Re: Off Season Recruitment - By The Month : Thu May 18, 2023 4:14 pm  

Reboot wrote:

I have not seen them this year <caveat> but unless they have improved significantly Grant and Macani are hopeless. Cheap options in a cheap squad. Hoyes is young and I hope comes good. Playing second rows in the centre is pointless and ineffective.

The pack on paper should be able to handle itself.

I think the halves is where the problem is. The key area and we have gone with an old bloke and a kid, both on the better side of average. The back up is a kid and a hooker. Invest in this area as a priority.

I think Dalton is a solid first grader at Championship level, however it has been interesting watching Bassett at centre. I was sceptical on how he was going to go at first, but he's been a consistent scoring threat and seems to have slotted into the squad really nicely. Not sure Dalton would be starting ahead of him even if he was fit.

We have a decent starting pack and I like Williams & Silva off the bench, but I think we still need more in that department. Parata is doing a good job at 13, but he's kind of the best stop gap option we have. Luckily B Leyland has hit the ground running and is looking a real prospect and Davis has played well too, which has taken the pressure off at 9.

I hoped Raiwalui would have had more of an impact, but I'm still prepared to give him time. I thought he came up with some really nice touches for our tries in the Barrow game, so hopefully we see more of that side. I think part of our issue is that he and O Leyland are very similar types of halves i.e. both more of a 6 than 7.

Re: Off Season Recruitment - By The Month : Thu May 18, 2023 4:28 pm  

Reboot wrote:

I have not seen them this year <caveat> but unless they have improved significantly Grant and Macani are hopeless. Cheap options in a cheap squad. Hoyes is young and I hope comes good. Playing second rows in the centre is pointless and ineffective.

The pack on paper should be able to handle itself.

I think the halves is where the problem is. The key area and we have gone with an old bloke and a kid, both on the better side of average. The back up is a kid and a hooker. Invest in this area as a priority.

Unless he’s already on the beach, metaphorically, I’m sure this guy will be an asset but there are definitely other areas where we need creativity if we are to push on. Having said that - basically and sadly this season is already done so I can see the argument for not throwing money at the situation and leaving things as is and accepting 9th to 11th place. I doubt at this stage a run of good form is going to lead to an upswing in attendance. However, the point is fast approaching when we really do need to think about our retention and recruitment for next year and how we are going to grow the club. If we want to be anything other than also rans we will need to up our game. Wherever we are playing!

Re: Off Season Recruitment - By The Month : Thu May 18, 2023 4:32 pm  

[quote="Knocker_White"]I think Dalton is a solid first grader at Championship level, however it has been interesting watching Bassett at centre. I was sceptical on how he was going to go at first, but he's been a consistent scoring threat and seems to have slotted into the squad really nicely. Not sure Dalton would be starting ahead of him even if he was fit.

Yes he’s been good this year. He seems really positive and enthusiastic. Always runs and works hard and chases for the ball. He also appears to always be on the lookout to score which is a quality I’m not sure we’ve got in abundance.

Re: Off Season Recruitment - By The Month : Thu May 18, 2023 4:38 pm  

BigTime wrote:

However, the point is fast approaching when we really do need to think about our retention and recruitment for next year and how we are going to grow the club. If we want to be anything other than also rans we will need to up our game. Wherever we are playing!

Yep, this is a signing for half a season when we had obvious gaps since before the season started. Latecomers like Waine have certainly helped but the club are not exactly giving ourselves the best chance of being competitive. Cake emphasises the need for the team to gel. If that is so important, why did we not have the whole squad available well before the season started and have more pre season games.

Re: Off Season Recruitment - By The Month : Thu May 18, 2023 4:57 pm  

jbuzza wrote:

Yep, this is a signing for half a season when we had obvious gaps since before the season started. Latecomers like Waine have certainly helped but the club are not exactly giving ourselves the best chance of being competitive. Cake emphasises the need for the team to gel. If that is so important, why did we not have the whole squad available well before the season started and have more pre season games.

What do I know but I wonder if it’s not that we arent. trying to get a decent squad together or don’t want to spend the money ( we must have spent a small fortune on our poor and bloated squad by the end of last season) it’s just that we are naive as an organisation and we don’t learn lessons in a joined up way.
We went PT and were surprised and annoyed when the coaching staff and pretty much all the playing staff didn’t fancy it or fancy the terms we offered (or sorted out contracts elsewhere whilst we fannyied about).
We thought northerners would come to London and be part time brickies - they didn’t.
We thought the manager of a poor L1 side would crack the Championship- he couldn’t
We thought we could Hoover up quality from L1 - we couldn’t.
We thought we could access some mythical groundswell of southern talent- we couldn’t
We thought we could tap into some nebulous diverse communities vibe- we couldn’t.
We thought we’d access loads of overseas players who came over for the World Cup- we had some success but it was way later than optimal before 2/3 of what we got actually arrived.
And of course....
we thought if we moved to a nice new stadium all the people who went to Ealing would come, along with a load of AFC fans and hitherto untapped fans in South West London and we would have to make no effort on match experience, no engagement with local community and minimal marketing.
And that the GOLD LOUNGE experience was what the world was waiting for. Actually maybe naive wasn’t the right word after all.

Re: Off Season Recruitment - By The Month : Tue May 23, 2023 8:53 am  

Might not be seeing much of Ramon for a little while https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/65672162

Might not be seeing much of Ramon for a little while https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/65672162

Re: Off Season Recruitment - By The Month : Wed May 24, 2023 7:16 am  

It looks like our strategy is to hope that every season there are two teams worse than us in the League. This season we have three in Haven, Barrow, Newcastle... But this strategy will catch us out at some point.

Re: Off Season Recruitment - By The Month : Wed May 24, 2023 11:58 am  

crashmon wrote:

It looks like our strategy is to hope that every season there are two teams worse than us in the League. This season we have three in Haven, Barrow, Newcastle... But this strategy will catch us out at some point.

The Wakefield approach as I believe it is known. No one Could be criticised for feeling that way and I’m not certain Barrow might not shoot up the table, although Keighley may slide down,
Of course we don’t KNOW what the club is up to as they have maintained radio silence for months........(apart from banging on about the Gold Lounge obviously)

Re: Off Season Recruitment - By The Month : Wed May 24, 2023 12:04 pm  

Assuming the club have a strategy (which is doubtful) it is clearly not a coherent one. Moving into a bigger stadium while assembling a squad just about good enough to stay at Championship level is not a recipe for success. We can all see how well Hughes target of 5,000 fans is going.

Re: Off Season Recruitment - By The Month : Wed May 24, 2023 12:56 pm  

Cory Norman coming in to prop up the halves