I agree with Durham on this. The team isn't balanced. I wonder whether Thewlis' reported poor relationship with agents is limiting the range of players available? I suppose the fan base argument has some weight but IIRC almost every club in SL is paying the full cap.

And the whole Mason situation still rankles me - his reported salary and the club's behaviour re: the court case were examples of very poor decision making. IMO so poor that someone should have been relieved of their responsibilities.

I'll be honest. I don't think we have a team capable of winning a major trophy. We are too weak in key positions such as fb, hooker and SH. If we lost Danny Brough for say 3 months, we would be in a lot of trouble.

For a club our size we have punched above our weight for the past few years.

I don't expect us to be bringing Cameron Smith or billy slater in. I would just like people to be picked on form rather than reputation.

Charnley has had to wait weeks to get back in the Wigan team and only got the nod because the youngster keeping him out got injured.

We need to start trusting our youngsters, starting with giving Connor and Leeming more game time.

I've said it for a while, I think we need a new coach next year, just to freshen things up if nothing else.

Champion teams raise their game when it matters. Our recent problem is that we seem to lower our game when it matters.

We can beat anybody on our day but (and it's a huge but) at the moment we can't even compete consistently when it matters.

Until we learn to do that we'll be nowhere near the grand final never mind winning it.

It's very frustrating when you know how we CAN play and would be a shame if Robbo, Eorl, Ferres etc eventually retire without a Giants GF appearance.

I reckon they've 4 years max to sort it.

Maybe the plan this year is the GF and only the GF. If so they are sure making a good job of fooling everybody.

If people are happy to simply overachieve and finish in the top 4 and then get knocked out in the play offs then we may as well dump the claret and gold and play in bridesmaid dresses 'cos that's all we'll be.

spot on, good to see some fans realise this

yes we are punching above our weight.

can we afford to get anyone else other than give new contracts to robbo, grix and bring in ellis/wood? maybe we could if we got the average of 10k fans but we dont.

we are pumping money into the academy and have players representing England regularly now, a good sign as in previous years we have had the odd one. Recently out academy was given 'good' status from average/needs improving so in a few years we should see more youngsters come through, credit to ken davy for putting his cash into the academy which also went full time in the off season.

we would all like to be winning trophies, only a select few do, we are close...closer than most SL clubs at the moment who would love to be in our position.

After watching the Wakefield V Leigh game yesterday. I would love to hear what utter S**t Eorl Crabtree would come out with if he had to commentate on the Leeds V Turdersfield game.

Absolute gobe

Lol - I only caught the end of that game, what did he say to provoke that response?

what are you claiming he said that was incorrect?

I agree with this, I also thought we were spending the full cap, which makes the often repeated" we are punching above our weight" sound a bit hollow.

The Mason fiasco and some of the player sales and purchaces beggars belief.

We have needed a quality Halfback for quite a few years, I have this idea that lesser players are brought in at less money to fund big signings, who it's hoped will bring in big crowds. This has never worked IMO, going right back to the Garry Schofield days and since.

When Robinson was at his best we didn't have Brough, since we have had Brough we have never had a Good enough partner for him. I know attempts have been made to take some weight of him but IMO none of the available 3 are good enough.

Could you elaborate please. It's difficult to make a meaningful comment when I don't know what you are talking about. Something has obviously upset you to bring out such comments.

Turdersfield? wow lol

dont be naive, theres ways around the salary cap... they can pay the players in other ways.. for example employing the wife in the club shop



or you could be like wigan and pay big transfer fees like they have done to bring tomkins back, we dont have the resources to do this... we have even had to bring loan players in like cox recently and offload the likes of o'donnell who was on a big salary.

think we have changed the way we go forward now, we have gone for a full time academy and putting out money into the youth system now so we may have to wait a few more years for it to bear fruit.

the days of signing players like carney (which fell through) and o'donnell are gone.

We have to recognise that we have to pay over the odds to attract good players. Would a player rather play for Leeds or hudds? wigan or Hudds? (Ask larne!) so in order to get players to sign we would have to pay a little more than those other teams, their squads will be better value for money than ours. Players would rather go to the big sides. Same goes for attracting the right youngsters.

brearley Anderson has said we have money for players when Lunt went to Hull KR like most on here not a clue on our fiances as the club don't publish them. all i know is we get around 1,8 million from sky if the club cant match that with shirt sponsorship; ticket sales merchandising ect then there should be mass sackings

Some clubs will always find a way around the salary cap but proving it will always be extremely difficult.

Why mass sackings and who?It always beats me when people think they know better on how to run a business be it a sports club or a factory.Leave the running of the Giants to the people in the know. I have no doubt that the money saved would have been Lunts wages and would have gone towards paying to run a full time academy set up amongst other things which in my opinion is vital for continuity for a Super League Club.

Do you realise we have to pay the stadium company £5 for every spectator that goes through the turnstiles. So we make nothing on kids- in fact Up until last year when it was free for kids we were PAYING for all the juniors to attend! Add to that salary for ticket staff, design costs, printing, marketing.... How much of that 1.8m do you think is matched right there?

the point i am making jools is the sky money covers the cap the club should be able to generate enough income to pay for the running of the club as accounts are not published we don't know if we are still making a big loss the last accounts my account friend could find we lost around 450k and that was around 5 years ago .

I thought it was £3 per head which aint too bad

I probably am naïve regards the running of the club, and the Academy is definitely the way to go .
The way you put it we don't have the brightest future then, we are at best always going to be hanging on to the coat tails of the clubs like Leeds. If we can't afford the right class of player , or we haven't got the staff capable of bringing our players up to that level, Perhaps we would be better going for the big fish in a smaller pond option until the Academy starts to bear the desired results.

It's not my preferred option but even with the financial constraints you talk about we should always be able to match and better the likes of Fax, Wakey, Cas Fev . Even Bradford with the millstone they have round their neck. I don't remember the crowds we got in the unbeaten season but I seem to remember everyone seemed happy.

I see what you are saying but even If / when we do bring some good players through, as someone has said, like L Patrick who are they going to want to play for.

Exactly, as i have said elsewhere we now have a FULL TIME ACADEMY... money had to come from somewhere, we will have to wait a few years maybe for it to bear fruit with youngesters coming through, we have more and more representing England now.

I think we do better fax, wakey , cas, fev and bradford

we have been up at the top end of SL consistently now for a number of years.

shame we cant just go that one step further and win a trophy but its now easy, 12 other clubs try and how many have won silverware in the SL era, the usuals who have much bigger resources than us. We have basically started a club from scratch which was nearly extinct while the likes of wigan/saints and leeds were still winning comps.

Can't argue with that.

in 20 years of super league, only 7 teams have won honours, we are one of them, all the others have a significantly bigger fan base than we have and attracted better quality players than we have.

if we start putting faith in the youngsters and have a coach who is not afraid to use them then we could go that step further, don't forget how long it took us to become competitive in super league, it took time, but eventually it happened.
i'm not saying we will win more silverware but we need to be patient while our academy bears fruit.