What’s their strike rate been like on having kit ready before the season starts?

Not as often as the RMT.

Not sure if it’s a mistake and no announcement but even the doom mongers who said we’d start discounting ticket prices may not have seen this coming. Try buying an adult £20 ticket as per October announcement. They seem to be £17.50 now. Not sure how that effects value for money on Season tickets ...not my main driver for supporting the club on that front but optics not good.

Yes I saw that, was wondering if it was an early bird offer?

Seems much more low key this year attempts to shift tickets

Yes that is what it will be. I had forgot about that. Good to know we haven’t begun discounting before the season starts even the most pessimistic wouldn’t have seen that coming. Now we have to hope there will be some announcement re on and off field personnel. As it stands we appear to have a smaller squad than last year with a significant number of academy or recent academy products.

Initially the club set online prices without the early bird discount but that got corrected when they were informed.

Just checked and for all their challenges, Skolars have a significantly bigger squad than we do. What on earth is going on?

You do want a lot BT. Be grateful we now have a competition page on the website where you can win a box for 10 people v Batley.

Mind you without strengthening the squad, you could house the entire crowd in there.

Indeed, how long before the majority of the crowd are in lounges or boxes ? Doesn't help build an atmosphere.

Rumour has it that next weeks competition is guess when we’ll announce our next signing. I’m thinking 2024.

Does anyone believe that the pricing of a ticket, regardless of it being £17.50, £20.00 or £45 is going to be an impactor in terms of gates this year?
It does seem odd that £20 has become £17.50 though. Another sign of the left and right hand being at odds with each other.

I've just noted that there's no upgrade to the new bar or gold lounge options available to casual visitors, so any "new" or curious fans will be simply let in and won't know of the options available. I went through the entire purchase steps on-line and at no stage was there an option to pay £30 to buy a Broncos Bar ticket???? It is 1 month ago today that it was launched. Strange, but as I say, no joined up thinking seems to be the mantra now.

As it is, I'll not be in Blighty when the team are playing this year unless we get to round 6 of the Challenge Cup and won't be able to cast an eye over Plough Lane, but after the "halabaloo" over the announcement of a fanzone, new bar etc, it does seem to have gone very very VERY quiet on the promotional front.

I've not seen much promotion of the gold lounge.....



Twitter, after being largely ignored this time last year seems to be the default messaging system now, whilst the email is just an abridged version of the past weeks tweets. The club site is depressingly up to date with 21 first team squad members although can somebody please tell Key and eagle to up their game....white text on black backgrounds is 101 How not to build a website and the grey headlines on the player profiles is appalling. There's also no sponsorship profiles being shown at present?

On the topic of sponsors, we seem a tad light there as well. Personally, a shirt with fewer badges is nicer, but it is a worry that the commercial guy is still hawking for a match ball sponsor for game 1 and that our playing shirts seem to have a fair amount of unsold space. Maybe the LBSA could sponsor everyone this year?



There's been little effort to sell the capital challenge at all. I remember freezing my gnads off watching us pummel skolars in the square mile, but this now seems to be the sole project of the skolars and they are heavily promoting it [urlhttps://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-capital-challenge-london-skolars-v-london-broncos-live-rugby-league-tickets-473302188587[/url

Sorry to be the doom guy, but we look undercooked and unprepared both on and off the field in 2023 and I fear for the club. There's not a chance that IMG will touch us with a barge-pole in our current situation and without Hughes flashing some cash, I can see the Skolars match being a home and away fixture in 2024!

£17.50 was always meant to be the early bird price and stated as such when memberships went on sale. I presume in last few days before game the price will go up to £20.

I think pricing will be a factor as discounts are likely to be required to attract much needed new fans.

I noted the age for senior concessions, which was 60 last year, now seems to be 65. It looks lack of trains out here in Essex knock the two February games on the head for me.

It.might be an idea to advertise.to anyone other than the choir.
The club have done the "bring a mate" to death and need to look at other ways to get locals through the doors. I've seen nothing or heard nothing whilst scouring local social media and AFC fan sites. The clock is ticking and I genuinely hope they don't flush thousands down the drain of Metro and the standard again.
It's depressingly "business as usual" from the Broncos who seem to think 2022 went OK?

I think any criticism of the recruitment is unwarranted. The strategy appears to be quality over quantity, and half of that is going very well. "Over Quantity" looks a success and is opening up the opportunity to extend the "Win a Spectator Box" to "Win a Place on the Replacements Bench". Anyway, who needs quality.

Seriously though the squad looks incredibly thin (17 players really) with just a few weeks to go. The December signing bonanza appears to have fallen through. With everyone fit and available the team looks okay. Will only take one or two injuries to badly derail the team. With just 10 days until the Skolars fixture, what quality of team will play that day. 1pm on a Friday for a pre-season friendly for part time players. Lots unavailable perhaps, not great for a thin squad.

Loan strategy last year wasn't great. Players appearing for one or two games. Or just not good enough (Ferreira). Davis was good and I guess the Prop (whose loan was at least a few more games) whose name I forget. Unless the loans are long term, are they really worth it? Or will they be needed due to desperation?

Potential Starting Line-Up?

Walker
Ulberg
Natoli
Grant
Macani

Leyland
Raiwalui

Albert
Davis
Bienek
Williams
Lovell
Parata

Interchanges:
Bassett
Horsman
Stock
Palumbo

Two backs as Interchanges isn't great. Natoli could start as a forward I guess, but makes Centre a weak spot (again). Maybe the club will try hard to get Siti to stay.

Everyone relax. Announcement just made. Won’t be rushed into recruiting wrong type of players. Hope to recruit a few by the end of the month. Cant really argue with part of that but in my opinion our squad is way too small and we’re in a bit of strife if everyone doesn’t hit the ground running or we pick up a couple of knocks. Literally a couple.

I think people could get quite tired of Cake's bull if he loses a few games.

What it looks like on paper is often different to the reality but on paper I like his clarity of thought and strength of purpose. However, ultimately, as at one month to start of season and a home game where a win/ good performance would drive up/maintain attendance levels, objectively our recruitment looks a failure.
From a retention point of view, although we have lost/let go more than we have retained (and bearing in mind how few players we have what does that say about our 2022 recruitment) we look like we have retained the best options and a few of the more ‘risky’ acquisitions have been let go. The problem, ultimately, is it seems to be difficult to recruit to a PT London club and the attrition rate of promotions from Academy is incredibly high (of the 7 over last two seasons whose contracts came up for renewal only Leyland and Horsman have remained and think about all the others from earlier seasons, Davis senior, Davies, Meadows, Hindmarsh, Boafo all gone one way or another). Also worth remembering for all the talk of a good second half of the season we are on a three match losing streak with two of those being home games. Crikey I hope we get off to a good start or it looks a struggle again.

We did not have a good second half of the season, it was average at best with some highlights (ie win v Fax etc) with some lowlights (loss to Haven etc). It only seemed good compaired to the disaster the first half of the season was

We had a decent bounce when Mustard was sacked and there seemed to be more motivation for a few games but things tailed off quite badly at the end of the season. Cake is totally unproven and the two assistants we were told would be in place still seem to be unannounced.

Was looking at the recent tweet from Natoli .
Aug 2022 working as a plumber in Sydney, Jan 2023 key members of the Broncos squad.

Well I suppose if nothing else we can put him to good use if the bogs get blocked at Plough Lane!

And to add to the misery whilst I saw us make idiots of ourselves against Widnes, Haven and Newcastle I missed the Fax game and the Batley one as well due to them taking place during peak holiday period. My highlights are seeing us turnaround a revolting 1st half performance against Sheffield....in Kent and beating the two sides who got relegated. Is it any wonder...... I really hope 2023 is better but we are a couple of injuries maximum from same again. Get recruiting ffs.

Interestingly you can buy entry for 2 adults and 2 Kids for £30.....so basically £15 a pop for adults and 2 free kids tickets.
Now, my maths is often wrong, but £95 for an Adult membership, £20 for the kid and then a tenner a ticket is £18.84 a game over 13 games?

Why would you pay £18.84 for an adult & a child when you can get in for £15 by booking the week of the game?

I despair sometimes at just how badly thought through some of the ideas coming out of the club are.

Yep, maths does not seem to be a strong point at the club. It was impossible to save money by buying a concessions membership over individual early bird tickets. Perhaps they are also struggling to count the number of players we have signed up.