I think that's pretty fair comment and certainly sums up my own position. I won't say I'm necessarily in the majority but I can't remember taking up [iany[/i of the 'third party' pro mos over the years. I guess I'm pretty much 'died in the wool' as a fan and my feeling is I'm paying for the rugby. In any case, I don't remember a 'pack', when I picked up my ticket/card in the office that's just what I got - a card, it wasn't even in an envelope let alone a 'pack'. Not that I'm remotely bothered.

Have you picked up your plastic membership card?. If so you should have got a box with a scarf,pen,pin badge and lanyard thing too. That's the membership pack. Scarfs quite nice if you wear one but rests just cheap tat that you won't miss. If you've only got temporary card some people got when paying for their tickets then you'll get pack when you collect plastic card.

Yes, I've got my plastic card. I picked it up in the office on the Monday after the shirt launch weekend. Picked up my shirt and the card on the same trip. It's definitely not a receipt one as I handed that in to get this one. It has all the markings on it; 1863 members club 2015, member no., seat no., barcode etc. There was no mention of any pack though, even though she went into the back office to get both the the card and the shirt. Not over worried to be honest.

PS Just noticed, as a member, I should have got a fiver off my shirt too, never got that either.....think I may have fallen, Alice like, down a hole and out of the system! At least I'm still on the computer so I know I can't be dead..

2300 sold in latest T&A article. I'd say something derogatory about another club but I can't be faffed.

I reckon the 300 are fax fans who have switched sides after todays news

How are your sales going old bean? Should be expecting a decent core following?

To be truthful ive not seen much info on ST sales,just a few quotes saying they're up on last season.
Theres a good buzz around town now (probably the best in over ten years) and the game vs Bradford should be a good indicator as to what the home support should be,if they can pull in 4000 or more home fans for that game then i think 3k+ is very achievable over the season & then the away support on top

I'm not happy with having to come to you first off but for a mouthwatering start to the season generally you couldn't choose better. If that doesn't get the good folk of Leigh excited then there must be valium in the water.

I imagine London v Hunslet home and away will be the biggest gates this season but Leigh and Bulls should do ok too.

I'd like to think both clubs will want to put a marker down in this game with Leigh coming out on top simply because they have a very settled squad.
No excuses for people to make now,for the last 18months the club has done no wrong,they're out in the whole community & schools,something i cant ever remember seeing before.Couple all this with the chance of being a fully professional club and its all system go now.

No argument from me on the biggest gates of the season

Due to the way the league has been organised it's not a big deal though and much as I'm sure both clubs would like to win it, there will be no medals given out - neither will it make or break anyone's season.

Let's be honest, we all know that there will be a great shock if the three full time clubs don't come 1 -3 [in what ever order in the early qualifying stage and the business end is when the middle eight start and promotion is allegedly available, if unlikely; now those games really could be important. Personally I fully expect the Bulls to rotate the squad in those early games and keep the players fresh for the important stuff down the line.

Its not beyond the realms of possibility that the 3 pro club go through the league undefeated except when playing each other.If thats the case then i think the game has added importance for an opening game, especially if finishing top gives you more home advantage in the middle 8 games.
Plus both clubs have been in a dark place recently so will want to keep the good vibes going.

I don't think we should underestimate some or any of those teams which are part time. I'm sure that there will be quite a few surprises during the course of the season. It can't be taken for granted that just because a club is training full time it automatically means they will be significantly advantaged in a one off game, particularly away from home. That's not to say that there won't be any blowouts, but there will be plenty of close fought encounters I'm sure.

Those part time players will be playing with an equal amount of enthusiasm and in many cases similar skill sets to the ones training full time.

Agree about teams being underestimated and that there are likely to be some surprises, though I'm pretty certain that Jimmy won't allow that within the club - but I think speccies are likely to be a bit more realistic and at the end of the day it doesn't mater a jot what [iwe[/i think.

As you rightly say, a few of those clubs will have similar skill sets however the extra stamina and time honing those skills afforded by being in full time training, plus not having to put in an eight hour shift, is a tremendous advantage and also maybe the major reason why cup upsets are as rare as rocking horse doo doo in RL these days. Having to make the ten after every tackle is a great demand on players' fitness which gives a great advantage to the pro sides, particularly when the semi-pro teams are likely to be the ones doing most of the defending. All that said, there are many games to play and the odd upset shouldn't be too much of a surprise, particularly with the clubs with bigger squads using that depth to keep players fit and maybe not always having their top 17 on the field.

Some interesting comments from Marc Green today. We've reached the 2300 mark, with less than 100 of those being complimentary season tickets for sponsors etc.
Last year we sold around 3500, but over 700 of those were given away for free

The free ones were children's passes. They are making a charge for them this year.

you can see where the 700 figure comes from if they were kids' tickets.

Must admit to being a bit either way on this one; I can certainly see Marc's POV, but to be honest, I've always regarded giving freebies to the youngsters as sowing seeds to harvested in later years and, in many cases, a young child using the freebie needs a full paying adult as chaperone anyway, which is a win win.

Oh there will be upsets thats for sure.
Fev & Dewsbury away should be great games and the games in Cumbria will be testing especially if the weather is nasty.

You might get a good idea as to how good a coach Lowes is going to be,the last couple of years has shut the anti Rowley lot up at Leigh.

The thing is, last season only Leigh were full time. They lost 1 league game all season. There are 3 full time teams next year, Leigh, London and us. So realistically, even though the part-timers are going to push us to the best of their ability, I don't see us having losable games apart from against Leigh and London. It's certainly not a level league in terms of funds for players or in terms of player ability. I think I read some where that out of our 29 players we've got something like 23 who've played at SL level. You compare that round the rest of the league and you're looking at maybe half a dozen in each team who've played at the higher level.

I know a lot of people don't want to say we've got an easy season because they don't want to look either arrogant or the possibility of having egg on their face depending on results. However, I think that should we lose more than 3 league games next season then that is an unacceptable number of losses of a team in our position.

Leigh were part time last season.

My understanding is that Leigh were 'more or less' full time, ie they had a bulk of full time squad members but had retained the odd part time player who, for whatever reason, didn't want to give up their 'day-job'. Better question to ask might be, "when did they do the bulk of their training - Tues and Thurs nights or during the day"?

Leigh's squad trained in the evenings and on Saturday mornings. None were on full time contracts last season.

It will take a while for the squad to gel and we will be a prized scalp for many teams. There could be a couple of setbacks early on.

Last season there were 4 players that didnt have what could be described as ' normal regular ' jobs, they worked for the local community trust these included Ryan Brierly and Liam Kay

So we do expect a significant improvement in performances this coming season

Ah, so I got it back to front.

'They' [the full timers reckon it takes a season for the total benefits of full time training to kick in, but the basic advantages of not having to put a shift in before training and doing your workouts before you get knackered must be fairly immediate I'd have thought..you do have the benefit of keeping the majority of last season's squad [unless I've got that wrong as well!! so that makes up for a fair bit too, I'd guess.

Good luck - except in a couple of your games...

Todays article says we are now at 2500.