I don’t know why widnes weren’t in the market for those players? Surely we can match the playing budget of London who have a much smaller fan base and don’t own their ground
Pisses me off as only about 300 at London today with 50 from Widnes. How come a club with 10 times higher gates have a worse team than London? How they afford 2 quality players?
@mckviking it's got nothing to do with fan base or owning your own ground it's how much wonga your owner is willing to splash out.
We don't own our own ground 🤷♂️
Eighth in division two! I always took it for granted that Widnes were a big club at this level and should be in the top 3 every year,pushing for promotion.Seems I was wrong.Seems that assumption is a bit arrogant.Perhaps we should all lower our expectations and accept our position as a lower,mid table second division club ?
I don’t know why widnes weren’t in the market for those players? Surely we can match the playing budget of London who have a much smaller fan base and don’t own their ground
All to do with sponsorship and investment. London are a big city with a captive audience for sponsorship, we are saturated in the region with big and recently fairly successful teams, with which local sponsorship appears to be linked into better. Attendances are something different, but I would suspect we get a fair proportion of our income from this, but with other clubs, the opposite. Erik
Absolutely on the button Erik.
'The Smoke' sells itself with values totally screwed in the South as compared with the heartland clubs. You only need to look at the pedigree of their players, and we talk about Danny Craven etc!
Sadly this is where IMG will lead us tbh.
There may be justification for re-vamping the Championship into a PT only game with no SL loanees etc. That way our competition would be fairer and the SL cubs would have to look to their own devices to develop their players.
Eighth in division two! I always took it for granted that Widnes were a big club at this level and should be in the top 3 every year,pushing for promotion.Seems I was wrong.Seems that assumption is a bit arrogant.Perhaps we should all lower our expectations and accept our position as a lower,mid table second division club ?
This is absolutely true, I feel I’m in the minority sometimes to have such high expectations of Widnes in this division. The underperformance year on year often baffles me with the budget/attendance/draw/stadium etc we have over other clubs.
The truth is we haven’t nailed this division since 2001. For fans not around that time that’s the last (and only) time we’ve won promotion through winning the play off final.
Granted we got back up in 2012 but this was all off field based, we didn’t earn that on the field.
The day we accept our current position is probably the day I walk away. Perhaps it’s blind faith we all still stick around, but as I’ve said numberous times this year, something needs to change for us to find a way to challenge.
We’ve now given our head coach position to a coach who is about to be relegated, which doesn’t exactly get the juices flowing for next season.
Recruitment is key as I feel another dull average season next year and we’ll continue to lose fans, show some ambition with recruitment - every year we should be aiming for a top 2 finish.
Viking Man I think the majority of Widnes fans feel very dissatisfied with the clubs performances every season. Whatever it is bad choice of players, coaches and picking injury prone players. The only way for things to change in my opinion is the board members been upfront with fans and have a monthly fans forum meeting with the ambition or decisions that going to do. If the communication was better and felt part of the club many people would not walk away. The way the club is run there will be more not going to the games if the club accept just surviving in the Championship.
Every year we never seem to get durable players on the spine positions except for Fozard. Never had a permanent halfbacks, fullbacks, centres and hooker. Coaches constantly playing players in positions that not for them too. Lacked size in the pack and all this is not rocket science.
I will just pick games next year as fed up of the bullshit from people like Hamilton. The statement other clubs would love to be in our position for finances? Well 7 or 8 teams above us are fairing better and I prefer to be in the top 6 teams positions. 🥖🥖💪
Commentators think Fozard is injured and won't take part in the second half.
Foz had a 2" gash across his right eye-brow.
Paulie xx
Well who went the game to give an assessment on players performing and not performing? Another poor season and something has to be done at the top to bring a winning culture. There will be less wanting season tickets if recruit more dog crunchie players.
I went the game, and the players were just second best to London. The pack got battered, as they did when we played them at home. When your pack is beaten, then so are your Halfs, and thus, your backs get little quality service. At 6-0 Dixon scored a perfectly good try from a flat pass (I was sat in line with the pass). The TJ gave a try, the Ref overruled the TJ. Not saying we would have won the game, but 6-6 soon became 18-0 as Lawton's sin-binning killed us. It was a really hot day, but that's the same for both teams. The surface was immaculate, so no complaints, really. We were just 2nd best.
Paulie xx
Pisses me off as only about 300 at London today with 50 from Widnes. How come a club with 10 times higher gates have a worse team than London? How they afford 2 quality players?
Couldn't hazard a guess at the attendance but it looked more than 300, pretty sure there were a lot more than 50 Widnes fans there.
Well who went the game to give an assessment on players performing and not performing? Another poor season and something has to be done at the top to bring a winning culture. There will be less wanting season tickets if recruit more dog crunchie players.
I went the game, and the players were just second best to London. The pack got battered, as they did when we played them at home. When your pack is beaten, then so are your Halfs, and thus, your backs get little quality service. At 6-0 Dixon scored a perfectly good try from a flat pass (I was sat in line with the pass). The TJ gave a try, the Ref overruled the TJ. Not saying we would have won the game, but 6-6 soon became 18-0 as Lawton's sin-binning killed us. It was a really hot day, but that's the same for both teams. The surface was immaculate, so no complaints, really. We were just 2nd best.
Paulie xx
Agree with that assessment Paulie. Disappointed with the way Norman (playing on one leg) was allowed to dictate to such an extent late on that meant they ran away with it.
Can't quite understand the argument for walking away if we don't aim for SL.
Anyone watching the game knows that as things are atm only FT teams with top players are going to break out. That means 'money' which we ain't got and are unlikely to get any time soon. If you can't accept reality you have to walk away.
Our only hope is, as before, something like IMG and that will be aimed at city clubs (even present day strong RL clubs will fall away if bigger 'city' money comes into the frame).
Our new coach will, I hope, be realistic enough to realise that a big pack is an essential. Just how big we can afford is a question still on the table. At least he is coming from the ground up for a change and might just know enough to pick bigger grafters.