They're subsidised by a bloke called Ken Davy, iirc. Similar to how our board keeps our heads above the water - see also Quins, St. Helens and probably a few more.

Right, I'm about to go on a rant - it isn't going to be pretty and if you're a big admirer of bulldog spirit, I wouldn't waste your time.

Okay, it's a pretty simple concept that, over a reasonable timescale, level of sporting success will reflect effort and ability. Yet there seems to be a view widespread in this country that the latter is almost irrelevant - that any obstacle can be overcome by having a shouty captain 'inspiring' the lads to get stuck in by clapping vigourously and, erm... shouting. John Terry can yell himself ho, but the problem for England's 'overpaid primadonna footballers', is not that they aren't trying as hard as their similarly remunerated Spanish (for example) counterparts - it is a difference in technical ability. Improving skill-sets and tactical awareness doesn't make for a great rallying call, but that is the difference between triers and winners.
Rovers' players don't need a boot up the backside - if only it were that simple! Nor do we need a unique pay structure. We need to be cleverer and more competent.

I would agree with much of that. What i would say though is that i think that Justin Morgan attempts to be too clever and too tactically aware. Everything we do is too structured in my opinion and every tackle of every set of 6 seems to be pre-determined. I realise we have to work to a basic structure so that we have something to fall back on if we are under pressure but what i really want to see is Dobson and Green given the freedom to express themselves with the ball.
I think we would see greater results in that than taking money off a players basic wage.

I agree with most of this.
We are VERY structured, Possibly to the point that we are not flexible enough.
We seem to be unable to go away from our gameplan if it doesn't seem to be working, This causes 2 problems for me.
1 If it doesn't work on the day we are snookered (when we drop too much ball we can't use off the cuff to dig us out of the hole and it just snowballs).
2 It makes us rather predictable and if the oppo's work us correctly it makes it very hard for us to win games.
I also wonder if that was the problem with Paul Cooke at Rovers as he is a very off the cuff player, You could say the same about the fact that JM apparently didn't want Danny Brough!

Yeah - I think that playing low-risk has a couple of... well, risks. The first is that if you want to change to start chucking it about, to save a game then it won't come naturally. A risk-taking team that wants to defend a lead can stuff it up the jumper a bit more easily, I imagine. Also, I think that you can get left behind a bit as more teams add more strings to their bows.

I think Mason was meant to give us a new, and needed, dimension - but obviously that hasn't panned out.
Getting Green alongside Dobson hopefully will, in the medium term.

This and the fact that the game plan hasn't evolved from the last two seasons and everybody has worked us out.

We're getting far too many of the basics wrong all of the time. Line speed and defending around the ruck has been terrible all season. This allows the opposition to have the luxury of breaking us up the middle at will or rapidly shifting the ball to the flanks were our slide defence has been horribly exposed. We'll never win any games by conceding five tries a game. We rarely complete more than 60% of our sets it is paramount to success to exceed this. We've failed to add anything other than a good short kicking game in the oppositions twenty metre area, whenever we give the ball some air it's usually just a pretty meaningless shifting of the ball from left to right or vice versa interspersed with the occasional drive towards the posts to mix it up a bit.

On top of this, our once excellent spider sets are now awful.

Briscoe - capped for England
Fox - capped for England & Elite Squad member
Welham - England Elite Squad member
Webster - capped for NZ
Dobson - Albert Goldthorpe Medal winner, SL Dream Teamer
Vella - capped for Aus
Clinton - NRL GF winner
Newton - NRL GF winner
Galea - NRL GF winner

Add to these the Aus schoolboys members Lovegrove and Green along with at least for 6 games the massively decorated Willie Mason, I struggle to see where ability or skills come in to why we are performing so horrendously.

If a kick up the backside isn't what these players need and it is all to do with the game plan then I think the finger can only be pointed in one direction. It is also not an attacking issue our squad has, our players enjoy attacking so much they seemingly forget they have to defend for at least 50% of the time too!

When signing all these antipodeans we were told their grand finals, state of origins, international experiences would be the catalyst for our success yet the match winning mentality certainly seems to have got lost with their luggage!

What is the answer? Force the coach to change his game plans? Change the coach? Change the benefits the players get?

Personally I think all players should be treated equally reguardless of past experience and honours. They should all be made to train the same and no mates rates favours given. But this won't happen while Justin is here I'm affraid to say.

Have you and Rhys fallen out with each other or just Rhys with Justin?

What's up with Liam Watts? Utterly brilliant last year, what's happened to him - is he injured?

Nah he sticking to morgans Game plan

I'd give a serious answer if I thought this was a serious question.

It's a serious question. He was knocking on the door of the train-on squad last year and IMO was your best prop at that time. Is it "second season syndrome"? Just a bit surprised. No need for paranoia, it's a reasonable enquiry.

I don't know if he was injured, dropped or rested against Wakefield , but he's not hit the heights of last season yet.

he offloaded twice this season so has been droppped, cant do any of that off the cuff stuff!!!!

He was used as a prop playing loose at his most effective last year and seemed to be given a freedom to play. No one's had that this year and he has not only stagnated but gone backwards. No idea if he's injured. He seemed to be learning admirably from Clinton last year (who despite your jibes was very good, capable of of drawing a man and popping a ball to someone on his shoulder) and we can all see what's happened to him. He came out after one game and stated that Mason was his new Sensei, and that's obviously gone equally well. The whole team is struggling for form, when your senior players can't catch, tackle or face up it doesn't give anyone else much room to work.

This is also his fourth season as a first team player at Rovers. Maybe he needs to be his own man a little more.

When he's played, has he been prop playing loose this year, then? Disappointing as he was a player genuinely to fear last year IMO at this level, great offloader and tacklebuster. A lot of players flatter to deceive in brief cameos of SL debuts but then don't kick on, but with Watts, I felt he'd already stepped up consistently and was a key player to build Rovers pack around in the future with Galea and Vella approaching the end of their careers. Hopefully just a bad run of form coinciding with wider underperformance, then.