The club's PR machine will make sure most of our fans accept the recruitment campaign as a success. They will make a big fuss of Widdop, there will be the right sort of interviews with the Warrington Guardian where the players talk about how well training is going, some of the longer serving players will be brought out to give the line "this is the strongest squad we've had in my time here". Either Karl Fitzpatrick or one of the coaches will say something like "there are no excuses now, it's time to win the Grand Final".
The mood on here will be a lot more positive after these feel good stories over the Christmas period. Wait till people start posting threads of predictions for SL 2020, at least half of the posts will have us finishing top, others who don't have us finishing top will say we're going to win the GF. Even rubber duckie who seems to be in critical mode right now, will be telling everyone that we will win the double.
There will be some thread about the Academy that concludes we have a set of young guns ready to take the league by storm. Then there will be one about what's your strongest starting 17 which will conclude that the big difference between this year and the years before is the 'strength in depth' - in 2020 we'll almost be able to field 2 squads equally strong!
Then wait till we have the pre-season army camp, we'll have stories in the Warrington Guardian about how they spent a week on Brecon Beacons training with the paras and it will be red meat to the masses on here, there will be posts saying how great the current regime is, how in the old days they used to go for holiday camp in Lanzarote but that wouldn't be tolerated in the elite set up we have today.
Meanwhile a few of the old timers on here won't have drunk the 'Kool Aid' (Wires71, lefty, me) and will start asking pointed questions, we will get told we are free to go and support Wigan, if we can't get behind the team.
Then the first two weeks of the season are going to be against Wigan and Saints and it will be a cold shower of reality.
Brilliant post totally agree with everything you've put here...the 1st 2 games could see price being shipped out cos for the life of me I can't see anything but 2 thumpings hope I'm wrong...
The club's PR machine will make sure most of our fans accept the recruitment campaign as a success. They will make a big fuss of Widdop, there will be the right sort of interviews with the Warrington Guardian where the players talk about how well training is going, some of the longer serving players will be brought out to give the line "this is the strongest squad we've had in my time here". Either Karl Fitzpatrick or one of the coaches will say something like "there are no excuses now, it's time to win the Grand Final".
The mood on here will be a lot more positive after these feel good stories over the Christmas period. Wait till people start posting threads of predictions for SL 2020, at least half of the posts will have us finishing top, others who don't have us finishing top will say we're going to win the GF. Even rubber duckie who seems to be in critical mode right now, will be telling everyone that we will win the double.
There will be some thread about the Academy that concludes we have a set of young guns ready to take the league by storm. Then there will be one about what's your strongest starting 17 which will conclude that the big difference between this year and the years before is the 'strength in depth' - in 2020 we'll almost be able to field 2 squads equally strong!
Then wait till we have the pre-season army camp, we'll have stories in the Warrington Guardian about how they spent a week on Brecon Beacons training with the paras and it will be red meat to the masses on here, there will be posts saying how great the current regime is, how in the old days they used to go for holiday camp in Lanzarote but that wouldn't be tolerated in the elite set up we have today.
Meanwhile a few of the old timers on here won't have drunk the 'Kool Aid' (Wires71, lefty, me) and will start asking pointed questions, we will get told we are free to go and support Wigan, if we can't get behind the team.
Then the first two weeks of the season are going to be against Wigan and Saints and it will be a cold shower of reality.
Awesome post, enjoyed reading and having a laugh.
Anyways I’m to old to fall for all that bull about how the roses will smell better next season. A lot of people on here agree we are short on a killer prop and no covering the ground with snow is going to hide that fact.
The club's PR machine will make sure most of our fans accept the recruitment campaign as a success.
Meanwhile a few of the old timers on here won't have drunk the 'Kool Aid' (Wires71, lefty, me) and will start asking pointed questions, we will get told we are free to go and support Wigan, if we can't get behind the team.
Then the first two weeks of the season are going to be against Wigan and Saints and it will be a cold shower of reality.
..and there we have it, in a nutshell
I've not read the WG for a few years, but I can almost predict word for word, Fitzpatrick's corporate bullsh1t, like it's from a late 80's yuppie in his striped shirt and red braces. I refuse to fall for it, because I've heard it, SO many times before, and despite 4 CCs in the last decade, nothing has changed. We are a side which takes underachievement to a new level. God knows we've had the investment. Peter Higham bringing Boyd, Tamati, Johnson, Davidson, Blake and Roach, Gregory and Drummond (whilst retaining Mike Gregory) at considerable expense. Then a total change of track, and investment in Welsh Union talent, and then the Youth policy era of early to mid 90's. Fast forward almost a decade, and we have Moran (and Middleton's) investment, and we STILL haven't won (what's considered) the title. I've said this umpteen times before, we're too nice. Saints, Wigan and to a certain extent Leeds don't accept failure from club legends. They sack em. We give them "jobs for the boys" positions, or contract extensions to losing finalist coaches
The "KOOL aid" had turned into 10 day old, sour milk, and is unpalletable. There are 30-50 regulars on these pages, and bar a few delibarate naysayers, we can ALL see where our problems/deficiencies lay, it's a pity the club don't.
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I think I'd rather not sign someone and keep a spot free through the season and see who becomes available, rather than sign someone from the NRL for the sake of it, who we are then stuck with for two years.
It's disappointing though, it really is a key signing for us and it's an area we've known needs strengthening for a while. It's not the final piece of the jigsaw for us in terms of putting together what I would consider a title challenging squad, but its a huge part of it.
The trade papers did say since the Tetevano signing was going nowhere that they had a couple of other options but no names mentioned.
Which means these Props will be 3rd-4th choice which always worries me. The likes of Kibula if he doesn't do much nobody expected much, but he could be a gem of a signing. Where as an NRL Prop i always expect a high standard and they rarely live up to it. I wonder what David Taylor is up to now a days, big Coal train on a one year could be brilliant.......or horrendous. I think a problem with getting a prop at the minute is there aren't any forwards of note off contract. So we have to get a club to agree to let them go, and have the player want to come over, then pay the prop out of his last or possibly more years contract. So they will indeed have to be the right person.