Re: Catalans Home : Sat Feb 24, 2024 12:15 am  

BigTime wrote:

Wonder if Boafo might be an option to create some mayhem. He has genuine pace, is elusive and is prepared to put in a defensive effort.

He was playing at HAC on Wednesday. Not sure if returning from injury but was a class apart from anyone else in that game.

Re: Catalans Home : Sat Feb 24, 2024 12:42 am  

I seem to recall Boafo being a very decent attacking option for us in our SL season in Ealing, maybe he could repeat that sort of form given the opportunity?

Re: Catalans Home : Sat Feb 24, 2024 2:00 am  

RfE wrote:

Will that many return to watch another mismatch- next time against Wigan? Which the pessimist in me feels could be even worse.
Maybe the numbers will be made up by Wigan fans?

To my mind our starting fixtures are no accident. Super League have set out to destroy our season and any chance that we have of drawing in and retaining new fans.
Giving us starting home fixtures against the teams that finished 2nd place Catalan, Winners Wigan and 6th place Warrington. Throw in our starting away fixture against 3rd place
St Helens, just to put us further on the back foot. Spiteful, very spiteful.
They are hoping by destroying our season, the joke IMG gradings will not become an issue for them. We finish bottom, relegation deserved. Problem solved!
I do hope our team, who last season started poorly and came charging through at the end with a wet sail, sure with some spanking additions, can do the same again in 2024.
Should we not finish bottom, it would put the powers that be in a very awkward position, I believe. To relegate us in such a situation, would show the world what a poorly run sport ours is.

Re: Catalans Home : Sat Feb 24, 2024 4:00 am  

Well...excellent crowd which beggars the questions:
a/How did they achieve it?
b/why the fark has it taken this long to do so?

Let's hope they have ALL the contact info of those who attended and revisit them asking for feedback and inviting people to come back.

Re: Catalans Home : Sat Feb 24, 2024 4:45 am  

Victor wrote:

To my mind our starting fixtures are no accident. Super League have set out to destroy our season and any chance that we have of drawing in and retaining new fans.
Giving us starting home fixtures against the teams that finished 2nd place Catalan, Winners Wigan and 6th place Warrington. Throw in our starting away fixture against 3rd place
St Helens, just to put us further on the back foot. Spiteful, very spiteful.
They are hoping by destroying our season, the joke IMG gradings will not become an issue for them. We finish bottom, relegation deserved. Problem solved!
I do hope our team, who last season started poorly and came charging through at the end with a wet sail, sure with some spanking additions, can do the same again in 2024.
Should we not finish bottom, it would put the powers that be in a very awkward position, I believe. To relegate us in such a situation, would show the world what a poorly run sport ours is.

I love a conspiracy theory, but I agree both RFL & IMG end up with huge amounts of egg on their faces if Broncos finish anywhere other than bottom & fixture manipulation is as good a way of trying to ensure that as any.

2 other things occurred to me, just how embarrassing are RL scrums? Either return to contested scrums or replace them with a PTB. Also the Referee I thought was pretty poor, guess whether a try had been scored & letting the video Ref make a decision. Nice to know being "square" at the PTB isn't always an offence.

It really has been men against boys these first 2 games with Saints & Cats being bigger, faster & stronger than us. Not helped I suppose by our 3 old boys playing well for the Cats. This is going to be a season to watch from behind the sofa & through your fingers. At least the boys stuck at it however much in vein.

Of course it would be nice to know how many of the 5k paid to attend & if as suspected, not many, as Orange said, we got everyone's details.

Re: Catalans Home : Sat Feb 24, 2024 9:28 am  

orangeman wrote:

Well...excellent crowd which beggars the questions:
a/How did they achieve it?
b/why the fark has it taken this long to do so?

Let's hope they have ALL the contact info of those who attended and revisit them asking for feedback and inviting people to come back.

Hughes is clearly miffed by the IMG ratings. He's cut off his nose to spite his face with the academy given it garners no points directly. Perhaps he also sees putting in an effort to get a crowd as another way of socking it to them. Let's hope it wasn't a one off effort and a leopard really can change its spots.

Re: Catalans Home : Sat Feb 24, 2024 9:39 am  

orangeman wrote:

Well...excellent crowd which beggars the questions:
a/How did they achieve it?
b/why the fark has it taken this long to do so?

Let's hope they have ALL the contact info of those who attended and revisit them asking for feedback and inviting people to come back.

I don’t know if they paid but I had assumed they came under the ‘heavily discounted’ camp otherwise surely to god we’d have been out there making a big noise about the size of the crowd. What the actual number was who attended I don’t know but it was clearly the biggest at PL by miles and of the type we used to see when club was last in SL. The difference with 2022’s early inflated crowd was this seemed more targeted youth clubs and rugby clubs from across the south the type who might want to go again. I also noticed a lot of faces who I didn’t recognise wearing older shirts. This may well be because the club has spectacularly failed to produce replica shirts for the start of the season but I felt it might be a few people coming back to give it another go. The crowd size was a definite positive let’s hope that at least some were not put off and will try again but perhaps later in the season when we have a SL ready squad.

Re: Catalans Home : Sat Feb 24, 2024 9:43 am  

I went into the shop to see if, in reality, any merch is available. I couldn’t locate the Broncos stuff. Did anyone have better luck? If not my suggestion get the stuff in for the Wigan game - failing to do so for the 2 biggest gates of the season is like missing an open goal.

Re: Catalans Home : Sat Feb 24, 2024 11:12 am  

I have to say that despite all the rain that we have had over the last few weeks, the torrential downpour that we had in the few hours before the match. The pitch stood up well.

Re: Catalans Home : Sat Feb 24, 2024 11:40 am  

Victor wrote:

I have to say that despite all the rain that we have had over the last few weeks, the torrential downpour that we had in the few hours before the match. The pitch stood up well.

Agreed Vic, it looked good. Probably why they won't let us play on it for so long in the summer.