New contributor here. Thought I would join this happy throng. I have been going to Rovers since the very early sixties, and what I witnessed on Saturday was an awful experience, and I hope we never have to see anything like it again. As has been said, this has been coming due to various reasons, mainly poor recruitment and an element of terrible luck with injuries, but mainly poor recruitment, but we, as supporters could see it which made it really annoying.
All I ask for the coming season(apart from promotion of course)no pressure there! is that Rovers recruit some quality to supplement any of our good players that hopefully choose to stay. Recruit championhip players and that is where we will stay.
One big mistake the club has done in the past was to play too many young kids...it does not work!
In the past, some supporters used to shout "bring the colts on, bring the colts on", and they did, and we got hammered.
Sorry to say it, but I don't think Marsh is the answer to our half back problem, he doesn't do enough. I would keep him, but not as first choice. Unless he ups his threat. Plus we need some real grunt in the forwards,and make teams fear us.
I can but hope.

Welcome and a good post mate.Agree 100%.

That's one of the main reasons we struggled to progress at Leigh. A squad full of good Championship players should (given the right coaching team) guarantee a high placing in the Championship, especially in a full time environment. However, the step up to competing with SL teams, in the Qualifiers is virtually insurmountable, with a Championship squad. For the 2016 season, our owner was (luckily for we fans) able to recruit experienced SL players. (e.g. Drinkwater, Weston, Hansen, Hock, Paterson, Higham, Maitua, Whiting - for a few games - Hood, Tickle, Dawson, Brown.) Now these may have not been the top SL players, but their huge experience of playing at a high intensity, was of immeasurable value.

For you guys, a lot will depend on the funding your owner can generate, to build a team round similarly experienced and battle hardened SL quality players. You certainly have a big enough support base, to contribute towards that funding and - if Tim Sheens stays - an excellent coach.

Good luck!

We need to see some initial signings by the end of the week. Most players are already signed up for next season, and I can't see us paying a fee to buy a player from another club now.

As I've stated on several posts already, the board need time but the clock is ticking....

I agree, fr this reason I think we may have to build over a couple of seasons.

There are a few good players at Fc not getting a game that would do very well in the Championship, maybe worth a look.

We tried that route all too often between 98-2004 and it got us nowhere. I could list most of them if my memory was up to it, some right garbage with the odd half decent larker every now & again.

I'd like to see us sign up Callum Lancaster to replace Dixon.

I'm seeing his dad tomorrow so I'll ask him what's happening with Callum on another point Danny Addy is stalling now so if it was me I'd say do one I was underwhelmed when I heard we'd signed him even more so now

Planning to rebuild over a couple of years is a dangerous plan. If you don't get back up straight away you will lose your best players and get stuck in that division. When the Bulls went down ticket prices were sold under the banner of being a SL team playing in the championship. Now, we have signed too many championship players because the cap was half that of SL and we didn't have the money anyway. We have now turned into a genuine championship team. Stay there too long and you turn into them. That is why you must get straight back up.
You must not sign players to finish in the top four. You will do that easily enough.
You have got 23 pre-season warm up games ahead of the real middle 8 competition. It isn't the championship teams you need to sign players to beat. It is those 4 SL teams you need to beat. The ones you couldn't beat this time. So, you actually need a better team than you have now on a budget of £1.5m less.
That is how tough it will be. It is possible as Leigh have shown but they have an owner who paid out big time.
The other danger is that those 23 pre-season games don't prepare you for the SL teams. Standards drop and players lose that edge against poor championship teams and can't lift when August comes around.
It will be interesting to see how you go but there are so many obstacles ahead that aren't apparent till you have been there for a while.

Excellent and informative post. Thank you.

The secret seems to be to save some cap space until the start of July and tool up with more quality for the serious end when the middle 8s start in earnest. The trouble is that our current perception of SL player quality falls short in actual reality and in the eyes of most of our fans who have been watching RL for many years. Hoping Tim Sheens is better placed to reshape current thinking on recruitment. Danny Addy FFS is a prime example of our current aberrations.

HDM are set to report Lunt has agreed to stay.

Sounds rubbish.

Quite liked it in The Championship before, not too keen now.

Really good advice Woolly07.

We need to keep as many players that we can and ditch those that aren't good enough (I would get rid of: Sio because he's going, Kelly, Dixon, Horne, Campo, Green and Boudebza) A team of Cockayne, Shaw, Minns, Thornley, Mantellatto, Marsh, AN OTHER, Walker, Lunt, Tilse, Blair, Greenwood and Clarkson with a bench of Allgood, Scruton, Donaldson and Larroyer will get us in to the top two. Then when the transfer deadline comes late in the season we have three overseas spots for short term signings.

It would be difficult to keep Lunt, Blair and Walker but we do need to keep the quality to beat the sl teams in the play offs, that's why we need to keep open the overseas places so that we can strengthen at the end of the season just before the play offs.

Neil Hudgel just said on 5 live that they are struggling to hang on to players as the vultures are circling and agents are bandying about there players to other clubs,never mentioned names.