- This season is as good as over, at best we might have a chance if we win the last two games. Sheffield unlikely win, featherstone if they rest their first team.
- Anyway accepting this season is over, next season we've got a new coach who is unproven at this level but with his amateur background he might find a player or two from the amateur ranks. Remember we got Joe Lyndon and Andy Gregory from st pat's.
- Also if he can bring the young lads from Widnes coming through the ranks before saints or someone sign him, another possibility.
- The first thing he has to do and this board has to do is restore some pride in the team. We want players hungry for a pathway to super League either with Widnes or we might only get a season out of them, which I'd say is ok.
- Get a season out of the likes of Mark Percival and Lewis Dodd and we'll be a match for London et al.
- Get back to our roots and move the away fans and open up the old cowshed end as well and make it cheaper say a fiver again but this time make it only for under 25s a fiver.
- The ticket prices are bad at Widnes it's way cheaper for Halifax and I noticed it was £1 for under 13s there. We need to do that.
- Get the old naughton park roar back and get players wearing the black and white with pride
I think the chances of finding a top international standard player in the amateur games these days is miniscule. The academy system basically means they are hoovered at a young age by the big clubs, and the ones who aren't good enough to play SL filter down into the lower leagues.
I cant imagine any good young players now choosing Widnes over Saints/Wigan/Wire. Why would anyone refuse the offer of better coaching, facilities and coaching to play at a lower level?
The game is up pal. The club is finished.
Absolutely no chance of progression under this guise.
One about the young lads.
It’s not necessarily about lads choosing Wigan/Saints/Wire over Widnes. They don’t have Widnes as a choice - there is no youth set up!!
Good players will go to the above clubs at 14 if offered a spot because Widnes don’t have a pathway. Warrington run a coaching scheme via their foundation open to absolutely anyone and run sessions and play games - they have over 1,000 kids signed up at various age groups so those players are already under their umbrella.
I’ve said numerous times that sessions can be set up by community coaches under the supervision and guidance of the club coaching staff as part of their role, it could have even been something the likes of Jack Owens got involved in.
Widnes’ only hope is to pick up the 18 year olds that other clubs don’t want and give them a chance, you can certainly find players there (Craven and Whitley came via Saints this way) but there needs to be some structure/pathway for these players to develop and get an opportunity.
Ditching the academy was categorically the worst thing we did during the last 5 years, we continue to throw money at average players in the first team who continually fail whilst allowing our towns young talent to go and flourish elsewhere.
And what hurts even more is that Ryan O'Brien is running Wire's youth initiative!
Few things.
Why are MP & LD going to come to Widnes for a season??
Even when Widnes did have an academy/pathway lots of lads chose other teams. Why? Chance of a good career at a successful club.
Just because you come from a town doesn't mean you automatically want to play for them, especially when the club is struggling so much & there is a much better opportunity up the road.
Baffling to think this way constantly. There are some players who's family are big Widnes fans, but their sons are playing elsewhere for a variety of reasons. The one at the top of the list I suspect is that being at a S.L club offers better wages and more stability if you can make it.
How is moving the away fans (Which I presume will be a couple of hundred on a good day?) going to improve Widnes? Seems like a rambling wish for yesteryear based upon nostalgia and nothing else. Strange.
The 1,000 kids under the Wire scheme will have cost the club and resulted in how many top talent players? Walker had to get Widnes to play him before Wire took notice.
Whatever the youth system is the SL game is flooded with Southern Hemisphere players. Leigh, and of course Saints, have at least kept a good few youngsters playing behind their imports. Wire are still sorting the best mix out!
AS a sport we have to develop our youth but the cost is more a community benefit than a realistic saving for the club.
The result against the Broncos emphasises the financial benefits of a city club. I guess that IMG see that supporters formed by a small percentage of a big city population is easier to achieve than a big percentage of a small population. Sponsorship etc is more accessible.
Of course if their 'city' vision takes off and develops our present, non-city, clubs will be vulnerable. Even Saints/Wire/Wigan/Salford are only drawing from districts of Liverpool and Manchester!!!!!
@sandgroper sorry SG, how can the defeat to London emphasise the benefit of a city club? Does the defeat at other teams emphasise the benefit of much smaller towns than ours?
Sorry, not explained myself very well. The quality of player signed by Broncos indicates much bigger pockets that ours. But the price of everything down south is so much higher than north of Watford, so sponsorship will, I reckon be much easier to come by.
There will be, I suspect, a similar bigger pool of potentional support, both financial and physical at other city options while we struggle in an area very poor on both fronts.
Our defeat doesn't signify anything other than they were bigger and better. Likewise smaller smaller clubs who can manage to draw from a bigger pool of tough forwards can beat us, and maybe spend less on players than we do. That has been the case for years and I can't see a way out without we can find tough forwards west of the Pennines prepared to play for what we can offer, and that is where Coleman might have knowledge that we have lacked.
Widnes could certainly more than hold its own against other teams before and after WW2 when the town was built on hard physical workers.
@sandgroper fair points mate, all I would add is that the potential support is all it is. I think I read(?) that the junior participation in RL in London is the biggest in the country, yet for some reason that hasn't led to a huge increase in crowds.
Next season we need to pull our fingers out and stop being losers. 7th and below is not acceptable. Big forwards and get a dual registration system with Wigan for some extra quality players to strengthen our squad. I am not a big fan of the system, but clubs seem to utilise it well hence why some clubs are in the top 6. 💪
@torn-sock-1 Yes it's nostalgia but also a way of utilising an empry stand. If we can get upwards of 500 home fans in the cow shed end paying a fiver each it's a little bit extra money and hopefully, if this doesn't sound too nostalgic, more noise in the ground to beef up the atmosphere and gee up the players
Of course it would require stewards, which is a cost!
The drummer has been missing for some time now. The kids would like the chanting etc and, much as I hated it, it did get everyone shouting. All this helps make our opponents feel unwanted!
@torn-sock-1 Yes it's nostalgia but also a way of utilising an empry stand. If we can get upwards of 500 home fans in the cow shed end paying a fiver each it's a little bit extra money and hopefully, if this doesn't sound too nostalgic, more noise in the ground to beef up the atmosphere and gee up the players
Costs too much to open a stand for a handful of away fans, in fact, don't be surprised if some time soon the North Stand becomes surplus to requirements. As a cost saving exercise the club may be looking to shut it, as all the 3000 average can fit in the South.
Paulie xx
The thing which worries me , is why owe (our management) , seem to believe that replacing benter players with players from a club very possibly being relegated is going to make us into a playoff probable with promotion aspirations.
Not wanting to keep banging the same drum , but why do we seem , in my humble opinion , to be looking to assemble a squad on the cheap. This seems be be in direct contradiction to the statements made telling us how we are in such a strong position compared to most Championship clubs.
I was looking forward to us being competitive next year, but I think I am deluded .
After a false dawn, this season has been a story of one disappointment after another and valuable revenue has been lost by failing to reach the playoffs and not progressing in the sunbed cup after humiliation at the hands of Dewsbury.
I hope some really solid signings will be announced to give me some confidence r or next season.