Can make all but Catalan, Leigh on a Friday is perfect ( selfishly) as I'll be in Fulham on the Saturday.

A Friday night game gives the club an opportunity to try something different. It could be a crucial game and the marketing team should get themselves into gear and promote the game really hard.
Only determined away fans will attend, but you could more than make up for the lack of away support by bringing in new people. A beer promotion or something might help.

Yea, I guess Friday works for most people, but my group wont be able to attend, but if it gets a load of new folks in then its good for the future...

I'm working in Germany atm so dont get back to UK until 8pm on Friday evenings, so no way I can make it.. but will be tracking it on twitter.. Hopefully it will be the game which see's us promoted back (unless the RFL dont shaft us, but thats a different thread)

The Ealing RU team have a home game live on Sky on Sunday 24th September.

I am assuming the 8pm kick off for the Warrington game is for Sky TVs benefit. Might stop a few Warrington fans coming down. Still being on TV probably would do that anyway.

Was wondering about this...the RFL rules state that any team in the middle 8s whose ground does not meet SL criteria must have applied for special dispensation bvy the end of June and been granted special dispensation by last Friday if they wanted to be in SL in the event they earn promotion - does anyone know if this happened, presumably it did as everyone would have been told if the Broncos had already accepted the fact that they wouldn't go up if promoted? To be fair, if Wakefield can keep getting the go-ahead for Belle Vue, I don't see why Ealing shouldn't.

Toronto on a Friday night was fun
Wire Sat night should be a great day

Saturday for Sky for sure, but 8 o'clock may have something to do with Trailfinders playing at 3 ([urlhttp://ealingtrailfinders1stxv.com/team/fixtures-results/2017-2018[/url!

I was just killing a bit of time and having booked my flights to France this morning. I looked to see what it would have cost to fly out there if we had been given a later date. Were we to play Catalan when Widnes play them in September we could fly there and back with priority boarding for Seventy Pounds. Out on Saturday back on Sunday. I have to say I paid a lot more than that.
Okay so someone has to play them in August and at short notice, but perhaps if it comes up next year. Give us a break. Let it be someone else.

https://www.oddschecker.com/rugby-leagu ... ame-winner Reading the odds it looks like Warrington to win the league Catalans second, Fax last, Fev second last, London third bottom, the rest in the mix

https://www.oddschecker.com/rugby-leagu ... ame-winner Reading the odds it looks like Warrington to win the league Catalans second, Fax last, Fev second last, London third bottom, the rest in the mix

Agree. Third from bottom is about right

You could see it as 3rd bottom or 6th which does sound a bit better

The challenge is for Hendo and the players to prove the bookmakers wrong.
I would expect Hendo not to be happy with 6th place. I feel he wants to improve on last season when points difference denied us place in the MPG.
The MPG is the aim.

We need to beat an SL team. We did it last year, away from home. We should win two of the three games against Championship opposition, we should run KR close.
If the players play to the best of their ability AND cut out the unnecessary mistakes we could make 5th.

Give away the penalties that we normally do then we have very little chance of beating the better teams, rugby league is a pretty simple game, keep hold of the ball for 5 tackles kick on the 6th. Get off the player you have just tackled when the ref tells you, that's about it really.

Cats game for me is very winnable... First game of the qualifers, Cats on a bad run, also being in France will take pressure off the team, where cats will be under immense pressure to win..... Score a couple of early tries and we could win this, and would set us up really well......

Although can see us beating Cats and losing to Fev... so concentration will be key

I would be more concerned about playing Featherstone if it was away. The fact that we are at home gives me confidence. I also understand that all is not well at Featherstone.

Hope I am proved wrong, I think we have very little chance of a win in Perpignan, there last outing they very easily could have beaten the best team in the comp, so have shown they can turn it on when they have too. I think there attack will be too much for us.
Like I say I hope I am wrong

There overall record at home has been poor, and they concede a fair few. If we started strongly, we would have a chance.........

I hope Catalan think that they will beat us. That gives us a chance to beat them.
They are not in the bottom four of Super League for no reason and I only wish we had them at home, where I think the odds of winning would be greater. Still we have just got to give it our best shot.
What we do not want to do is lose by a large margin. That is what cost us last year, when Hull KR put too many points on us.

Not sure our game at yours is pencilled in as a sky game, if that's the case its a real bummer as it wil definately limit the number of Wire fans to attend.

Catalan have the worst defensive record in SL but balance that against a better attack than the other 3 super league teams we will face, I still reckon at there place they will be too strong for us. We just need to get through this game with a decent performance.
We have to target the KR and Widnes games. At home Leigh we can beat. So I reckon loss in France loss against wire.
Karetaker, hope yr lot still bring a few down, it could be a good game.

Details, please.

From what I have been told. The sacking of Jon Sharp and appointment of Duffman has not gone down well with everyone at the club.
The players were given time off in the break,as were ours. However this was cancelled at very short notice. Players had things arranged with their families for this time, this has created some strife.
In addition, to come fourth in the competition behind Halifax has somewhat dented their pride.

Meh. There are always going to be noses out of joint when a coach goes but anyone who saw the effort the players put in in Toulouse (including one 13-minute passage where Fev defended 9 consecutive sets inside our own 40) would have to accept that the players have responded well to the new coach so far.

Indeed, there's a piece in today's RL Express where Duffy talks about how happy he has been with the players' attitudes - "with a new coach coming in at this stage they could have bought out, but their attitude has been first class", and he also says some players that had booked holidays chose to remain with the squad.

As for pride being dented by finishing behind Fax, that's nonsense. They beat us (and played very well) in a game that was meaningless to us and meant everything to them, and generally in Fev we are very pleased we finished 4th not 3rd - it's meaningless in terms of finance for next year but it means we get Leigh, Warrington and Hull KR at home, all of whose fans will travel in numbers, whereas Fax have Catalans, Widnes and us - we will probably take more fans to the Shay than either of the SL teams. The one scenario we didn't want as a club is having Catalans, Toulouse or London as one of our home games, and luckily we've avoided all three.