Could these 2 things be linked? You can have a better pitch or you can use the pitch more but you can’t have both.

We have a long period without a home game from 20th May to 9th July. I believe the pitch is to be ripped out and redone over this time.

But why is our pitch so poor? Theres no RU anymore on it. Other teams juniors play at their home ground except the football ones.

Think damage was done to it few years ago and it’s never recovered.

King will be playing alongside Percival in the WC. Holmes is very underrated - it is more his attitude and desire to win.

You would rather Sutcliffe than King - really?

I agree with that and GH doesn't appear to be an individual lacking get up and go. Sometimes move faster than you can cope with and you need to accept that the time has come to change? Your skill set was appropriate but it no longer is and it needs fresh ideas albeit aligned with years of experience. Rob Oates is a really good man but he has been at Leeds for 30 years where does he get fresh ideas and new experiences. Like GH the progress of the club is limited to the ability of the current management team who have limited experience outside of Leeds.

Not what I said. But if the club announced they'd signed a top notch centre to replace sutty and then released the news it was Toby King...underwhelmed is probably the word. Holmes huffs and puffs, granted. We've got similar of our own.

And if we paid what Warrington had reportedly paid to keep King thered be a load of moaning on here.

Holmes V Martin? Id prefer Martin his goal kicking is a massive plus too, the only thing holmes would be an upgrade on is our quota places

Think Holmes' workrate would far outweigh Rhyse's to be fair.

King is massively overrated. The only King I’d want is called Vuniyawawa!

We’ve got enough workman like ‘middles’ Martin offers a bit more than that IMO

Holmes isnt a middle hes a 2nd rower and a pretty good one. Hes more consistent than Rhyse will ever be.

He is pretty good, I prefer Martin and what he brings.

The middles was tongue in cheek.

never mind the state of the club the state of the game is awful. saints and Catalan apart the rest are garbage. I cant be bothered watching anymore.
sadly the games dying because the standard is terrible

this has been said since 1895.

Viewing figures up, most coverage the game has ever had including fantastic coverage from Channel 4 (the game on Saturday was excellent)

The game isn't dying at all.

Looks like he's hanging on then...

Never in doubt, I’m not even sure if GH will act should we be in 12th following the Saints game.

That aged well

It was the coaching equivalent of saying “nah it’s not going to rain, I’ll leave my coat at home”…

Those of us of a certain age can remember going a long time between drinks I.E between successful periods . The early part of this century our main rivals turned out to be Saints there was really nothing between the two teams . St Helens have had relative continuity we nearly got relegated. They must have done something right regarding team building

The biggest thing that I look at to see how far we’ve fallen is the quality of player we have now versus our golden period. With the exception of Mik Oledzki and Harry Newman (perhaps) I’m struggling to think of a single player we have in the current squad who would make the squads from around 2004-2012 or so. People might make a case for the odd player here or there, but this shows me how far we’ve fallen on the field.

I get that the overall quality of player in SL has fallen too, but if we’d had the right coaching and recruitment I’m certain we would have seen a blip in success rather than falling off a cliff edge like we did.

Quite. It's not a view you'll ever get out of social media though.

We struggle with overseas players - we never seem to get the quality that say Saints get - why is this?

Firstly I’d say it’s because of the current standings of the two clubs, we’re really in the doldrums and have been for years, they consistently challenge or win silverware. Then there’s the financial side of things, perhaps they pay more than we do for their OS players? Seems they did for Hurrell for example.

Finally, I get the distinct impression that they do much more homework on a player than we do, identify them earlier than GH’s end of season review, and then go hard for them. Look how pathetic we were in our pursuit of Jai Field as an example of how we do it. Don’t get me started on Thompson…

Put Saints overseas players in our current side who is playing poorly and they would look poor.

Conversely put Fusitua, Tetevano and even Martin in the Saints side and they'd look different players.

We haven't struggled with over seas signings when the team was successful have we.

Brent Webb, Danny Buderus, Kylie, Scot Donald etc

On Thompson - did anyone read his bizarre interview in the press? it may have been taken out of context but it read like a player who didn't really care about being here.

Never mind what Thompson thinks, what effing genius gave him an option for another year? Insanity. Half the problem with the squad is self-inflicted.