What if....? : Sun Feb 25, 2018 10:59 pm  

I know it is very early days and we shouldn't be thinking past Sheffield, but what if we do go up to SL?
If promoted via the MPG then we would have 4 months to either increase capacity at Trailfinders (planning consents etc) or make pans to take games "on the road".
Leeds crowd in the 8's last year was 1,900 or there abouts, but if surely we would not have the capacity (3,000?) to accommodate them in a regular season game, or the likes of Wigan and Saints.
Griffin Park would be available for 2018, or maybe a return to Barnet, but ideally if we could put a temporary stand opposite the grand stand we could accommodate 6,000 which would suffice. How many did the old temporary stand at HKR hold?

Re: What if....? : Mon Feb 26, 2018 7:47 am  

Whats Trailfinders plans if they get promoted?

Re: What if....? : Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:33 am  

Their stated plan last year was “we don’t want to be promoted”

Re: What if....? : Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:58 am  

I believe, don’t quote me though, Trailfinders last year said they would have turned down promotion last year had they earned it, but they would plan for future promotion, what ever that meant.
Back to the same old question could they develop Ealing.
The broncos plan last year was to stay based at Ealing but play at other ground in london to comply if they could not get a stand approved with Trailfinders help

Re: What if....? : Mon Feb 26, 2018 9:11 am  

I'll start thinking about promotion in June, when I see how Injury free we are, and if our chairman will strengthen the squad prior to the 8's to make sure we can cope with Injuries to key players. We have the 17 good enough to go up, but not much beyond.

Kear will be back in a few weeks, hopefully Harrison will be back soon as well. But we need to try and blood meadows more in some games to get him ready for the 8's if something happens to Api or to Sammut.

Re: What if....? : Mon Feb 26, 2018 9:33 am  

Spoke to Dan Harrison yesterday. In great spirits as always - he's a top bloke! - looking at maybe 10 weeks!

Re: What if....? : Mon Feb 26, 2018 9:49 am  

Call Me God wrote:

or make pans to take games "on the road".

Seriously worried about the catering strategy for the on the road games!

A planning application would take around 13 weeks, though pretty useless unless the pre-application discussion have been had and they’d need a good few weeks. If realistic ambitions to achieve and stay put (either code) the application ought to be in and it can sit there for 1-2 years depending on speed of success.

Re: What if....? : Mon Feb 26, 2018 11:32 am  

crashmon wrote:

We have the 17 good enough to go up, but not much beyond.

Disagree with this.
Imo we have 22-23 players of the quality needed to at least finish in the top two.
We had first teamers Kear, Harrison, Evans, Gee and Channing missing yesterday and still spanked one of the favourites.

Saying that, if we get injuries in the halves or at hooker then we might struggle somewhat.

Re: What if....? : Mon Feb 26, 2018 11:56 am  

We are, im guessing way below the cap (based on who left and who joined at the end of the season). Should we need to I hope we would bring in players to bolster the squad if needed (easier said than done) but it would be a real shame if injuries/squad size cost us. That was my point about Leigh and Toronto, they will just throw money at players to boost the squad if needed.

Re: What if....? : Mon Feb 26, 2018 1:50 pm  

Jossy B wrote:

Disagree with this.
Saying that, if we get injuries in the halves or at hooker then we might struggle somewhat.

Thats the concern, Meadows has great promise, but you saw the difference Api brings to the the team. Halves and hooker are the key positions we will need to unlock Super league defences, and that is where we are very thin