Ah, so you haven't actually read my posts on the subject, then. Fair enough. To recap: it turned out (but only cos Wakey were in such strife) that promotion was indeed possible, and in my view Lowes did indeed mess it up. I refer to both team selection and tactics in the MPG. I have gone on at length explaining exactly why i think this, so won't bore you with a repeat here.


Indeed. I also agree very much with the first proposition (that promotion is not really possible - and only some very unlikely circumstances conspired to make it actually doable this year)

But I do feel that despite the well-known failings and strange traits, in achieving what he did, Lowes has done enough to warrant another season, if the insiders - i.e. Green & Co., who know more than we do - also concur - which they seem to - and given that I fear promotion in a fair fight is impossible, it doesn't really matter who is the coach. But if things do go pear shaped as 2016 wends its weary way then of course Lowes would become more vulnerable - if there was anyone both better and available.

But I'm afraid that I hold no optimism for 2016, and do not believe we can get promotion even if we had a coaching team of Mal Reilly, David Waite and Jesus Christ. Unless another SL team implodes, or the RFL makes some changes to the rules.

I don't see any changes on the horizon. I do see the drawbacks of the Super 8 system now we have experienced it (mainly, panic buying/loans; the inability of the bottom club in SL or the top club in Championship to properly plan/sign for the next season; and above all, the now proven fact that the £1m extra salary cap means all things being equal no Championship team will ever win the MPG.

I can see the solution. This would be that the team finishing top of the regular season gets an automatic promotion and the SL bottom club gets relegated. The remaining Super 8s or Super 6s would make it possible, if only in theory, for 2 Championship clubs to go up.

This would mean a team like Wakey who frankly deserved to get relegated for their abject year would do so. It might also mean that coaches such as Lowes would have to work the regular season on an "every minute matters" basis and not settle for just a top 4 spot. But i can't ever imagine the Sl clubs voting for auto relegation. Which leaves us with a club having the misfortune to go bust, which you can't rule out, but which I certainly don't wish on anyone.

More selective points.

Tell me, FA. (Nice and simply now without your usual spin please)

Did you think that we would get 50+ put past us in the play-offs by the part-timers of Halifax?

Yes, I thought we might, when we announced a weak side and Lowes made no secret we were treating the game as an inconvenience to be got out of the way.

No I'm sorry, he didn't JUST mess up the MPG. Throughout a season in which you repeatedly stated that all that mattered was the end game, Lowes decision making demonstrated what was likely to happen in that end game.

It's not sustainable to state that you were right up to the point where Lowes got it wrong when in actual fact Lowes was getting wrong throughout the year, while you were saying in effect, it didn't matter. Similarly repeatedly stating 'promotion is impossible' right up and including the moment when MPG demonstrated it was, and had always been possible.

I'm sorry what? You expected to concede 50 points against a part time team? Even with the changes we shouldn't have conceded 50 points and to say we should is an insult to the professionals who played in that game. Each player who played that day had started during the season, and was deemed worthy at that point of a starting place.

I don't believe anybody walked into that game expecting to concede over 50.

Lowes' coaching record was poor before he was signed and those who aren't blinkered by his playing record (and we're all agreed he was a legend) have said this from day one.

If the team had played like they meant it right throughout the season and with a more intelligent approach to team selection we'd be back in Super League now.

It's a closed book on promotion next year. It is NOT going to happen with him in charge, irrespective of external factors.

No and I never said I did.

It would be, but nobody is saying that we should have.

Indisputably. And despite being a weakened team, it should have had enough to beat a team of part-timers, at home. Nobody is disputing any of this.

Neither do I. But, once things started to go one way in the second half, I would bet nobody was surprised whatsoever that we ended up shipping 50, just because we have a lot of form for giving up and shipping 50 when the going gets tough. Which is why I expected we "might". Well founded pessimism, you could call it, I went to that game with a bad feeling, the players involved have no excuse at all but sadly I've seen us ship 50 a million times in recent years so it's nowt fresh.

All that mattered WAS the MPG. But here I am, stuck in the middle of you to the left of me, mystic eddie to the right, to him it was just a one-game season and nothing else but promotion mattered, to you we had to win every game in style.

The truth is in between. We needed to start steadily, and build to peak at the business end. That is true for all teams in such a league setup, and it is even more true for a scratch side who half of them didn't even know each other's names.

I have no clue how Lowes "decision making" could have in any way demonstrated what happened in the MPG but seeing as you clearly did see what was going to happen, can you just link to where you posted it? Or did you keep it to yourself?


Stop missing the point.
a) I don't maintain Lowes was perfect or never blundered, just that he achieved the specific achievable goal, being in the MPG.
b) You must realise that had Wakey not been severely disrupted then they would have stuffed us, like they did earlier in the Super 8s when Smith could have famously played in a dinner jacket. And I don't mean promotion is "impossible", like tigertot buying a round, I say there is no chance unless a SL team has a meltdown. Which, as a Bradford fan, I would hardly hold "impossible".

You're so negative. You should be thinking positive, that it was ONLY 50+

Jimmy is not the man for the job, how can he be really. If i remember correctly, in the T&A Mark G said that "unless Jimmy resigns he is staying" interpretations I know but If I had faith in a coach I certainly would not quote anything like that.

To congratulate him on the MPG target is woeful. Leigh imploded and the standard of players we have are better quality than other teams in the championship.

We went through a season with the unknown so it was worth seeing it through, next season, unless you like watching teams getting annihilated, is going to be a trudge and considering the players Leigh have picked up (Which are games I might go watch) may not be happy outcomes.

The rather generic narrative "that we will learn lessons" is insulting to fans who know better.

As for good coaching look at Halifax and how they performed. Beat us twice and even at Blackpool gave us a game. Swop....

That isn't mine or Mystic's position but nevermind.

On the basis that a SL club did meltdown on the single occassion the format has been in effect, promotion clearly was possible and we must judge his efforts in that context. Getting to MPG is a purely arbitrary benchmark which as we know, confers nothing. Why or how would this be a measure of success?

I haven't time to trawl posts but Bulliac, Bullseye and plenty of others will I'm sure confirm what you already know - that I and plenty of others stated repeatedly (Mat said it in pre-season) that we needed a scrum half and that the single hooker idea was ill fated. From HKR on this was a priority upon which our season hung. Instead we signed almost every other position excpet the ones we needed. You said it didn't matter that we struggled to get out of our own half against Workington as the season was about the middle 8's and then later, the MPG.

Pretty much everyone on our board cannot understand the Lauaki/Tahrouie situation and that includes people who agree with you.

I of course have been agreeing we need a scrum half all year long too. The only thing I will say is we would have had GOB, and I don't know who else came available when that fell through. Don't recall anyone being signed that we would have had a chance of. Getting rid of our young halfback was odd. But yes, the lack of a 7 has cost us dear.

I am not at all sure that Jimmy is the one who does the signings, though. Many think it is down to Ferres. Regardless, there has been a failure to cover halfback. Maybe it is partly or even wholly Lowes. I don't know. I would go so far as to say if we had had a decent and settled halfback pairing all year then we would have been twice as good come the sharp end.

I liked Tahroui, and I don't get Lauaki either. All this I have said.

But ATEOTD the season was about first getting to the MPG and then if possible of course winning it. I blame Lowes for not winning that game but he did get us there however much you disagree with his selection policy. And the reason we lost that game was nothing to do with what had gone before. In fact, if he'd changed the MPG team around less, maybe it would have done more. But if Lowes was to be judged by the MPG then the fact you have to accept is that if Addy had kicked 2 goals instead of missing then we would now be in SL.

What would you be saying about Lowes then? It wouldn't reomve all his shortcomings, but let's face it, it would still not have been a bad effort by him all in all, and he didn't miss the kicks. And they were ultimately the difference.

Perversely, I agree with you. In fact I think the margins over a whole season may have been even slighter than you suggest. Had we signed Sammut and Scott Moore...... BUT he didn't. And more than that he appeared to set his face against any evidence. His behaviour in press conferences in response to perfectly reasonable, and in my view adroit, observations from Ross was chilish and recalcitrant. He put his own stroppy, fragile self before the progress of the club.

Well today's t&a article makes for pretty depressing reading. Rather than enticing us to renew our season tickets with positive news, Ferres appears to be adopting scare tactics instead.
And if we really do need 5000 season tickets just to break even then we are fecked, because there is no way in hell we are reaching that number. I will be gobsmacked if we even match last year's total, never mind surpass it.

Reality bites. What are you promising next season Steve that's going to be any different to this year? Mediocrity with the odd bright spot?

I thought the same. Very depressing piece, to be honest

The basic thrust of it seems to be

a) we need even more memberships to be sold than this year

b) we are going for promotion next year, but savings will need to be made

c) we were always going to be full time for 2016, but there's no guarantees beyond that if we don't go up next year

Well, my view is that we're going to get nowhere near the number of memberships for 2016 that we got for this year, as the 'novelty' factor has now worn off and we are facing another season down in the Championship. So it looks like we'll see cost cutting in various ways throughout the season, all of which makes it less likely that we'll be able to make a serious challenge in next years Super 8s.

It can't have escaped attention that almost the whole squad are on contracts that run out at the end of 2016, which means that if we don't go up next year, there can be a total clear out and a completely new part-time squad assembled for 2017

Or is that too cynical?

Press releases like this one aren't going to sell a single season ticket.

I'm all for honesty but you've still got to sell tickets and generate enthusiasm.

I don't think we'll go part time in 2017, but I fully expect anyone who is half decent to leave (or at least sound out their options) and the quality of our squad will drop off as we spend only what we can afford.

This is exactly what we all said would happen when we were originally relegated. Unfortunately it is a vicious circle of declining season ticket sales, affecting overall performance, which then in turn knocks the season ticket sales down further, and so on.

Our core fanbase might just be enough to ensure we never need to go part time, but I give us one, maybe two more years in this league to remain competitive in the 8s before we drop off and find ourselves just making up the numbers.

An article which leaves little illusions about the one-shot or bust nature of last year.

We will mount an ever fading challenge until the leagues are reformatted again. The RFL can perhaps just about cope with our fading relevance in the annual fauxmotion farce, but what if Beaumont eventually has to pull back on funding Leigh too. Only then with absolute beltings going on in the Middle 8s will anything be done to rectify the situation.

This is a serious question. We know we cannot be promoted, and the coaches and staff know we cannot be promoted so why are we staying full time? What benefit is it to us to furnish the RFL with a quasi-realistic championship? In a bloody-minded sort of a way wouldn't you relish it if we'd followed up on Lowes' rant by announcing that yes, it is not possible to be promoted under this system and we are therefore going part-time.

I just hope to god that Fax etc concentrate on building sustainably and don't ever try and splash scarce cash to participate in this silliness.

The only way that they will sell more season tickets next year would have been to ditch the players who aren't up to the task and to replace them with a couple of quality addition that would clearly improve the teams chances of promotion. Just to go around again with the same team that ultimately weren't good enough and expect all the fans jump on board with the same level of optimism is bonkers.

And as for playing the guilt card and laying the survival of the club at the feet of the fans (yet again), well you can go swivel Mr Ferres. If you don't get enough fans turning up next year then it's because you haven't given them an improved product to buy into, something that every team has to do, not just the promotion chasing teams. Who has signed too many below standard players on long term contracts which has ultimately scuppered any plans of significant team improvements? Was it the fans? Was it bullox!

I'll still be turning up because they are my team. Unfortunately not everybody thinks like that.

What will happen in that scenario is that the Super League clubs will say the Championship sides are not competitive enough to be considered so the top league needs to be a closed shop. That's what most of them want anyway as it guarantees their corn through the TV deals (and we'd be no different in our attitude if we were in it).

I am still of the belief that a coach with anything about him would have got that team promoted in 2015.

Hiring Lowes is the one decision that will come back to haunt Mr Green and for that I am genuinely sorry for the guy because he's very rarely put a foot wrong since he took over. Anyone who knows anything about the game would have looked at the appointment and thought "this isn't going to end well". Signing him was like the county judge signing a death warrant.

Deakin must be cringing in his grave. If there were a text book on how NOT to sell a forthcoming season, that article would be a chapter from it.

The worst thing of all is the doom-laden veiled threats that if 5000 fans don't sign up then things will be very bad. Surely anyone with a brain knows that NOBODY - not one single person - who wasn't going to buy a ticket before, will change their minds and buy one because someone suggests they jolly well should?

Idiots. To create and build the value/feelgood/excitement/fun factor needed to make fans WANT to spend their money is a very hard job, but it is the only way, and this sort of depressing crap is the exact opposite of what is needed. This press release is so downbeat, it would be low key even for a blue whale.

Sorry disagree FA. I am willing to back Jimmy next year as the players seem to back him. HOWEVER, he needs to learn from his mistakes he made last year. Sadly the recent article from Harrison suggests he won't and his stubbornness may cost us.

We lost that game due to our bench. I thought we had a better team than Wakey, but our use of the bench cost us. No subs after the 50 minute mark?

Lowes's decision to flog O'brien for 80 minutes all season had an impact on that game. Lowe's persistence with Lauak through out the season had an impact on that game. Lowes's making certain players indispensable while others never really got a chance had an impact on that game. Our failure to get top spot in the championship had an impact on that game as we could have got Wakey at home in the middle 8's and crucially at home in the MPG. He needs to learn from this.

The T&A article isn't great reading. As someone else said, i think we remain FT after this year, but any quality will be snapped up. Which means we will sign cast offs, and our only hope will to produce our own. Sadly we let 3 young promising players go this year. But hey, least we saw Chev Walker and Luakai rip it up in the 8's. Worth sacrificing Sam Bate, Nathan Conroy and Adam Brook (who i still can't believe we have let go)

TBF you ignore the fact that had Addy kicked instead of missed 2 goals then Lowes WOULD have got us into SL.

We lost that game due to 2 missed goalkicks. that is cold hard fact. Whatever mistakes in bench, selection, substitutions, those you can speculate about all day, you may be right, things may have worked out different, but also they may not, it is all speculation. Whereas the fact that we missed two kicks that would have put us in SL is fact. So we didn't "lose that game due to our bench", I didn't like the team selection either but you can only go so far as to say a different bench MIGHT have done better. Whereas with the kicks, there is absolutely no doubt.


Agree