Err, because we need a first choice British scrum half. As much as Danny Brough wants to return we don't want him. I don't think Burrow or Myler would take a drop in salary. All the rest are much of a muchness.

Dunno, maybe he's already at the club?

It's interesting you mention Powell, since a few years back he was being spoken of as being a busted flush at Leeds and they couldn't wait to bring in someone else. In fact he was given 'gardening leave' IIRC and disappeared for a long time before resurfacing at Fev. I know all clubs have their ups a downs, but I'm assuming the goings on at Leeds back then were nowhere near as challenging as they are at Odsal right now and Powell was still, effectively, written off by the Rhinos.

Maybe Darryl has always been a super coach and was just 'unlucky' back then; maybe he put his 'gardening leave' to good use and got better -who can say, but if it shows anything, it's that you can't always go with what seems obvious at the time and that writing off FC may well come back haunt us.

In pro sport it tends to be results which decide of course, so who knows what will happen.

I thought he was sent on a coaching tour of Australia by Leeds for the best part of a year.

Nearly. It was a coach tour of 2 weeks but they accidentally ran out of diesel just near Uluru. Luckily he was saved by a troupe of kangaroos, and in the year he spent living wild his coaching came on leaps and bounds. You'll notice even now he only signs players with exceptionally long feet.

Yeah, it was Australia, or something like that. I don't think Richard Branson had announced his intention of running trips to Mars back then or he might not have got back to Cas for a few more years..

Didn't Powell get moved sideways at Leeds into Tykes when Tony Smith arrived or am I imagining it?

I wasn't Deacons biggest fan, but Gale isn't fit to lace his boots. I watched a rerun of our grand finals on sky the other day, Deacon was booming 20, 30m passes all over the field, Gale passing is embarrassing considering he's a half back. He sort of just lobs the ball. His kicking is decent. But then he has regular brain farts such as trying a chip with outside of boot when we have 3 man overlap.

I reckon he'll be on big money after he signed a long term contract as he was the player we were going to build the team around.

Had the big name signing Cas almost pulled off at the start of the season come good, it would be interesting to see how they would be looking at Sneyd & others.

Marcus Vassilakopoulos?

Same club. Cas lad. England World Cup 2013 player.

Phew. Plan B worked.

Can they take Gale now?I will be glad to see the back of him.I thought Gaskell was decent the bits I saw of him at Saints,but he ain't got no bottle when it comes to a fight with backs to the wall.
As far as trying to compare Gale with Deacs,lol,absolutely NO CONTEST.Deacs was in a different Galaxy imo.
As for a coach for next year,some say you might as well give FC one season to prove himself,although the other train of thought would be to get someone with some OOOOMPH,to get us straight back up.We don't know whether FC has it in him to inspire like PETER FOX WHO COULD MAKE AVERAGE PLAYERS LOOK LIKE WORLD BEATERS under him.Keeping FC could be too much of a gamble as it hasn't paid off this year handing the reigns over to him.I know its been tough but the team has lacked inspiration/spark/guidance imo,so it would be a large financial gamble to let him have another go,albeit at a lower level.
God knows what size the crowds are gonna be,if we only attracted 5k for a QFinal of the Challenge Cup.It shows many have had enough and once they break the habit of "I must be there" it is very hard to win them back.
It could be a long way back.Let's see the management do something POSITIVE for once and try and get a Peter Fox2 from somewhere which sends a clear message out,"WE ARE GOING STRAIGHT BACK UP"---Not more suck it and see from FC as the crowds will be under 3,000 if they don't get this right.
Over to you MANAGEMENT!

Who would you like to see us bring in as coach mac?

Radlinksi/Deacon?But they may be heir apparent s at Wigan.

A Jimmy Lowes type would do for me ,Brian Smith doing out?
It's who would want to coach in the lower league really.

Dave Woods, Karl Harrison, John Kear. They are the most likely names to take over or work with FC and do a good job IMO. There may be others out of work that might be worth a shout but none spring to mind straight away.

Kear is the man, 2 years to tun it round

Well, I'd say 18 months to turn it round. Any more than that and the club is not coming back up. No club is under the new rules as they're simply the illusion of promotion and relegation.

Unfortunately you are right - promotion and relegation will probably never happen given that the middle tier of eight is a mini league with the emphasis on Super League Clubs having full time professionals versus part time players. As Dennis Betts said quite some time ago - it took Widnes four years to be anything near as good as they are at this moment, plus they needed further capital investment from a rich owner. It appears to be a smoke screen to get rid of two teams from Super League and thus save the RFL the Sky compensation money. The game is being imploded and no one seems to care.

The game is dying, albeit slowly. The RFL want to be mindful of Sky's long-term future now that BT are a major player in the pay TV market. Sky will be desperate to keep hold of their football rights - and that may come at the expense of other sports. Key partners in sport go where the most influence and biggest engagement is - that's why the RFL and individual clubs have struggled to attract blue chip sponsorship investment.

How many clubs are self-sufficient? Even when we won three trophies in 2003 we didn't make any profit. Full time professionalism is not sustainable without a league of sugar daddies.

Promotion and relegation should be a one up, one down affair every year and nothing more. This breaking away into a mini league is a load of crap.

The point is, the RFL don't want promotion and relegation. But they get so many people whining about bringing it back that they've brought in a phantom P&R setup. How many times in recent memory have a championship club beaten a SL team? There's a huge gulf between the leagues and this mini-league nonsense is just going to massive highlight it with a number of one sided contests every year

I do find it more than a little strange that we will be in a league at some point next year where teams will be operating under different salary cap restraints. You'd think if teams like Fax, Featherstone, Leigh could demonstrate that they can afford to spend closer to that of lower end SL clubs then they should be allowed to do so.

Let's be honest, whether it is us or more likely Wakefield who stay up, they will spend the first 23 games next year getting a walloping. I expect they will have to 'manage' their squad so they have their best players fit for the mini league split at the end. I can't imagine their squad will be significantly improved next year if they continue with recent levels of attendance.

I suspect our best chance of bouncing back up again is convincing enough of our current players to stick around for a season. The heart of the squad in BK, Gale and possibly Disko is unlikely to still be here I would of thought. How will we fare with new playmakers against teams who have been building for this for several seasons now?

That is exactly what I have been thinking since Nigel Wood brought about it's conception. What we really need is dynamic new thinking from the RFL and for Super League to be run expertly by a good executive management group.

Is that a forum record for the most oxymorons in a single sentence...?

It might very well be full of oxymorons.... but it still makes sense.
The earlier post contrasting the capabilities and achievements of Lewis and Wood explains why the game is in such a mess.

So talking about next year, if we are in the championship how many games do we play.

I assume we play 22 games in the first group of twelve.

If we finish in the top four we go into a group of eight teams(four from super league and four from the championship) do we play all these teams home and away. That makes another 14 games.

From this group the top 3 go into super league and 4th and 5th play off for the last super league position.

That makes a 36 game season plus 1 if we finish 4th or 5th.