wins from y wins argument, including last year’s results. We do need to improve a bit from that very low base though.

Hopefully Takairangi, Vete and Sims will offer good value over the course of the season.

Nobody is asking for Rome in a day. I don’t think anybody is even asking for Rome. We aren’t a rich club. But neither are Cas, afaik, and we’ve a 14 point start with the bookies tonight.

Classic MGS.