Well said sandgroper but, sadly, common sense isn’t as common as you might hope.
In effect the club are building a business from a low base. That requires careful attention to expenditure and investment to make progress. Lashing out on ‘big’ signings is one way that could succeed or fail disastrously, which is more likely tbh. If someone would step up like Beaumont and is willing to chance his arm, and his money, the club would probably welcome him, but would still need to secure the club from failure. Rebuilding will take time and patience, but that doesn’t equate to ‘lack of ambition’ it equates to common sense!
If the club have no ambition then they have failed from the offset. We should be more than able to compete with anyone in the championship even without a money man. Our crowds are excellent plus the VIQI and not splashing out dead money on assistants, assistants assistants and made up positions in the club. Add to this the huge directors salaries and the cost of running a very over rated academy, then we should be in a strong position to compete.
Not competing in Super League is one thing but then you read about trying to compete in the second division.I know we have fallen but fallen that far ?
Anything outside the Play-Offs is an outright failure in this league.
Let us not forget that previous coaches have been sacked even though they qualified for them.
York had a successful season in 2019 even though they clearly have a smaller fanbase and nowhere near the same level of VIQI support. Sheffield brought a really small number of fans to Wembley compared to us, but beat us hands down. They are lucky to get a 4 figure gate.
I don’t expect us to get promoted at the end of the 2021 season but I would consider missing out on the playoffs as a below-par effort. With our fanbase and the quality of players in the squad (even if it currently lacks depth) we should be finishing in the top five.
And then improving on it in 2022 and pushing for promotion.
In effect the club are building a business from a low base. That requires careful attention to expenditure and investment to make progress. Lashing out on ‘big’ signings is one way that could succeed or fail disastrously, which is more likely tbh. If someone would step up like Beaumont and is willing to chance his arm, and his money, the club would probably welcome him, but would still need to secure the club from failure. Rebuilding will take time and patience, but that doesn’t equate to ‘lack of ambition’ it equates to common sense!
If the club have no ambition then they have failed from the offset. We should be more than able to compete with anyone in the championship even without a money man. Our crowds are excellent plus the VIQI and not splashing out dead money on assistants, assistants assistants and made up positions in the club. Add to this the huge directors salaries and the cost of running a very over rated academy, then we should be in a strong position to compete.
I thought Finney said they want to be in SL but that the primary aim this season is to get a good season’s performance ‘under their belt’ and not risk getting hammered financially. They are building the foundations for a solid future. That sounds like ambition and common sense to me.
I thought Finney said they want to be in SL but that the primary aim this season is to get a good season’s performance ‘under their belt’ and not risk getting hammered financially. They are building the foundations for a solid future. That sounds like ambition and common sense to me.
Finney did say that the Club's ambition was to get back into SL through performances on the pitch and that 2021 was too early. I agree that this shows ambition and common sense. Compare that to Bradford, where there must be a question as to their future if they are immediately relegated, in view of their ongoing (and continuing) financial difficulties since 2012. Similarly, would Beaumont walk away again and leave Leigh in financial meltdown, although Leigh do seem to be building a team capable of competing in SL.
Tbh Leigh look more likely to make a fist of it than Bradford or Toulouse. Getting the chance might be difficult though! DB's past performances might go against him.
Give this a thought...
If Covid never happened, under the guidance of Sheens, we may have been taking our place in SL, next March, anyway.
We'll never know. Would we have refused entry, because we are 'not ready' yet? I very much doubt it. Okay, the funding would have been a lot more for a naturally promoted team, but I think we should have applied, just to show SL that we haven't gone a way.
Paulie xx
Give this a thought… If Covid never happened, under the guidance of Sheens, we may have been taking our place in SL, next March, anyway. We’ll never know. Would we have refused entry, because we are ‘not ready’ yet? I very much doubt it. Okay, the funding would have been a lot more for a naturally promoted team, but I think we should have applied, just to show SL that we haven’t gone a way. Paulie xx
There’s a bit in the Life of Brian where Eric Idle demands the right to have a baby and someone says something along the lines of ‘It’s symbolic of his struggle against oppression’ and John Cleese’s character says ‘It’s symbolic of his struggle against reality’.
Covid did happen, Sheens has gone and the club is still skint. SL want canon fodder for next season hoping that one of the expansion teams will be ready in 2022. Whoever goes up will likely go very close to being bankrupted next year.
The way for us to show we are still around is to win the Championship in 2022 having had a good solid season next year (hopefully making the play-offs). SL knows who and where we are - let’s stick to reality and solid growth for a bit.
Give this a thought… If Covid never happened, under the guidance of Sheens, we may have been taking our place in SL, next March, anyway. We’ll never know. Would we have refused entry, because we are ‘not ready’ yet? I very much doubt it. Okay, the funding would have been a lot more for a naturally promoted team, but I think we should have applied, just to show SL that we haven’t gone a way. Paulie xx
I thought we should have put a case together, but not sure how it would go down if the application highlighted that we really don't want the application to be successful because we are not ready!!
In answer to your question, the difference would be that we would have had a successful season with a confident team winning games (and hopefully playing a good style of rugby) and probably an increase in crowds and sponsorship. Taken together with the increased funding, I am sure that we could have retained the best of the squad (who were prepared to go full-time) and built on the squad with the addition of some SL standard signings - and Sheens would have been lauded as a legend!!.
But we will never know.
Of course we would'nt have refused entry to SL via promotion, that is completely different.We would have had a full, competitive season behind us, we would have had the financial benefit of healthy home crowds as the top club in the league,we would have had from September to recruit and prepare instead of the middle of December and would receive the extra SL money as mentioned.There were no such guarantees under Sheens anyway whose reputation goes before him.The loss at Dewsbury was'nt a great indication of what might have been.
Give this a thought… If Covid never happened, under the guidance of Sheens, we may have been taking our place in SL, next March, anyway. We’ll never know. Would we have refused entry, because we are ‘not ready’ yet? I very much doubt it. Okay, the funding would have been a lot more for a naturally promoted team, but I think we should have applied, just to show SL that we haven’t gone a way. Paulie xx
There’s a bit in the Life of Brian where Eric Idle demands the right to have a baby and someone says something along the lines of ‘It’s symbolic of his struggle against oppression’ and John Cleese’s character says ‘It’s symbolic of his struggle against reality’. Covid did happen, Sheens has gone and the club is still skint. SL want canon fodder for next season hoping that one of the expansion teams will be ready in 2022. Whoever goes up will likely go very close to being bankrupted next year. The way for us to show we are still around is to win the Championship in 2022 having had a good solid season next year (hopefully making the play-offs). SL knows who and where we are – let’s stick to reality and solid growth for a bit.
Sick of hearing this we are no more skint than 98 % of championship clubs to be positive we are better off than 98% of them. We should have applied to show ambition to both the fans and the RL who will now be under the impression we don't have the ambition. SL would of selected who they want which would not be us but it would have been an opportunity and learning curve to go through the process which would stand us in good stead if licensing returns. This is one time that we should of made up the numbers.
Disagree.We decided for ourselves that we won't be in SL next year instead of allowing the panel to tell us we won't be in SL.There is nothing whatsover to gain by it.
Disagree.We decided for ourselves that we won’t be in SL next year instead of allowing the panel to tell us we won’t be in SL.There is nothing whatsover to gain by it.
It's like you or I going for a job interview and we don't get the job, we have the experience of the actual interview and the feed back on why.