personally, I would sooner have seen us recruit four part time reliable workhorses than keep two full time "past their best" players just because of their past efforts for Widnes. I am sure both players would have taken part time deals.
There are clubs in the championship who have assembled decent squads on budgets lower than ours and if we were paying a couple of full time wages , I think we could have got much more bang for our buck.
@griffin1 I'm sure they both would have accepted part time.If not then they were free to look elsewhere for full time.Poor business.
On IMG's scorecard, under 'Fandom', fan engagement carries a max score of 0.6. Whereas in 'Performance', winning the championship only carries a max of 0.25. So maybe Jack and Danny are doing us a favour there 😆
A disappointing result, if we have ambitions of a play-off position. The difference between the teams was their kicking game and too many mistakes.
What is the point of going to the Featherstone game, if we are going to perform like this, with maybe Lyons and Owens at half-back? If Gilmore is anywhere near fit, he should play.
Kear pretty much confirmed Gilmore won’t play on Sunday, Frank. I wouldn’t put him in unless the club is 100 percent certain he is fully rehabilitated tbh. We have another 16 games left after Sunday and we don’t want both Craven and Gilmore crocked. It does look a tad bleak this week though.
@mt Going by the results this season, I suppose we could hope for a freak result against Featherstone. Having said that, depending on results, we could be 9th in the table on Sunday!!!!!
Cant see how we can be lower than eighth come Sunday night unless we get docked some points! Makes for an interesting league when there are only 4 points between second and eighth as there are just now though.
It's a competitive division, I hope we're in a play-off position come the end of the season and we have a stab at causing some damage. Really, what was anybody else expecting? If we don't make the play-offs, I agree questions should be asked.
I thought we would likely scrape into the play offs and on balance I still do. It’s a decent improvement on the last couple of seasons but I’ve no real belief that we can be a genuine position to challenge for the title.
Nor do I but then I didn't at the start of the season either. And when our biggest signing went down first game, I anticipated less. I'm not doing this on purpose, I just get the feeling that we win a couple of games, people think we're going up, we lose a couple of games, people want everyone firing.
We ain't got much money, we're not super league bound anytime soon, we're a long-term project. We all want better but, really, we couldn't do massively better with what we have could we? We can't pay 20 players off and get 20 new ones. We can't attract top players unless they live locally and can fit it in with their other commitments.
We're a bit boring, I agree. And we've got players maybe we want rid of. I don't know, this is how it works when you're a mid-Championship team I guess.
In perspective, Batley area good team and were last years runners up so if anyone expected to beat them at their place then you had very high hopes! I expected a close game and that was what we got. Not at all ‘blaming’ the ref, but on another day a ref stood a couple of feet to one side sees a flat pass and the the result goes the other way. Similarly losing a spine player in the first five mins would hurt any team.
My real concern though is if we have lost Craven (calf tear) and Benty (ACL) for potentially the rest of the season then we are running desperately low on options.
I believe Batley are not the same team as last year without Gilmore, and a few other players too. They are an okay team and I do expect to win and could not get the points down the hill says the story of our creativity. Batley had a few key players missing and an opportunity missed again for points. 🥖🥖
@pascal Going on Gilmore's injury record throughout his career I fear he could well suffer another one at any time. It is ironical that during his 2 years at Batley he hardly missed a game.
Geoff I agree with you mate. More reason to sign a durable halfback and 2 biscuits is a recipe for disaster. 🥖🥖👍
If he had a pack like Batley's to protect him, there would by nothing to worry about. We're soft in certain areas, compared to seasoned Championship teams.
Paulie xx
Agreed.We really shouldn't be expecting or even hoping for a win at Batley.It's best we just accept our status as also rans.In perspective, Batley area good team and were last years runners up so if anyone expected to beat them at their place then you had very high hopes! I expected a close game and that was what we got.