Re: Doom and Gloom! : Mon May 20, 2013 10:57 pm  

markrammond wrote: I personally felt that this season would be a great one if we could avoid the bottom three and a good one if we could avoid bottom given the squad we had, which let's face it has been consistently been at a 20% win rate for the last 40 games of Mac's tenure, not even that with Powell and now is at around the 33% mark since Tony came back, so is improving but not even Wayne Bennett could expect to put Alex Hurst against Pat Richards or lose his one Hooker, who is the retired assistant coach after 5 minutes, and hold out against Wigan. Some days you are the pigeon and some days you are the statue. I didn't enjoy being the statue. It was like being in an electric chair. Rammo Well said Rammo. Tony Rea has the hand he has been dealt with. Judge him more on next season, which is asking a lot of the poor long suffering London fan, but he is obviously looking at new signings. markrammond wrote: The lists of off-contract players are common knowledge: http://www.zerotackle.com/super-league/ ... ract-2013/ It is also common knowledge of the anti-tamper deadline by which time clubs notify players of their thinking The club has not announced a contract extension for any of these players as yet, so we can assume that many will be leaving. Whether this will be externally communicated or we will see them at the last game on the pitch is a different thing. Obviously a promised conditional contract is still not job security and be unsettling still perhaps. That's good news about the anti-tampering as in the past London players were messed around so much by the club. But do remember, the club are also incredibly stingey with information about signings and have always kept quite schtum in the past. It always seemed to have been on a "need to know" basis. I just had a flashback to about 2000, when we were poor, then the club at different times announced the signings of people like Richie Barnett, Jason Hetherington, Jimmy Dymock, Dennis Moran etc. Oh for a weaker dollar again.

markrammond wrote: I personally felt that this season would be a great one if we could avoid the bottom three and a good one if we could avoid bottom given the squad we had, which let's face it has been consistently been at a 20% win rate for the last 40 games of Mac's tenure, not even that with Powell and now is at around the 33% mark since Tony came back, so is improving but not even Wayne Bennett could expect to put Alex Hurst against Pat Richards or lose his one Hooker, who is the retired assistant coach after 5 minutes, and hold out against Wigan. Some days you are the pigeon and some days you are the statue. I didn't enjoy being the statue. It was like being in an electric chair. Rammo Well said Rammo. Tony Rea has the hand he has been dealt with. Judge him more on next season, which is asking a lot of the poor long suffering London fan, but he is obviously looking at new signings. markrammond wrote: The lists of off-contract players are common knowledge: http://www.zerotackle.com/super-league/ ... ract-2013/ It is also common knowledge of the anti-tamper deadline by which time clubs notify players of their thinking The club has not announced a contract extension for any of these players as yet, so we can assume that many will be leaving. Whether this will be externally communicated or we will see them at the last game on the pitch is a different thing. Obviously a promised conditional contract is still not job security and be unsettling still perhaps. That's good news about the anti-tampering as in the past London players were messed around so much by the club. But do remember, the club are also incredibly stingey with information about signings and have always kept quite schtum in the past. It always seemed to have been on a "need to know" basis. I just had a flashback to about 2000, when we were poor, then the club at different times announced the signings of people like Richie Barnett, Jason Hetherington, Jimmy Dymock, Dennis Moran etc. Oh for a weaker dollar again.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Tue May 21, 2013 5:16 am  

Rooster Booster wrote:

which is asking a lot of the poor long suffering London fan,

never before has the use of singular as opposed to plural been more accurate....

Not sure what you think is the current base at the Club RB, but I can assure you it is well below 800 ST holders.

The Club are moving, but as yet refuse to tell their fans where too and by the sounds of it, a good number of the squad received letters saying "thanks but no thanks for 2015" over the last week or so and reacted on the pitch v Wigan.

Seriously....the club as they are now are not in any way shape or form the club you seem to remember from your days on the ground.....2,181 is the average gate to date, 13th in the table with 2 points let in for each one we score.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Tue May 21, 2013 5:40 am  

gutterfax wrote:

never before has the use of singular as opposed to plural been more accurate....

Not sure what you think is the current base at the Club RB, but I can assure you it is well below 800 ST holders.

The Club are moving, but as yet refuse to tell their fans where too and by the sounds of it, a good number of the squad received letters saying "thanks but no thanks for 2015" over the last week or so and reacted on the pitch v Wigan.

Seriously....the club as they are now are not in any way shape or form the club you seem to remember from your days on the ground.....2,181 is the average gate to date, 13th in the table with 2 points let in for each one we score.

Less than 800 is sad isn't it.

As has been mentioned previous, the club have always been tight lipped about anything over the years. This has been a cause of frustration for many over many years.

It is interesting to hear that clubs are telling people now as over here that isn't the done thing. Believe it or not a large percentage of players in a 25-33 man squad are uncertain of their future year on year. Also as I intimated, this can be a good thing as a player knows now where their future lies. In this instance, not at London. And if this is a common occurence in the UK now, then other players at other clubs will have been given notice also. Maybe even at Wigan also.

Thing is, how does a player respond? If you think about it. You tell your manager and if you want a future in the top flight you play your nuts off for the rest of the season, trying to attract a new club. You don't do that, then tata off to part timer land or you're simply not good enough for first grade anyway.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Tue May 21, 2013 11:52 am  

I think the thing is that some people will be upset with any home loss, even if they have previously enjoyed three consecutive home wins in a row and can lose sight of previously better perfornances, but then we left in a world of instantaneous communication and immediate gratification.

The reality of this game is that played the best team in the league who were 1/10 on with many bookies and at close to full strength and were well beaten. Any home supporter could be justifiably disappointed with the earlyness of the collapse which went on from about six minutes onwards and which you would not expect when players are still relatively fresh.

We were simply outclassed, with one player able to cut us to pieces through the middle and getting a hat-trick and setting up at least three tries and two other international wingers doing the same on the flanks. The guys were demoralised that is for sure.

The underlying issue is that we have signings from Tony's first spell, Mac's spell, Powell's spell and Tony's second spell.

Mac tended to sign players who were already old or Leeds/Bradford youngsters who did not make the grade, gave short contracts to our home grown players but longer contracts to the older players. Powell signed players who were injury prone or again further renewed contracts just as Mac also did.

Tony has already released 10 players and he'll be close to doing the same again so he is actively managing the problem, whenever contracts expire, so he is doing all he can.

I don't want people to be driving away Tony or alienating the players.

I mean come on, is Gus going to be interested in a fan's forum when people are basically downright insulting him at every opportunity? Is reminding the club daily of dwindling attendances going to add more. Sometimes you can kill the one you love but not through kindness but your unkindness.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Tue May 21, 2013 12:12 pm  

markrammond wrote:

To save space on the page. What you just said above

You make so much sense to me.

Which could be worrying for you

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Tue May 21, 2013 2:18 pm  

markrammond wrote:

I think the thing is that some people will be upset with any home loss, even if they have previously enjoyed three consecutive home wins in a row and can lose sight of previously better perfornances, but then we left in a world of instantaneous communication and immediate gratification.

The reality of this game is that played the best team in the league who were 1/10 on with many bookies and at close to full strength and were well beaten. Any home supporter could be justifiably disappointed with the earlyness of the collapse which went on from about six minutes onwards and which you would not expect when players are still relatively fresh.

We were simply outclassed, with one player able to cut us to pieces through the middle and getting a hat-trick and setting up at least three tries and two other international wingers doing the same on the flanks. The guys were demoralised that is for sure.

The underlying issue is that we have signings from Tony's first spell, Mac's spell, Powell's spell and Tony's second spell.

Mac tended to sign players who were already old or Leeds/Bradford youngsters who did not make the grade, gave short contracts to our home grown players but longer contracts to the older players. Powell signed players who were injury prone or again further renewed contracts just as Mac also did.

Tony has already released 10 players and he'll be close to doing the same again so he is actively managing the problem, whenever contracts expire, so he is doing all he can.

I don't want people to be driving away Tony or alienating the players.

I mean come on, is Gus going to be interested in a fan's forum when people are basically downright insulting him at every opportunity? Is reminding the club daily of dwindling attendances going to add more. Sometimes you can kill the one you love but not through kindness but your unkindness.

We have this last season 2013 at the Stoop. Many players are OOC this season and are not expected to be retained so are not allways putting a shift it.

Next season 2014 we move to a new ground and have to apply again for a franchise - or maybe DH will say he's had enough (This is what i expect him to do)

Any players we try to sign at the end of this season will be thinking are they going to even apply for a franchise - llet alone be granted one (which is in doubt). So...who will sign for us? If TR can't get better players than this bunch then we will not get any improvement in 2014.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Tue May 21, 2013 2:42 pm  

If we imagined we were going fishing then our pools could be the NRL, Super League, the second tier Australian competitions and then the second tier English competitions.

The exchange rate suggests that the NRL will be a very expensive pool for anyone to go fishing in which cuts down the options of all in Super League.

The Super League competition is one in which established talent is likely to be overpriced if they come to London meaning you are likely to end up with declining veterans or non-established players at a larger price than they are worth.

The second tier English competition has some handy players, especially when people have exploited the Kolpak ruling to sign international Papua New Guineans like Menzie Yere, Jessie Joe Parker and Rodney Pora and some of the younger players cannot be discounted.

But where I think will prove most fruitful is the fringe players in the NRL and lower tier leagues and that is why I am very pleased Tony is in place. He has a proven track record of discovery in these leagues.

Assuming many players are released, then we can strike at what we need.

The quality of Tony's network is such that Phil Bailey was released almost the moment that Tony arrived as he wasn't needed.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Tue May 21, 2013 3:42 pm  

I'm not sure how many players in Oz will be interested in coming to any SL club next season. There was an article in the 'Independent' today about how a large part of London's antipodean community are now going home because of the c**p exchange rate between the pound and Oz dollar. Has RB any thoughts on this?

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Tue May 21, 2013 6:06 pm  

markrammond wrote:

The reality of this game is that played the best team in the league who were 1/10 on with many bookies and at close to full strength and were well beaten. Any home supporter could be justifiably disappointed with the earlyness of the collapse which went on from about six minutes onwards and which you would not expect when players are still relatively fresh.

We were simply outclassed, with one player able to cut us to pieces through the middle and getting a hat-trick and setting up at least three tries and two other international wingers doing the same on the flanks. The guys were demoralised that is for sure.

I don't think a single person is angry about the defeat, that's a straw man. But plenty are angry at the surrender which, as a paying customer, I won't accept.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Tue May 21, 2013 6:13 pm  

markrammond wrote:

I personally felt that this season would be a great one if we could avoid the bottom three and a good one if we could avoid bottom given the squad we had,

With all respect, I don't think that's what you said in pre-season.