Relatively it isnt that expensive to run a moderately succesful SL club. What we need is someone running the club on a day to day basis who has a vision and is very demanding of his staff. Read the article about Hetherington in this months RL World if you want to see how its done. Its not all about having a sugar daddy. Far from it.

I wonder if hes up for another challenge then nows he turned Leeds in to what they are and come down here and give us a hand.

At least the Hull stewards were kind enough to be giving out free tickets to anybody who wanted them before the match.

The underlying problems haven't really changed from last season because we haven't really addressed them.

1) We lack a quality scrumhalf with a kicking game, Orr is the only player who can organise, but he's more naturally suited to a stand off role than scrum half. Also, whilst Orr's attacking kicking is okay (hence tries for Howell last season and Sharp this season) he doesn't give us great positioning or distance in general play, and nor do any other players e.g. Randall. This hurts because we don't gain easy yards from penalties like our opponents, we never get 40/20's and generally we don't make it as hard as we should for our opponents to return our kicks. Purdo might help a little when he comes back, but Gale and Dorn are unlikely to make any difference.

2) Our pack is underpowered, people say LMS has gone backwards, that might be true, but he plays in a lightweight pack with a lack of go forward. It was good to see Karl back, bad to see him go again, but that he's our best prop only reminds us how little size and depth we have. Of the props I don't see Ben Jones, Danny Ward or Matt James offering us much, I don't think Olly Wilkes is anything but a stop gap.

3) We appear to be signing players to make up the numbers in our reserves and players who aren't good enough to play for teams we should be aiming to be above, a few seasons ago BM was slating clubs who get stuck at the bottom of the ladder because they trade e players with each other, now we take players who aren't even good enough for that. I think the only club with a weaker squad than us is Salford, I think we'll be 13th this season.

We need a coaching clear out and a player clear out, half our squad either simply aren't good enough for this level or are average.

I accept most of kelvin's post, but I would say that if we were going to have a clear out, it would have been at the end of last season after a 10 game losing run and a 48-0 thrashing by Cas in a vital game. Major surgery was needed to arrest the alarming lack of confidence (which is what Bradford and Hull have done). It hasn't happened, all we did was to lose 4 experienced players (Heckenberg, Gafa, Robinson and Haggerty) and replace them with youngsters - which is why I pointed to a long term benefit perhaps if we could keep them when they mature.

There is clearly not the resources to compete for honours, so all we have to be thankful for is that there is a Super league club at all in London. Surely the RFL could be more pro-active in seeking investors.

While this is true, is the situation that different than we have experienced at other times ? Perhaps Tony Rea, for example, did a better job of managing his limited resources.

either, so what is different?

Are we now paying rent and that is eating a chunk of our money that in the past was used on the squad?

Has the quota reduction meant we now no longer kind find the Scott Crams etc from Australia and instead have to make do with cast off players willing to come to London as they would not get a SL game anywhere else?

Changing the coach at this point of the season is madness other than the fact that perhaps a change there would alter the mind sets of the players we have, but it's almost the last throw of the dice to do so.

My understanding Homer is that the rent free deal was for the first 3 years only, and that the club now has to hire the stadium. No one knows the cut on bar takings, but I wouldn'y mind betting that isn't so clever either.

I also believe the stadium manager wanted to cancel the melbourne game on sunday morning due to the state of the pitch after the Quins RU game. What would that have done to our credibility?

Wigan dont have exclusive rights to a ground but seem to progress-They played a home 1/4 final at Widnes last year.

That's....................................depressing then.

Makes you wonder then what is different now to our last stint at the Stoop if all we are is paying tenants again....we could not afford to continue to stay there at that time..................so much for a partnership.

I don't think we do a particularly good job of looking.

Apart from the rent issue on which I have some figures that I'll try to dig out, there won't be any money coming in from Lenegan this year. That's a shortfall of close to £1m I think. Again I'll try to dig out the figures. The fact that we've not replaced Robinson tells its own sorry story.

EDIT: "Operating leases - land" cost £30,000 in each year 2007 and 2008.

Can't quite make sense of the other financials atm, more later ...

Quote ="Homer"That's....................................depressing then. Makes you wonder then what is different now to our last stint at the Stoop if all we are is paying tenants again....we could not afford to continue to stay there at that time..................so much for a partnership.'" Ive said on here before that this is what I expected has happened. No wonder we are losing so much money now and DH cant spend any more. I said after 'bloodgate' that when the chairman!? resigned from the RU club that it might have an impact and I wouldnt be surprised if this is it. The other guy was very surportive. Maybe it is time to consider some of the smaller Olympic stadiums now as a serious option as the financial burden iis too great 'renting''. A real partnership with someone else in say the basketball stadium www.london2012.com/games/venues/ ... -arena.php

Quote ="Homer"That's....................................depressing then. Makes you wonder then what is different now to our last stint at the Stoop if all we are is paying tenants again....we could not afford to continue to stay there at that time..................so much for a partnership.'" Ive said on here before that this is what I expected has happened. No wonder we are losing so much money now and DH cant spend any more. I said after 'bloodgate' that when the chairman!? resigned from the RU club that it might have an impact and I wouldnt be surprised if this is it. The other guy was very surportive. Maybe it is time to consider some of the smaller Olympic stadiums now as a serious option as the financial burden iis too great 'renting''. A real partnership with someone else in say the basketball stadium www.london2012.com/games/venues/ ... -arena.php

The Stoop is a top class stadium purpose-built fror rugby. Don't forget the implications of the licensing system. To move again would create a return to the nomadic existence from before, as well as rendering meaningless the Harlequins branding. We must have stability.

A by product of losing Tony Rea?

Could not agree more, always thought this was last chance saloon and we need at least 10 years in a community to even begin to start to think about the club becoming part of it........but..........can we continue to afford to stay there?

I always remember that in the previous incarnation at the Stoop we had some ludicrous figures being charged for every kind of incidental cost imaginable, seem to recall something stupid like £31 just to set the table for the pre game luncheons.

Mind I always thought though that this was a case of HRU taking the mickey and Broncos not always being as diligent as they could be on costs as Branson was footing the bills and people perhaps thinking it was a bottomless pit, at least until Nic got some kind of financial controls in place.

Exactly my point Homer. I love the Stoop as a stadium. Best Ive been to, and I loathe the idea of moving. But... if the Union club are now charging so much rent that it is impacting on our ability to recruit players of the calibre we need to compete in SL this will drive the fans away and I doubt DH will be able to keep us going. Are we really going to find some rich benefactor to take us over and subsidise us after all this time of searching? Its not like we are a Northern club where a succesfull business man helps the local club in his community who he has supported all his life.

So are we witnessing the slow death of top flight rugby league in the capital? Is the rent too high for us to pay? Or at least too high for us to be able to add to our squad? Are we having to leave our quota spots open in order to pay our landlords (can't still call them partners now surely). Whilst I hate us being Harlequins the Stoop is a cracking ground and unless we had the means to set up independently I don't know what we can do other than stay put. I can't see us getting a better deal with a lower division football club ( with all that goes with that sort of ground share arrangement, on the road games etc) unless a local authority has a venue left over from 2012 that they would have us take over rather than leave it as a white elephant. Unless we can get one of the number of Russian businessmen living in London interested in RL I don't see us doing anything else other than stumbling on until the plug is eventually pulled on us.

I'm not sure about the plug being pulled - I have the impression from Richard Lewis that the community work of Quins is highly regarded, and they know that the anti league journalists would have a field day if anything were to happen to us.

We need another Ian lenagan. He came out of the blue following an introduction from Stevo, and it isn't that hard a sell to a company who wishes to support communities to get involved. But as I've said before, why the RFL don't encourage Gillette, Engage, Guinness or other successful partnerships to get involved I fail to understand.

Undoutably.

We've struggled to recruit quality since he left and many of the good players left in McDermott's squad were brought in when Rea was still at the club and had an active say in recruitment: Randall, Melling, Orr, Temata, Purdham etc.

I think I'm right in describing Chris Melling is the sole Lancastrian in the team. To me that says it all about the scope of recruitment.

I'm sure the community work is highly regarded and rightl so, but low crowd numbers and performances(!) on the pitch don't help our cause. Personally I think we need more of Simon Moran rather than an Ian Lenagan (ie someone who'll be around for the long term) - but definitely not another Richard Branson!

Nice work by Quins RU if that's the case.

speaking of BLIND SPECULATION...has anyone received any answers to the forum questions that we were asked to email in after the recent cancellation (note, not postponement) of the January Fans Forum?

I haven't and seriously do not expect any. Sad but true.

Yep...smacks of a big step backwards after the progress made last year in being more open with the fans. The Club need to strike a balance between attracting new fans and keeping the (sometimes myopic

) ones they have. If a couple of "hard" questions are too much for them to handle then god help us. Still, Mac would still say we will win the comp and the "management" will blame Ian Lenegan for everything else........even though he continues to throw cash at us until the RFL told him to stop.