As a long time London Broncos fan, I have to say I'm totally distraught and heartbroken at how badly downhill the club has gone both on and off the pitch. Yes credit to David Hughes where it's due he has almost singlehandedly (along with some unknown dutch fellow) funded the Broncos and without him the club may not even exist. But we are an example of how critically important it is to make the right coaching appointments.
There were many league fans who said that with Tonys return the Broncos would become more competitive this season, now without wanting to say I told you so, I said right from the very start of his reappointment that it was a mistake and we would continue to languish at the bottom of the table.
It was such an epic schoolboy error to rehire a coach who failed in his first tenure on the back of some half decent performances when he was interim coach, we all know that when new coaches come in the players raise their game, so improved performances were hardly surprising. To make such a critical decision at such a time was in hindsight not the best decision, I feel that our management should have dug deeper financially or otherwise in the search for a coach who was going to change the culture of the club.

What Michael Mcguire has done at Wigan and Rabbitohs has been out of this world, he has a no nonsense, no excuses approach and it reflects in the success of those teams, we need either a successful experienced coach like Brian Smith or an up and coming Michael Mcguire type. Nothing else will do for London, if we make the right coaching appointment I'm 1000% convinced that the results and then the crowds will improve in time but we must be a more formidable outfit on the pitch.

Also the marketing of the club needs to be thought through and improved beyond where it is now, wherever we play next season we must engage with the local community and let the people know that we're there.
Something as simple as going into the local bakery and asking them to display a Broncos scarf in the window would do wonders, it says that the locals are behind the club and that the club has a presence in the area. The club could hire some volunteers and get them to go out to every shop, nook and cranny and ask them to put broncos merchandise on display. Marketing is simple, and I dont see any evidence that the club is making an effort to promote Super League or the sport.

Fans of other clubs say we are not performing as a club and need to be kicked out of the league....I say we are not managed properly and good management is the difference between a club that excels an one that doesn't.
I'm still confident that if the club is managed as it should that be we can become a formidable force within the sport.....look at the Melbourne Storm.

You need heart, head and rugby league savvy. The whole club has no idea what these things are.

I get a bit tired of hearing about how David Hughes is a saint: he gets 100% say for contributing his money, but also spends Sky viewer's money, away fans' money, sponsors' money, your money and my money on this worsening debacle.

Who knows whether he'd have to contribute much at all if we didn't have this unending slide in crowds, income and results. It'd be a bit hard to attract other investors when you run up a bill this large and have nothing to show for it.

To waste his money is his choice, but it's hard to give him points when he wastes everyone else's money too.

If you look at what Tony Rea started with, you could loosely break down the squad into four segments.

(Anyone noted in =#FF0000red has been released by Rea; anyone in =#00BF00green has been signed by him and the rest were awarded their last contract by Powell or Mac)

PLAYERS OF SUPER LEAGUE STANDARD, WITH A GOOD FITNESS TRACK-RECORD OVER THEIR CAREER
Dorn, Dixon, Channing, Melling, Witt, Kaufusi, Bryant, Bailey, Clubb, Wheeldon,=#00BF00 Lee, Cook, =#00BF00Fisher, Lovell, =#FF0000Rinaldi., =#FF0000Gower,

PLAYERS OF SUPER LEAGUE STANDARD, BUT LIKELY TO PLAY ONLY 1 in 2 GAMES
Colbon, Rodney, Robertson, Sarginson, =#FF0000Temata, Golden

PLAYERS WHO WOULD NOT BE A REGULAR STARTER IN A TOP 10 SUPER LEAGUE TEAM
Grady, Krasniqi, O'Callaghan, McMeeken, =#00BF00Hurst, =#00BF00Mendieka, Dollapi, =#FF0000R Thomas, Bryan, Caro, Edwards, Bolger, Bolger, Ridley

PLAYERS WHOSE BEST PERFORMANCES WERE MANY YEARS AGO BUT STILL ON LARGE SALARIES
Randall, Howell

In the group of players of Super League standard, it is important to remember that almost all the regularly fit players on the list were signed from Academies/Reserves or from a club who featured regularly in the bottom 3. The ones with a less consistent track record were signed from bigger clubs, but are available less often, and a factor in them becoming available on the market was their injury records.

The other two lists are full of players who are yet to prove they are regular Super League players or have proven they are not.

I don't know what anyone could do with this squad, be it Wayne Bennett or Rob Powell, for there are lots of liabilities and few assets, but Tony is pruning out when he can.

The fact is that Tony is prepared to get his hands dirty and clear out the dead wood when previous managers would auto renew year after year even when players didn't deserve a new deal or had poor fitness records.

David Hughes has seemingly given out the Head Coach job without a rigourous process on more than one occasion so he can be questioned. The real issue is that a 30 year old Youth Coach was given the salary cap to spend and he was taken for a ride.



Tony will need 18 months to reverse this damage, it is frustrating, but he is clearing out the dead wood when given the chance. We will improve in each of the next two years, I am sure that will happen.

I know there are a lot of nay sayers who take each defeat as another nail in the coffin, but I am sure they are wrong.

There is no chance of a 12 team Super League if the clubs are given a vote - none at all. The likes of Salford, Wakefield, Castleford and London will not vote for it, nor will anyone else in real jeapordy of missing out and the clubs will not want less revenue. The RFL will bottle out from just making changes without consulatation too.

The facts are that there are no credible replacements for London in Super League - we will not be replaced to add in yet another small part of Yorkshire, Lancashire or a second French team and the RFL have buggered up Wales.

So we need to be proportionate, ed off but proportionate.

Face the facts, he isn't getting the best out of the players he has.

Living down here and watching you guys many a time on a lonely Saturday with nothing else to do, i have defended the London franchise to the hilt with many an RL friend from up north even a couple down here, and seeing the fruits of all the hard work done by coaches and amateur teams and the rise of the talent pool in the south i'll still defend the London franchise BUT not this one.
Broncos time for me is up, it has stagnated at the bottom of the SL pool and there are plenty of turds floating in it.

Time to show the door to Broncos, look for someone with more ambition than a club happy to be just renting stadia, employing youth coaches out of their depth and sticking by them, re-employing a failed coach and sticking by people whose job it is to improve the crowds and revenue but makes it worse.

Broncos it was good while it lasted but now you've over stayed your welcome and the only person you're entertaining at this party is yourself, no one else is amused anymore

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said the club lacks ambition. It is not impossible to be succesful in London, we have a very large potential audience and player base. In that respect we actually have more potential than any of our rivals. However, the obvious thing is that we need work hard off the pitch and also to have a competitive team on the field in order to (i) attract an audience and (ii) retain the players we develop. Rather than showing focus and ambition the management has, over the last few years, stuck its head up its

and prioritised snake oil solutions like ground changes to solve our problems.

People who makes millions yet can't employ decent people what know what they doing, it's almost management dished out by a clown on the apprentice.
Can't identify a brown site either in London or its very edges for a stadium? Have they even looked?

I can't believe a man of Hughes intellect is such a blind idiot.
Initially we he took over the cluba ll he had to do from the off was
a) spend big on a top class coach
b) spend big on marketing.

Everything else would have fell into place and he'd have probably saved millions.

The difference between success and failure is ultimately down to the identification, acqusition and retention of players.

The team that was continuously the weakest for the longest amount of time was the Hudderfield Giants who at one point had lost something like 97 of 107 games in and around the time of the merger with Sheffield. They were bottom year after year.

Over the years they went out to acquire the few quality players from their local neighbours of Wakefield and Castelford plus the weaker sides like Salford and over time have been able to absorb players also from the likes of Bradford.

They are now second and clever recruitment and excellent conditioning have been the key.

Other sides that have been bad with their recruitment include Catalans who finished bottom just two or three years ago, only to turn it round entirely with a single good recruitment spree in one year.

Whilst if you look at those who have fallen from glory, again it is the same story - St Helens had a golden generation of players but failed to put in place a recruitment strategy to replace them, whilst Bradford went from World Champions to nothingness in just a few years from signing average players from the lesser clubs.

I'm not saying a new coach would have zero effect.

But I am saying look at the facts - we have been a bottom three team for five years and have been in shocking form starting in June 2009 till now and that has been under three different coaches.

We have been a bottom three side for years and now we are one without one of our best players who walked out mid week and with a massive injury list.

We just have to face facts, that it will take time to build up again, as we have now bottomed out.

Cheers
Rammo

While I agree our squad is certainly not the best and needs rebuilding, it is capable of better than current results.

Agree, and lets not also forget we are spending the full cap.

Huddersfield came bottom two years running, saved one year from relegation by the merger of Gateshead Thunder and Hull and the other time by the merger of Sheffield Eagles and Huddersfield. Look at Huddersfield now - good coaches and team of players who want to win

There is always hope.

Super League 3: Huddersfield Played 23, won 2 - Bottom
Super League 4: Hudderfield Played 30, won 5 - Bottom
Super League 5: Huddersfield-Sheffield Played 28, Won 4 - Bottom
Super League 6: Huddersfield Played 20, won 6 - Bottom
Huddersfield finally relegated for Super League 7
Then bounced back to finish 3rd from bottom with 11 wins in Super League 8

Things just take time.

And as for the cap, how much worth of salary do you think was on the field for us yesterday? Under £1m?

I am sure there was one point when Warrington brought on a front row of three current or former England internationals off the bench at the same time yesterday,

Time alone doesn't solve anything. First of all you need to have the desire to change and have a plan on how to do it.

We won't be able to improve our squad when we are unlikely to be able to offer anything other than short terms contracts. I suspect our squad next season (assuming we are even around) will be similar quality or worse to this year.

Absolutely. It is a better squad than Cas, Salford and Widnes have and ought to be battling with Wakefield, Bradford, Hull KR.

The results are well below par and the performances are worse than the ones that saw Powell booted out.

According to Zerotackle.com we have 12 players out of contract

Chris Bailey, Mark Bryant, Michael Channing, Liam Colbon, Matthew Cook, Luke Dorn, David Howell, Alex Hurst, Will Lovell, Chris Melling, Chad Randall and Dan Sarginson

[urlhttp://www.zerotackle.com/super-league/rugby-league/players/off-contract-2013/#ixzz2VkXdJNmZ[/url

However I think this an omission as I believe that Jamie O'Callgahan is also out of contract, as he was awarded a 3 year deal announced on 30 September 2010 and the club has never announced an extension since then.

And of course Gower has left.

Gower would have been on £100k-£200k and our highest paid player - this salary will be available.

Howell is believed to have signed a four year six figure (£100k+) contract in 2009 at the peak of his powers. His contract will not be renewed.

Randall is likely to be on a salary comparable to Howell, so that will be another £100k or so removed. He has played his last game for the club also.

Chris Bailey and Dan Sarginson are widely believed to be joining Huddersfield and Wigan, so that would free up another £100k-£150k.

Dorn is another likely to go, as are Colbon and Melling, with the club deliberately not renewing contracts and the possibility of sincere rival interest likely to see them go.

I'd estimate we will have about £650k as a minimum of salary to spend and this will largely be made up of players who have barely featured in 2013, so the squad will be enhanced for sure.

This will free up several spaces on the two overseas registers, although not as many as we would ideally like, as we should be deemed a club outside the heartlands and have the same ability as Catalans to sign players from anywhere.

Things will improve
Rammo

PS Powell won 3 from 20 last season, whilst Rea has 3 wins, 2 draws and a cup quarter final spot, how is that worse than Powell?

Can you not see the damage this club is doing to the game, forget SL, there are other teams just as poor as London but the huge disservice it does to all the juniors and amateurs in London and surrounding counties.
Every pathetic performance, every amateur decision made by this club damages and undermines every effort the amateur movement make, when LONDON is synonymous with rank amateurism the amateur game is tainted by proxy.

Can you not see that we won't be in a position to attract decent players.

I said that the results were well below par but the *performances* were worse than under Powell. Rea's team are surrendering games.

EDIT: 48, 64, 46, 30, 82 - an average of 54 points per game shipped across last 5 SL games.

Exactly.

1) Northern players don't want to move South for reasons of MUCH higher cost of living for same money, and dont want to disrupt kids from school, moving house, and removing the family support network. If you live in e.g. Huddersfield you can change club and play for almost every Northern club without needing to move house.
2) Overseas players will always go North if they can because of the lower cost of living. Any players we get will be poorer players who cant get a contract anywhere else.

And next year is the last of the 3 year franchise so we can only realistically offer a 1 year deal as we're all up in the air. I see Wakefield signed Tuson from Wigan on a 2 or 3 year deal, confidence from them I guess.

Whatever we're paying for him, we're definitely getting value for Bailey. Replacing him won't be easy.

Exactly, without the security of funding beyond next season I doubt we will be able to offer anything other than short term deals.

Not necessarily true. Many Aussies, especially those from Sydney, would like to live in London, because it is a great city with lots going on.

Only the dour Kiwis, who come from a boring, low key country, would find northern England an interesting place to live.

Yeah, northern clubs (rugby or otherwise) do find it difficult to attract overseas talent...