I think you are misreading optimism for hubris... but i get it... optimism is a rare commodity amongst Trinity fans

Let's not exaggerate, he had 3/4 good games but still wasn't as good as a 34 year old who'd retired the season before.

He looks leaner and is playing well this year, but we need to remember the quality of the opposition. He's a lot to prove in my opinion.

He does, but then he's not guaranteed a starting spot either.
Uele, Rodwell, McMeekan, and then Atoni and Vagana fighting it out for the last spot.

I'd say he's well ahead of Vagana at the moment. Vagana was unlucky with his injury so I think it'll be next season before we see the best of him. Showed some good signs today though.

So in your opinion who are average out of our new signings then? and who was past it back in 2023 that we're taking back up to SL?

Also, I'd put good money on us beating London, Hull and Huddersfield right now, the last two especially are dire. Who are all these players that are gonna make Huddersfield and Hull a lot stronger next year? Hull seems to have got together an over 33 side, yeah there are a couple of decent signings there but that's about it, Hudderfield has signed one of the Burgess Twins, who plays about 20 minutes a game nowadays. If he was much cop his brother would have snapped him up to play for Wire. Marsters and Yates Hudds best 2 players this year, one gone and the other is going. They signed a number of overseas at the start of the year on 3 and 2-year contracts, like Clune, Deakin and Murchie and so it's going to be hard for them to make room on the cap to sort that team out imo.

Whoever has said SL is going to be a cakewalk next season? I've never heard it once, so why make things up? The most I've heard fans hope for is if we made the top 6, but many also would be happy with a competitive top 8, that also would be a good starting point.

Can't beat one of our own fans bigging up rival clubs and cvonstantly crapping all over our team and new signings, why bother watching?

Heard at the game on Friday night that Hull KR are now looking at hanging on to him

Their overseas quota’s full so not sure how they’d manage that. For what it’s worth I think Doyle is ready for SL, but agree we could do with someone to spell and back up for Doyle if he gets a knock. I really rate Smith but for next year at least he’s a 30 mins per game off the bench type of hooker, like most good hookers when they first come through.

I wouldn’t be disappointed if we kept hold of Hood for another year and get an answer to the question of whether he can keep up in SL. His defence is still top drawer, he’s just not very dynamic on the ball. Parcell would be a slight improvement - but good enough for a quota spot?

Agree completely. With our 1-19 available we’d beat London, Hull, Huddersfield and Cas now. Or looked at another way, if any of those teams were in the Championship this year they would have lost more than one game. Throw in McMeeken, Johnstone, Hall, Trueman et al and I think we’re mixing it with Leeds, Leigh, Catalans on a bad day, and picking off a few top teams here and there. For me there’s not much pressure, I’m just looking forward to seeing Rodwell run over James Bentley.

Personally not convinced we’d beat anyone other than hull , when we’ve faced teams that are fit we’ve struggled to break them down , even hull have a squad of full timers. If you take cas and Huddersfield 1-17 suspect we’d struggle.

At the moment we really don’t know how good some of our 2024 signings are, certainly we are going to need the likes of Russel Truman Johnson to stay fit

Have you watched Hudds, Catalans, Hull these past few weeks? They are incredibly poor and you really think we wouldn’t beat them. They’re not even turning up.

The whole point of breaking teams down is why we have signed two half backs for next season in Russell and Truman.

We have won every game bar 1 and haven’t struggled in hardly any games this season. Perhaps 2/3 where it’s been close but we’ve faced plenty of fit teams this season where we have won healthily. The strengthening for 2025 should see us be competitive around the middle somewhere I hope.

Injuries are same for all teams. You could say the same for every other team. But our conditioning team are excellent and the fitness of the players is very good so you can’t influence much more than that.

Our best 17 would batter London and Huddersfield's. That's as much a reflection on us as it is how poor Huddersfield are. Everyone's chuffed with the fight London are putting up but how many of their players would you take for our run-in now? Kershaw? Rourke? Wouldn't swap any of our pack for theirs.

The sympathy vote and support for London makes me sick tbh.

Crowds barely near 2000 at best. Less points than Trinity last season, no sponsor start of season, go part time players in SL, begging for dispensation articles etc. If hull hadn’t packed up mid way through season, dismantled team and played academy kids London would be well adrift. In fact both teams are cast adrift as it is. Nothing to be proud of for either.

Trinity last year got the ten bells kicked out of them by a number for less than that.

Look at allegedly Hughes scaling back next season if the are back in Championship. What a terrible attitude that is. All very tin pot.

But the answer is, I would probably take 3/4 of their squad at most.

I would look at Bienek, Roarke and maybe the hooker Davis (though he’s not as good as Doyle watching him).

I really hope we get in SL next season and hand out a few defeats to some teams in SL.

Yeah I agree with that. Pundits seem to overlook (whether intentionally or not) that Hull and Cas have been playing the situation. If relegation was a real threat Hull would have got a serious coach in, spent more money on players, and ultimately won more games. It wouldn't be this close.

Rourke looks class, would be great to have him in the squad next year. I've played against Bienek and Davis - Bienek is hard to handle but not really much more, and he's working for an IT firm and doing alright. Davis is a good player with development still in him but he's signed for Salford.

Cas fan in peace. Having watched & enjoyed a couple of DP sides at Cas I think some of you are underestimating the value of his structures. When he has the right players & it clicks, it’s great, when it doesn’t it’s still above average. The standard in SL is dire at the minute (& I said the same when we won the LLS) so with the majority the squad having a year of DP under their belts, coupled with the incoming players, I’d honestly be expecting to finish above Hull, Cas, Huddersfield at worst & likely higher if things go well.

That sounds like a valid point. The one thing that has been apparent this season is structure. Defence has been excellent almost all season in structure and line speed.

I can 100% see why he has brought in these few players for next season. It will as you say be a plan to play a certain way and execute specific plays.

Reality is that in 80% of our games there’s not been a need to go above 2nd gear. The core is their and I have an appreciation for Powell I’ve built over the season that makes me think he will want a big year next season and given the backing should see it realised to some degree.

I agree with all that.
I just think we need to manage expectation
For first season being above those 3 teams would be a good achievement.
Anything else is a massive success.

I’d be okay with 9th but with a full cap spend and the coaching set up in place I don’t believe it would be unreasonable to expect a higher finish somewhere mid table between 9-5th. We do have 2 x England internationals joining too.

clearly I m better at watching rugby than you are at reading , the point I was making is that our current starting 17 would struggle against the starting 17 of most of the bottom teams in super league. I m not sure quite what signing Russel or Truman has to do with that assertion as they ain’t in our starting 17. We’ve had a relatively injury free season, playing largely part timers, we’ve made some good signings for next year which I guess if we were already capable of beating the bottom 3 or 4 clubs we wouldn’t have done.

So I m with Powell current squad isn’t up to sl signings which is why we’ve signed 7-9 new players

My first point was regards the current 17 and that I disagree that we wouldn’t be able to beat the bottom few teams in SL with our current 17. I’ve watched almost all recent games and they are terrible getting pumped week in /week out almost by large scores and looking largely hopeless in performance. It says a lot when part time London aren’t even bottom.

If you call relatively injury free season missing almost 8-10 players for a cluster of games and having a few medium length injuries to key and pivotal players and positions relatively injury free then I disagree with that too. We’ve just played a string of games games without halfbacks, missed Atoni, Rodwell, Uele, Cozza, and Bain (2 x spells) for 4/5 games and more, McGillvray and Thornley having to be managed through season. It’s only recent couple of games we are looking a bit better and the fact we have good depth in this league but that is different from injuries sustained. Perhaps your memory is about as good as my ability to watch rugby and read.

Im not sure what you mean your with Powell on the 7-9 signings. Im not sure anyone would suggest we return to SL without strengthening.

I don't think either is true. We've had some terrible spells with injury this season, where we haven't been able to name a fit 21 players a few times. Our halves have missed a huge chunk of our season, and so have our props, plus Thornley and McGillvery have been out quite a bit. There have been games where we've played with one prop and had to play second rowers in the middle and hood at 13.

So you're saying that if we can beat the poorest SL teams in the division atm why would we improve our team next season, seriously? well, because we don't want to compete at that end of the table for one, London will also be gone. Also of course we need new players we've got a few that are retiring and a few that are another year older by the time next season starts and may choose to stay at this level. It's also been demonstrated this season when we've had injuries and players playing out of position that we need a better quality bigger squad for SL. Plus we've got an owner who has aspirations of making this team more than also runs, so being potentially able to beat 2 or 3 poor SL teams this year won't cut it, from what he's said.

No I actually have a pretty good memory , put simply my point on Powell is that we are adding a coterie of experienced super league players to ensure we can compete next season.

I honestly think that people on here that compare sl to championship standard are making a big mistake. Full time training is such a massive boost to players fitness and team cohesion.

We have quite a few players that have been absolutely outstanding this year , they would be peripheral players in super league. Power to their elbows but to think that this squad would roll in and beat starting squads of aforementioned clubs is kidding themselves .

As regards injury free yes I accept at times we’ve had 8-10 players out, equally we’ve been playing teams that in one case could only field 15 fit players. Also when weve had forwards out we’ve been able to replace them with players that would walk into any other championship team .

I m happy that we are strengthening for next year because if we were fielding the same squad we’d probably finish second to bottom - admittedly that’s an opinion and one that can’t be tested

Matt Parcell has announced that he will be going back home to Australia at the end of the season.

Yes I read same article , at moment we have smith and Doyle only signed smith and Doyle so an area of real weakness , looking at uk players that are available I wonder if we will give hood another year

As far as I know that's always been the plan. Parcell was just fan talk.

As PT says below I think Parcell was just wishful thinking. I think it was even me many weeks back suggesting we look at him as an option to be honest.

Like you say I expect Hood will be announced soon for a year until there’s more quality on the market at 9.