I thought he was pretty poor for us last time around when he got his opportunities, I will admit they were limited but hopefully he does better this time. I did like his performances at Toronto and Halifax.

I for one are very happy. I think Murray is quality and could still do a job in SL. Fleming is a huge imposing figure and a nice lad but he does not play his weight and in his late 20's he has had far too many clubs which probably speaks volumes.

If so that says a lot.

There is certainly a disparity between our squad which appears to have the depth and quality for around 7th or 8th in the Championship, and the fanciful notion of them operating in SL next year.

I think a solid 7th or 8th is a decent estimate.

Murray is too small and just got got dumped out of the worst pack in SL. That said Fleming doesn't exactly inspire either.

I think we've a decent chance of being in the play-offs. Apart from Kirk we've kept all Of last years squad who are all another year experienced, along with Brough & Murphy.

Leigh/Fev/Toulouse are the strongest group. You would have thought one of them will be going up as the 12 team. Then there's us, Widnes, York (another decent prospect for the 12th team) , London, Fax to fight over the remaining 3 places.

I wouldn't say our squad is worse than Fax, Widnes or Londons at this moment in time. Even York who look to have recruited well, you start getting passed the 21st man and they have a few unknowns. I don't think any of the squads have much depth. I think it's whoever has luck with injuries, uses the loan market well and just puts on the most consistent performances will find themselves having a good season. I certainly think we've one of the better squads in the league. They'll be another gem we'll discover from our academy too.

Beginning of last year York had star name in Jimmy Keinhorst and were coming off the back of a 3rd place finish the season before. I really fancied them to go one step further. Our squad had been decimated. Yet by the time covid struck York had played 4, lost 4 and we had won 2, lost to London on goal kicks and given Fev a good game. We also gave Wakey a damn good game too. Sport can be fickle.

Ino what your saying about York but I’m sill not convinced by them Ino we only played 4 games but they finished 13th (I think) tho say they supposedly upgraded there squad with the likes of Washbrook...

Time will tell. York did have probably the toughest opening fixtures of anyone. I do wonder if their poor start was part of the fall out from the friendly with us. Their star man Robinson inexplicably trying to play the hard man by punching one of our academy players in the closing minutes and getting himself suspended for the opening fixture. You'd be livid with that as a coach and I'm sure James Ford was. I wonder if there was a bigger fall out from that as Robinson is now at Fax. York now have Morgan Smith and an unknown from down under. I just wonder if things weren't quite right from that incident as its a gamble replacing your talisman of the last couple of years.

York going into a great stadium next year and have a brilliant fan fare behind them. If they start well they could be hard to stop.

I see Adam Walker has left Leigh

If the rumoured reason is true, we need to stay well clear.

His brother was bad enough.

No thanks.

Does it involve The same thing as before?

I do hope no one is going to post any unsubstantiated rumours, no matter how much you may believe any of it to be true....

https://www.totalrl.com/bringing-back-t ... er-league/

https://www.totalrl.com/bringing-back-t ... er-league/

Very thought provoking, I must say.
The assertion that our leaving Odsal cost the RFL 200K seems amazing, surely our rent wasn't that high?

Combination of Rent, maintenance, and maybe a split of any takings?

Yeah that must be it. 70k peppercorn rent but the maintenance costs which we found so crippling must have transferred to the RFL. Someone was saying on the VT that there's youtube videos of smashed up offices and toilets.

I can imagine the headline now: "Vandals in Odsal do £30,000 of improvements"

Yeah, it would have been hard to make the toilets any worse, to be fair

Update on FB from group behind the stock cars return.

It is almost 12 months since we commenced again our aspiration to return Stock Cars to Odsal, the fourth attempt since 2001, having come very,very close in 2013 only to fail when OK Bulls went into administration.
Therefore this has been a lot of hard work, and for a few months in my own mind may have been again, speculative. However, we have continually negotiated with integrity from RFL COO Mr Tony Sutton who we cannot thank enough for his investment and interest and, yesterday, we have concluded a secure long term arrangement commercially that could see the sport secure at Odsal for 12 years. The agreement reached will require ratification by the RFL board early next month of which we are very positive. We held further discussions yesterday 'pm' with the new Bulls shareholders who, currently have a huge workload commitment in bidding for the Bulls to return in the Super League. From the beginning of this journey, we sought a commitment that both us and the Bulls approached Odsal 'jointly'and together and what came across very clearly from the Bulls stakeholders [ again to whom we thank them for their time is a shared vision to 'save' Odsal' and see it return to it's former glory. That really is positive fundamentally to us as it is about the commitment of our sports to regenerate Odsal for the city of Bradford.
Our next stage will be opening discussions with Bradford Council who are aware of the plans, to secure the necessary permissions we require and clarification of what was established in 2013 in terms of planning consent etc. We plan to move things along rapidly and are working to be able to offer more clarity on Sunday 6th December as, if we manage to tick all the boxes, it is our ambition to open the doors on Saturday 3rd April 2021. We are 'almost' there! Whilst discussion has been detailed and taken some 12 months, reality is dawning that this has been the 'easy bit!'
The dedication and work required to re-open it, refurbishment is massive and planning for that is 'underway' however 'just' to open the doors for sport will require joint investment of at least £500,000. When we get to this stage, hopefully early next month, we will be asking the whole sport to play it's part - in a similar way to the outpouring of support offered to help restore Coventry and will be seeking volunteers to help with the project from tradespeople and the community to assist with this huge task with work anticipated to commence late January 21. Hopefully on 6th we will be able to complete the vision and make Odsal a reality after 23 years.

Where is this original FB page?

Startrax stockcar racing group

Thanks. This is beginning to make sense now. Dual sport stadium, sharing upgrade costs, ongoing maintenance and rent

Why would we be sharing rent?. Prior to us leaving we held sub lease and could have charged rent to startrax. Unless we somehow have retained the sublease Startrax would be renting from RFL direct so would imagine RFL would just charge us both full rent. Other clubs would kickoff if charged us less than commercial rent. Only thing we could maybe argue is that we don't have full use of stadium like we had before and only pay for days we use it rather than full 7 days a week.

Sharing maintenance and business rates is likely to be where bigger savings can be made. Noticed inhaStartrax article they are talking about costing 500k to renovate stadium with costs being shared between us and them, Presumably that would only be for areas that both sports use and they would be footing full bill for re-instating fences, pitch corner modifications etc. Worrying bit was they were also calling for tradespeople to donate time/materials suggesting they might not have that much money to invest.