Re: Players next year : Wed Oct 05, 2016 7:57 pm  

woolly07 wrote:

Planning to rebuild over a couple of years is a dangerous plan. If you don't get back up straight away you will lose your best players and get stuck in that division. When the Bulls went down ticket prices were sold under the banner of being a SL team playing in the championship. Now, we have signed too many championship players because the cap was half that of SL and we didn't have the money anyway. We have now turned into a genuine championship team. Stay there too long and you turn into them. That is why you must get straight back up.
You must not sign players to finish in the top four. You will do that easily enough.
You have got 23 pre-season warm up games ahead of the real middle 8 competition. It isn't the championship teams you need to sign players to beat. It is those 4 SL teams you need to beat. The ones you couldn't beat this time. So, you actually need a better team than you have now on a budget of £1.5m less.
That is how tough it will be. It is possible as Leigh have shown but they have an owner who paid out big time.
The other danger is that those 23 pre-season games don't prepare you for the SL teams. Standards drop and players lose that edge against poor championship teams and can't lift when August comes around.
It will be interesting to see how you go but there are so many obstacles ahead that aren't apparent till you have been there for a while.

Excellent and informative post. Thank you.

The secret seems to be to save some cap space until the start of July and tool up with more quality for the serious end when the middle 8s start in earnest. The trouble is that our current perception of SL player quality falls short in actual reality and in the eyes of most of our fans who have been watching RL for many years. Hoping Tim Sheens is better placed to reshape current thinking on recruitment. Danny Addy FFS is a prime example of our current aberrations.

Re: Players next year : Wed Oct 05, 2016 8:04 pm  

HDM are set to report Lunt has agreed to stay.

Re: Players next year : Wed Oct 05, 2016 8:04 pm  

Sounds rubbish.

Quite liked it in The Championship before, not too keen now.

Re: Players next year : Wed Oct 05, 2016 8:05 pm  

woolly07 wrote:

Planning to rebuild over a couple of years is a dangerous plan. If you don't get back up straight away you will lose your best players and get stuck in that division. When the Bulls went down ticket prices were sold under the banner of being a SL team playing in the championship. Now, we have signed too many championship players because the cap was half that of SL and we didn't have the money anyway. We have now turned into a genuine championship team. Stay there too long and you turn into them. That is why you must get straight back up.
You must not sign players to finish in the top four. You will do that easily enough.
You have got 23 pre-season warm up games ahead of the real middle 8 competition. It isn't the championship teams you need to sign players to beat. It is those 4 SL teams you need to beat. The ones you couldn't beat this time. So, you actually need a better team than you have now on a budget of £1.5m less.
That is how tough it will be. It is possible as Leigh have shown but they have an owner who paid out big time.
The other danger is that those 23 pre-season games don't prepare you for the SL teams. Standards drop and players lose that edge against poor championship teams and can't lift when August comes around.
It will be interesting to see how you go but there are so many obstacles ahead that aren't apparent till you have been there for a while.

Really good advice Woolly07.

We need to keep as many players that we can and ditch those that aren't good enough (I would get rid of: Sio because he's going, Kelly, Dixon, Horne, Campo, Green and Boudebza) A team of Cockayne, Shaw, Minns, Thornley, Mantellatto, Marsh, AN OTHER, Walker, Lunt, Tilse, Blair, Greenwood and Clarkson with a bench of Allgood, Scruton, Donaldson and Larroyer will get us in to the top two. Then when the transfer deadline comes late in the season we have three overseas spots for short term signings.

It would be difficult to keep Lunt, Blair and Walker but we do need to keep the quality to beat the sl teams in the play offs, that's why we need to keep open the overseas places so that we can strengthen at the end of the season just before the play offs.

Re: Players next year : Wed Oct 05, 2016 8:06 pm  

Neil Hudgel just said on 5 live that they are struggling to hang on to players as the vultures are circling and agents are bandying about there players to other clubs,never mentioned names.

Re: Players next year : Wed Oct 05, 2016 8:30 pm  

fun time frankie wrote:

I'm seeing his dad tomorrow so I'll ask him what's happening with Callum on another point Danny Addy is stalling now so if it was me I'd say do one I was underwhelmed when I heard we'd signed him even more so now

My point about Addy was more about the Bulls than us. I don't necessarily think he's a fantastic signing.

We must plan for promotion next year, not 2 or more years. Saying that is like writing off next season.

My concern is that there's not much left to choose from already. However, all of us are discounting how Peacock is regarded in the playing community and his contacts (regardless of what the public and media think of him), and none of us have given much thought to what strings Mr Sheens can pull himself.

All the official signs coming out club are on the money so far. Lets hope the new playing staff will be as well.

Re: Players next year : Wed Oct 05, 2016 9:03 pm  

SirStan wrote:

HDM are set to report Lunt has agreed to stay.

That would be a massive coup if true

Re: Players next year : Wed Oct 05, 2016 9:03 pm  

Pickering Red wrote:

Excellent and informative post. Thank you.

The secret seems to be to save some cap space until the start of July and tool up with more quality for the serious end when the middle 8s start in earnest. The trouble is that our current perception of SL player quality falls short in actual reality and in the eyes of most of our fans who have been watching RL for many years. Hoping Tim Sheens is better placed to reshape current thinking on recruitment. Danny Addy FFS is a prime example of our current aberrations.

Cracking advice from 'woolly07'. The intensity of the majority of games against Championship teams is way below that of SL, and just doesn't prepare you for the shock awaiting in the 'Qualifiers'.

Woolly would probably also tell you that is why we (Leigh) always made our games against Bradford so difficult, (for us!) just to give us a couple of competitive matches!! Actually, a glance at a lot of our Championship results in 2016, would suggest that we appeared to make many, many more games extremely difficult for ourselves! Beware of some of the 'lesser' Championship clubs - a game against HKR will probably be seen as their cup final and they will up their game accordingly.

Re: Players next year : Wed Oct 05, 2016 9:07 pm  

Punos wrote:

There are a few good players at Fc not getting a game that would do very well in the Championship, maybe worth a look.

That was put to Hudgell on radio humberside and he said we wouldn't be signing any players from Hull

Re: Players next year : Wed Oct 05, 2016 9:09 pm  

SirStan wrote:

HDM are set to report Lunt has agreed to stay.

Massive I'm we can keep hold of him.