Been promised Jam tomorrow for that long we have realised tomorrow never comes.
Think the glory that was the KC Stadium has now become our millstone around our necks.
We sold the Boulevard for £280,000 less than Rovers got for the old Craven Park nearly 25 years earlier and it seems no caveats on the sale.
We need to build around the spine of the team with a younger replacement for Price [ HTW not be ready for another 2 years
Pearson will be disappointed come pass sales as he wants every one to BUY in to him but thinks nothing of the supporters views.
Me been going since 1950 but not going to get a pass next year ,roll up when I want and if not satisfied not bother .
Pearson does not get it merging the youth teams this in the long run will loose future support.
The games going backwards the RL can't or don't want to see what the fans see the bending over for certain teams on disciplinary matters.

I think the point on the Leeds game is key. Our fairytale cup run in 2005 probably helped create an unrealistic sense of possibility in the context of today's competition. We went through 2006 marshalled superbly by Cooke and Horne at the top of their respective games but in the following decade IMO the financing and infrastructures at the top 3 (and maybe Warrington) have stepped on to the extent of being currently unassailable. Sure, if we were more successful over time we'd leverage better value from the cap. But the collective cost that we can afford to spend on first team and academy and coaching staff is dwarfed by what Wigan/Leeds/Saints can via both materially higher gates, more control over stadium income, and wealthier, RL-devotee boards.

I buy in part the argument that investing Pritchard's (for the sake of argument) salary into coaching would help somewhat, but to me it's a bit like re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. The total income of the club is simply not enough to compete against the top 3 consistently as exemplified in the Leeds game when they had 6 out.

In this context, maybe 7th isn't that catastrophic, but simply a reflection of where we are and can expect (or hope, if reduced pass sales force first team cuts) to be.

The communication with fans from the club needs to treat us a little less patronisingly IMO. Gung-ho promises of Top 4 are pointless now. Some measured acknowledgement of mistakes made and re-calibrating our stated ambition would IMO engage fans more effectively than repeated bluster and borderline nonsense. We're grown up enough to face the truth. The top 3 have huge competitive advantage which we can't match at the moment. Let's have a bottom-up plan for recovery that's believable and medium term.

brilliant thread this!! with many well thought out,reasoned intelligent posts. I am hoping adam pearson will read them and really take into account these heartfelt opinions of people who at the end of the day just want our club to be the best it can be.I of course wont walk away as the "habit "has been with me for almost 60yrs now so I cant kick it !!?

What do you define as a close one? Because in 2013 we managed to win 4 games by less than 10 points, that included the non event game away at Wigan after the Cup Final.
Which is also the same number of games we've won by the same margin this year.

When Gentle arrived he said that the one thing he wanted to do was narrow the gap between our best and worse performances. IMO it's been Radford that has achieved that this year.

Some great points made on this thread , Maybe it's time to see the club take out another fan survey . I could go a little way to re connect with the supporters .

Actually that's open to debate. Last year was a definite backward step but this season has been on a par with Gentle's last season in charge and could - only could, mind - end up being better in terms of league position. Of course we have a better squad now, at least in key positions.

As long as James Rule doesn't organise it

you mean like last week against Wigan?
I wish people would stop having a pop at Gentle.Overall he was doing a good job.He had recognised he made a mistake going for a smaller mobile pack and started to rectify that with the signing of Paea.
He also had a lot of bad luck with player injuries yet we still finished sixth.
You may say some of the signings McRae/Gentle made cost the club money but the Wembley appearance put a lot of money back into the club which people conveniently forget.
The interesting thing about this thread is the number of posters who are at last seeing the limitations of Radford and feel money would be better spent on trying to attract a quality coach to the club.
I just think Pearson has lost the plot.if he thinks the signing of Pritchard will but bums on seats he is sadly mistaken.
maybe it will take pass sales to decline to around five thousand for the penny to drop.

I said on Twitter the other day that if AP sets out that we will get jam tomorrow (with the usual "no guarantees" caveat), I'd be happy to wait if there was loads of jam and it lasted a while. I'm realistic enough to know that success isn't round the corner, so no more of this Top 4 stuff, just a sensible approach that takes the fans with him.

Mrs B's suggestion of an AP "State of the Nation" speech (with New Order soundtrack) is a must.

As a general rule, I'd say those games that are settled by a converted score or less. This year we've had 8 games that close, won 3 lost 5. In 2013 we had 10 games that close, won 5, drew 2, lost 3. I was thinking less about the number of tight games we've won and more about the percentage. In a close game, I feel less confident with this team.

And I totally agree that that was Gentle's biggest failing, I've said the same before. Taking out the Hudds extreme debacle and speaking more generally, I'm not convinced that Radford has done much better, though.

This is the root cause of our problem -IMO.

When Powell took over Castleford, he never had the luxury of saying "Not my team" and improved existing players.

He lost Chase and Clark, two of his main pivots, and still maintained a top 8 finish.

I'd happily take a "guaranteed" 4th to 7th place spot each year from where we have been but the other thing we need to look at is why a couple of teams (cas and hudds) above us seem to be doing better with seemingly no better resources and no better playing squads IMO (If they have it's down to better recruitment as neither have star home grown players)

Good post. I think that your assessment of pearson is spot on. He seems to me like someone who doesn't employ people who will question his judgement so just ends up with a stack of yes men. gentle didn't seem to fit that bracket to me so maybe that's why he went and maybe there was friction due to it beforehand. pearson's interview on Thursday was a prime example of how he behaves. He started off very calmly but when people started questioning him and saying things he didn't like he went off on a rant which I believe he thought justified his point.

On the point of employing a better quality coach, sticking 1k on the average gate would probably cover the additional cost on top of radford's salary which would be easily achievable IMO

this is because powell believes in his ability to get the best out of what he has, rather than simply buy new. i'm not at all sure radford can coach or manage a player to any degree. with our players it seems a face either fits or it doesn't

Big and strong is all Radford knows.
What he forgets about is the importance of pace and flair which is usually what as a team we cannot cope with.

Getting the balance is key. Mix our team with kr!

Good thread this one.

I've been going to FC since the early 80's and had a season pass from 92 through to last year, this being the first season I didn't buy one.

What's frustrating about the current situation, is I feel we almost made it terms AP's vision for the club.

He paid off the crap from the previous owners, invested in infrastructure, invested in youth development and the academy, and, at the same backed the coach in terms of running at salary cap.
The plan as I saw was that we would start producing more local talent and rely less on overseas mercs over for a last hurrah before retirement.

Doing all that whilst trying to challenge the top clubs and bring silverware to the club was never going to be easy. Yes there have been mistakes along the way.

But those shoots started to push through, there are youngsters pushing for a first team place, more than I can remember in some time. I still think our squad is better than its shown to be capable off this season.

The glaringly obvious thing he didn't do was get a top coach in - and this isn't LR bashing, its not his fault, no man in the right mind would have turned the job down.

But a top coach would have developed young talent better, probably played a more exciting brand of rugby and whilst the end result still may have only be 7th or 6th as those youngsters became more experienced, the fans would be entertained and excited to see young players developing before their very eyes - I know I would.

Now it seems its too late, with dwindling crowds due to 'boring' product on pitch, AP is having to cut his cloth as the OP suggested - the merger of the academy was purely for that reason, I wont be convinced otherwise.

With pass sales likely to down again next year, its only a matter of time before other cost cutting measures are made - this guy (AP) will NOT sit here forever watching his money go down the drain, he doesn't love the club that much regardless of what he says.

I really believe if he had gotten a proven, experienced coach 2/3 years ago, paid top dollar for him and maybe spend a fraction less on players to cover the investment all his hard work and commitment to the club and facilities/academy would now be paying off, the academy merger would never have happened and we wouldn't have this thread.

I know this thread doesn't need de-railing and I'm trying to avoid doing that, but the missing piece of the jigsaw is glaringly obvious to me, why not to him?

As mentioned earlier you only have to look at Cas to see what's achievable with a coach that connects with his players and leads them. They believe in him and his ideas and they execute them on the pitch.

I really fear the worse TBH in terms of revenue down again next year, and if we get off to a bad start again, another season of frustration, boredom and lack of success.

I used to look forward to the new season, now I dread it.

What's done is done I guess. I think in summary some of AP's investments have been good (academy) others poor at best, but currently we are likely to have insufficient total income to fund a strong academy and a top 3 size/quality of coaching staff and a squad that yields their sort of value. We can rebalance between the three pots which would probably help (and seems to be part of the academy merger thinking) but the maths seems inescapable. We're diluting the academy, and the coaching structure could scarcely be cheaper, so the only place left to cut spending is the first team. Given we've only just made the 8 in a season of few injuries, next year on a reduced cap spend could be jeopardy.

I take the point on Powell at Cas, but still don't think we can challenge the top 3 consistently without a step change in funding. I know the question's been asked already, but presumably there'd be no interest in buying us? RL clubs are generally basket-cases from a returns perspective, so any prospective buyer would have to be unhinged in an FC-nut way.

A dour team that can't score but will concede 40 points most weeks?

I thought he'd long gone by the last one .

pearson said in his interview last week we'll be spending above the cap next season using various loopholes

If that ends up being the case (some claims have been previously umfulfilled), then the balance of spending should be adjusted. Doesn't alter the bigger issue on total club funding though.

I'm still not seeing this 'Radford has near enough equalled Gentle's 2013 season'!

People banging on about unlucky to get Leeds in the 1/4s of the CC, what about Cats away in the 1/4s and Warrington in the semis in 2013, Warrington finished 2nd in the LL and were GF runners up!
2013 saw us barely string together a fit set of halves, starting rookies, investment in the youth only just a year in and yet we scored 5 points per game more by season end than now - that's approx 115 points scored more in 2013 after 23 games and conceded the same -21.04av '15, 20.85-'13

We finished with 28 points from 27 games, I guess folk are going to say' ah but the super 8s are more difficult' as an excuse if we don't achieve the same points from 3 more games but we couldn't even beat Wakefield FFS and have had 40+ put past us twice this season and scored 40+ just once (2013 we scored 40+ 3 times and 38 was the highest against)

In 2013 we felt like we had hope of winning, that we were improving and that it was a solid season (if not dissapointing losing the CC final), that with some decent signings for 2014 we could get closer to the top 4 and look where we are now, in total disarray. the fans are upset, first half of the season we couldn't score for shat despite being in great field position, the youth system is being merged, yet more fans stating they aren't buying passes.

But yeah we are roughly in the same position as 2013

what a joke, we're miles away both in on field play and how the fans are feeling with regards the club!

More rose tinted memories of Peter Gentle.

The Cup wins over Catalans and Warrington were great, of course, but the final saw as bad a performance as any under Radford, the play off debacle was a nadir in the club's history. The narrow win over Wigan's academy team the week after Wembley kept us in 6th, we hardly sailed into the play offs.

Also in 2013 every team beat us apart from London and Salford (the bottom two) and we had to come from behind to get a draw at London.

There was as much moaning on here then as there is now.

As has been pointed out Peter Gentle failed in his aim to narrow the gap between our good displays and our poor ones.

So by your logic/definition we are playing better this year/narrowing the gap compared to 2013 by losing more games by greater margins, scoring less points but conceding the same and with no hope of a final or even a play-off game...of course how silly of me



But crack on with your doe eyes over Radford and how this season has panned out, I'd say we had four great games this season, the rest have being average or utter garbage. Gentle wasn't amazing but he was getting us in the right direction and with a damn sight more hope than we'll ever have under Radford.