Hi chaps, the only reason I have stated this post is because I have just seen all of the players you have sols/let go/retired etc. There are 12 players at the moment and still counting, some are ex captains and some were mainstays and first name on the paper recently.
My question is with having a huge turnaround of players are you expecting a transitional season (where its a season to gel and start a new solid base), winning trophies and being the best team in the comp with excellent signings, or is it a case of just too many players leaving, plus the coach and it just not working, (similar to Man Utd in the last few seasons.)

I think you have made some really good signings, and there will be more to come. But sometimes when you have a mass clear out it takes time to gel, particularly with a new coach and maybe a brand new script for the retained players to read from. The players leaving:-

Gidley
Westerman
Sims
Hiku
Dwyer
Savelio
Evans
Dagger
Pomeroy
Blythe
Penny
Wilde
Tony Smith

You answered the question yourself - Transitional...

I expect to be Top 8 most likely around 6th but not really competing for the four. Maybe a nice cup run if we get a lucky draw. I expect Leeds, Cas, Hull and Saints to be the dominant teams for the next couple of years.

After one full season in charge for the new coach, with another full pre-season I excpect 2019 to be the true test of where we are. And whoever the new regime is, they have my full backing until the end of 2019... even if that regime is not the one I was hoping for a few weeks ago.

EDIT: Has Dagger actually left? I thought that rumour was put to bed?

5+ seasons ago we'd have been looking at a transistional season but considering how poor SL is at the minute, with the right coach and some decent signings we could VERY easily be in the mix for everything. I've got high hopes - I'll be expecting top 4 as a bare minimum.

What? Obviously it will be OUR year...

I agree with ratticus. One or two top draw players can make a big difference to a SL side.

2014-2015 we were 5th+6th. Bringing in Gidley and Sandow won us the LLS plus two finals the following year.

This season we were abject. Bringing Hiku in essentially saved us from relegation.

The optimist in me says if the players we're alleged to be signing actually happen, we'll see a pretty sharp turnaround in our fortunes.

Or at the very least we should be fun to watch again.

No team with mass changes rarely does well, that coupled with a new coach who has no experience of SL leads me to think getting Top 8 will be an achievement....

Cas didn't do to bad this year considering they got rid of 9 players and brought 6 in last season.

That's usually with the loss of all the core though. We still have our core internationals (what, 5 England internationals?) and will add a bit more quality and lose some deadwood. I'm quietly optimistic of a finish between 6-8 and hoping for even better pushing for the four and chance of a cup win. Won't be bad for our turnaround season considering the shape we were in after the last round of the middle 8s.

Anything below 6th should be viewed as total failure. If we dont finish above the following we have the wrong coaches-
HKR(newly promoted)
Widnes
Catalans(worse mess than us)
Wakey(punching above weight)
Salford(looking very vulnerable indeed)
Hudds

Will he to wait and see what squad, coach etc we have in place at the start on next season. There is a long time to go of the off season yet so it's far too early to say.

Clean slate for all, but I don't think that as things stand we can expect much more than a top 8 finish (just). We need 3 or 4 first team standard players and a coach yet so we will have to see who we get.

Stretch target for 1st year under new coach, and allowing from the starting point of now, would be top 4/5 with a cup run.

I'd settle for seeing

1. Comfortably in top 8.
2. Post match interviews free from excuses and bearing resemblance to what we see with our own eyes.
3. Players played in position.
4. Players selected on form.
5. Have no doubts that each player is giving their all and a happy camp.
6. Something to get excited about / feel good factor / "going places"

Depends who we sign and who the coach is.

I’d expect 6th-9th going off our poor pack and half backs

I think the idea of a transitional season is a bit of a myth to be honest. If you have a decent squad, coach, pre-season etc. i think you stand as good a chance as anyone.

Ambitions have dropped a lot now that TS has gone.

The last two off seasons the season prediction threads usually had people putting us 1st or 2nd and whenever the question of what should be our target, the comments were stuff like "win the GF, anything else is failure".

edited for accuracy

Yes. If the new coach goes 8 years without a GF win that will be failure too.

No reason we shouldn't be aiming to win the GF every year with the resources we have. I don't think that's an overstatement?

There would probably be a loss of patience with the new coach well before 8 years, depending on how we perform.

Apart from the very rare Alex Ferguson type coach who delivers sustained success, all coaches are going to end up unpopular with the fanbase. Coaching careers usually go one of three ways:

- The quick exit: the coach's methods never work, the results are bad from the start and they are quickly sacked. Often this happens in the first season, alternatively the coach finishes the first season with a lot of question marks, and is very vulnerable to a bad run at any point in the second season. Anderson, Plange and Lowes fit in this category.

- The coach initially brings new ideas and improves things and at some point outperforms expectations. At this point he will be regarded highly by the fans. The crunch point then comes when the results start to go backwards because expectations have been raised, and its difficult to recover. DVDV and Cullen were like this. Peak DVDV was mid-1999, we'd gone from nearly being bust a few months before to being playoff contenders with Toa the emerging superstar and landed a coup by signing Langer, Nikau and Gee. After we tailed off at the end of that year and started the next year badly, DVDV was under the cosh from the fans and never recovered. Peak Cullen was late-2005 before that home playoff defeat to Hull. We went on a long winning run that we hadn't done for many years that summer, and then signed Andrew Johns and had feel good factor going through the roof. We regressed in 2006 despite big name signings and Cullen lost his confident aura. For many coaches, a season of overachievement can be a millstone as the standards by which they are judged will go up. Rodgers at Liverpool, Pardew at Newcastle and Martinez at Everton also went this way.

- The coach delivers early success and is revered for a while then the trophies dry up. This scenario doesn't drag on for too long at most sports clubs given the ruthlessness of owners but where there is loyalty from the board you have an Arsene Wenger / Tony Smith situation. In this case, the fan base will be divided as there will always be people loyal to a coach who delivered success, whatever happens later on.

Full cap and at least one marquee I expect top 2.(in theory pies should be top with 2 marquees and full cap) Top 4 I'd settle on for season one only but less than that is unacceptable. And outside the top 4 mid-way in 2018, I'd sack the coach.

I agree with RD with the squad we are assembling we should be aiming for the top 4, at a push top 2. I'm sure Simon Moran would be hoping for a top 4 even in the coach and teams first year together. A decent cup run with kind fixtures. Team bonding will be very important from the start. I wounder if the new coach will be happy to be going to Tenerife for pre season ? Overall very excited for the new season with a few quality players being added to the squad

Once we know the identities of the coach and players we can make an educated guess until then its powder dry time!

If we sign Tyrone Roberts and Ben Murdoch-Masilia having already signed Goodwin we should easily be aiming for the top 4.

Have you seen Tyrone Roberts play this season he is mediocre at best.If you sign him you will most likely finsh up in the
bottom 4.

This

Should be easy to prise him from Gold Coast Titans in that case.