Re: Shopping list for 2024 : Fri Oct 06, 2023 6:40 am
bonaire wrote:
when you lose fans because of a lack of interest getting them back is much more difficult.
Its obvious due to financial restraints that the club are now prepared to tread water for the next couple of seasons in the hope that several of the younger players will and are able to step up and become regular S/L players.Thats a very risky strategy as it may never happen.
The only thing for me that would save a collapse in Pass sales next season and create the buzz the club needs is to go for risk and reward.
For example if we had made a bid for Croft and signed him then most of the transfer fee would have been paid by an increase in pass sales and the thought of seeing him play behind some big mobile forwards would have created that excitement the fan base is missing.
Regretfully we have to accept bringing in a star player is not going to happen but the club need to be realistic and wake up to the fact we are no longer a top club and are being left behind now by too many other S/L clubs.
Although we have strengthened on paper the forwards in weight and size,we have the weakest set of threequarters in S/L and apart from Jack Walker not one of them with any strike ability or ability to get on the end of an offload and break the line.
Without Clifford and a make do halfback partnership what Smith will have to do is get the team mega fit from day one so that we can compete with hard graft rather than just falling away due to lack of energy.
Its obvious due to financial restraints that the club are now prepared to tread water for the next couple of seasons in the hope that several of the younger players will and are able to step up and become regular S/L players.Thats a very risky strategy as it may never happen.
The only thing for me that would save a collapse in Pass sales next season and create the buzz the club needs is to go for risk and reward.
For example if we had made a bid for Croft and signed him then most of the transfer fee would have been paid by an increase in pass sales and the thought of seeing him play behind some big mobile forwards would have created that excitement the fan base is missing.
Regretfully we have to accept bringing in a star player is not going to happen but the club need to be realistic and wake up to the fact we are no longer a top club and are being left behind now by too many other S/L clubs.
Although we have strengthened on paper the forwards in weight and size,we have the weakest set of threequarters in S/L and apart from Jack Walker not one of them with any strike ability or ability to get on the end of an offload and break the line.
Without Clifford and a make do halfback partnership what Smith will have to do is get the team mega fit from day one so that we can compete with hard graft rather than just falling away due to lack of energy.
That’s pretty much an accurate assessment of how things could end up, unless we can pull a rabbit out of the hat signing , although I think we do have more pace this year . I cannot disagree about the back division, when you compare like for like , any other team has at least one genuine strike player , apart from Castleford , but we’ve got to hope Smith can do what his elder brother did and mould a team with no real stars into a good and solid unit , we had Brian Blacker, Russ Walker , Damien McGarry and other players and he laid the foundations for the famous Premiership victory over a star studded Widnes by changing the teams weaknesses into a solid and hardworking unit , behind two big props . It’s the dilemma facing many teams - how to attract or even retain current fans while cutting costs to ensure survival .
