Let’s be honest we’ve made a hash of our recruitment yet again. It can’t be deliberate we have so few adults in our squad. On the plus side they’ve all played together and know Eccles style of play so if we can get a full 17 out for games we may do OK.

Hughes is treating fans like mugs. He clearly doesn't want to spend much on the squad while the IMG changes are pending. Either that or he's brassic. Either way his time is up.

Skolars squad announced. Larger than ours. Noticeable that none of their players who came over to us last season are in their squad this season even the ones who went back mid season. I suspect that means they’ve probably dropped out of the game which is a bit of an own goal all round for London RL.

Rarely did the 21 (24 this time) named a couple of days before each match last year, actually include 21 truly available players. Some were on long term injuries. It would be a (pleasant) surprise if everybody were available on Friday, but no doubt some will be doing their paid job and others carrying niggles that won't be risked. It's only a friendly of course, but if there are drop outs, it's going to highlight the depth issue, not that it needs a match to highlight it.

Very true Smithers. Full on players like Bienek and Albert will inevitably be at risk of picking up knocks the way they play and Horsman has unfortunately missed quite a bit of the last two seasons. It won’t take much and we are right into the U18s or the curious reverse dual ref we seemed to have with Skolars. Neither IMHO is a recipe for success. Hope we come out guns blazing against Batley and the. Pick up,at least 3 Vhampionship hardened players.

Whilst he was bankrolling us he did as he pleased....now he's not bankrolling us, he can just ing do one.....they're lucky I'm not there for a game or I'd pay the extra to sit in his company and tell him (again) that he's destroyed the club I follow.....in some colorful Anglo Saxon terms.

Seeing as we'll all be sat opposite the Gold Lounge side of Plough Lane this season how about a nice big 'HUGHES OUT' banner to cover up some of the empty seats in the East Stand?

Nice idea, RfE, but I don't think there is a banner big enough for he myopic maestro to get the hint.

As an alternative how about one that says “get some players in”. With another one that reads “Right fxxxing now” Drawback on this plan is it will require about 7 people and I’m not sure what our gate will be.

Could ask those playing (if there are at least 7) to hold it up before kick off.

I sense more club bans coming

I considered sponsoring a player under the name 'Hughes Out'.

Gawd I hope no one sponsored Paulmbo.

A badge of honour I've so far not received, so I'm looking forward to it.



I see Lovell told the SW Londoner he was hoping for the playoffs and then Super League. He agrees we need more signings, so that's 1 who should hold the banner.

The 13 for the Skolars match looked strong on paper and we appear to navigated the match without injury so that’s good. Special thanks to Hull for loaning us their shirts as ours are still being manufactured. Unless those were our shirts in which case anyone who preordered on basis of recent computer mock up might be in for a surprise.

What shirts are those? Half hoops, black and white?
It's 3 months since I started this thread....actually nearly 4 and the club has stumbled from fiasco to farce in the off season with ad hoc pricing followed by discounting and freebies, shirt designed on a laptop but not in the flesh, a move to the other side of the stadium for nothing more than aesthetics and now their only pre season game against a few of last years broncos squad whilst wearing a shirt with no relevance to the club, it's history or it's retail offering?
Spanking the foot of the table skolars is nice, but I suspect a few things to unravel once we get to the business end of Feb. I see the club claim player sponsors are nearly all sold, yet not one player on the website has a sponsors name.....more VFM from the commercial department.
Sad to say, it's all very pedestrian and unexciting and even if I were back in the UK, I'd probably not bother now unless it was to berate Hughes


On the IMG front, I see little of anything coming through with the SL season on the horizon? Could it be that they've figured out that all they've got is a northern hobby, run by a few northern millionaires who are too tight to realize that spending a few quid in the south might grow the game and fill their coffers, but it would take a decade or so........or maybe their VP in charge of golf has remembered her time at Harlequins RL with less than fondness?

It’s all relative but I assume sponsors would want their logo out there for as long as possible i.e. announced pre season and on show for any preseason friendlies - bear in mind the friendly takes place in the square mile so not a bad place to be on show. The shirts appear to my eye to have no sponsors logos on at all. Ditto the red training? Kits. I see Skolars have a couple of sponsors on their shirts including Anderson travel a long standing Broncos sponsor. Unless I’ve got this wrong, we either have no sponsors or have left it very, very late to get our ducks in a row. Something seems to have gone wrong.

The Broncos shirts reminded me of Union's Barbarians, preferred the Skolars shirts TBH

I assume those were our away kits but why we have stolen yet another club's design is a mystery. Performance was decent enough. Bienek certainly looked good.

Good to hear Bienek is in good form he’s an important player for us. On the shirt front I don’t think it is the away kit as that appears to be red. I think it’s a holding/temporary shirt because our shirts aren’t ready yet. In a sea of obvious negatives at least that means we probably do have sponsors. I wonder if we forgot to get a kit provider lined up when Commercial manager left or whether we were intending to go with his company them plans changed. You’ll recall the unexpectedly strong words about Eccles.
In any event he’s got the Skolars shirts out tout suite and they look good so we’ll, have to see what ours look like. IMHO I wouldn’t go for a completely blank/white back as it looks like the shirt is only half done.

The Skolars (I assume) training top with diagonal design looked really good.

First step in Skolars supplanting Broncos as top team in London. Any wake up call for Broncos management Team is gratefully received. We really do need to plan better (or at all). Fairly hopeful that if we can stay injury free this will be an improved season ( very difficult to be worse) but our decision making.....

no way we will stay injury free. Just not happening in RL,

Not sure our management team have twigged that otherwise surely we’d have a few in reserve. On the plus side looks like we have a decent enough 13+ a couple of interchanges for first game at least and what more can we ask it’s only been 4 months since last season ended.

Here we are then one week to go. A plethora of signing announcements from Skolars us less so. I’m working on the basis a club wouldn’t announce its sponsors and shirt in the week running up to the first game. Logic suggests all focus would be on that so, incredible as it seems, we appear not to have got our ducks in a row in the off season which is pretty concerning. Hopefully a decent performance and crowd will let a little positivity in.