I see we play cas first according to Sky

Get away

I'm still faster than RL News Hound

Well yeah, at least you were the same day!

Wigan after the Derby it never went well last time if I remember rightly

That's when we were rubbish!

well i hope we are a lot better now

It will be my 53rd season of following Rovers & as usual will start off with with great optimisum & hope. We have a side that if stay fit & play to their potential can push for the top 6 & with a bit of luck top 4. But one thing has struck Me looking at the fixtures is the small number of sides we actualy play? Not a lot we can do about it as the money for full time sides only goes so far but I do miss the Pre 1973 days when we had a season of around 40 games & played nearly 20 different sides each year, I would love to be able to watch a competative Whitehaven or Swinton again or once again have dramatic cup ties with Oldham. Just a dream but we need to find a way to stop the league going stale.

Well said B RED I to remember the days when we so lots of games the only thing i like now is that it is in summer and not in winter but I think that is a age thing

I agree Bev Red. I used to sell programmes for the club as a teenager in the 60s outside the old Craven Park. Aside from being an awesome (I sound like a yank) side back then, we would play 20 home league games. Charity collections were 4 of us holding a massive blanket and walking round the dog track at half time, while the old East Stand used to pelt coins into it, often missing the blanket and hitting you. No health and safety back then, so plenty of bruises. We had to go around after the blanket sometimes to pick up the coins that missed. Needless today there were plenty. Times have changed.

Anyway, I digress.

Super League would be better as a league of 15 imo. 29 fixtures including Magic Weekend. Bottom 2 automatically relegated and top 2 in Championship automatically promoted to SL. 3rd from bottom in SL would play 3rd from top in the Championship in a million pound one off leg home and away for a Super League spot. Season to start mid Feb and finish mid Oct. Top 4 would get a week one bye into Week 2 playoffs. 5 to 12 in SL would go into a week one draw and play off. Week two playoffs between surviving 8 teams would be decided by draw and by draw again in playoff Semi Finals. Then Grand Final on neutral territory.

Do you really believe that?

Is your team much better than the one that finished 10th last year? To move up to 6th nevermind 4th in one season, with little recruitment is a massive ask. I think if Rovers can finish 7th/8th they have had a good season.

I wish you lot of old men or women would stop remembering the good old days loved it then,my god when you think that Nealy all the players had to have a job and still train and play sometimes 2 games a week, And i like your Idea for the super league but you talk sense they wont do that

just reading some of your posts and it does bring back memories esp the one with the blanket lol, I remember at the boulevard they should have issued crash helmets to the carries, also true about needing some of the old teams back, fev Oldham barrow even York and Workington could give you a good game,anybody on here remember paul longstaff the hairdresser from Huddersfield I think who you guys signed in the 60s ?

If we can keep Kelly and campese fit all season we will finish top 8 easily but it's a big if

I don't think it will be easy, what position were you in when Campese got injured, I'm sure you weren't in the top 8?

You might sneak into the 8, but I'd doubt it will be easy, you pack isn't good enough and I'd have concerns over the centre and FB position.

Going to a tight race for the 8, I can only see Rovers out of the bottom 4 challenging the 8 though.

"Going to a tight race for the 8, I can only see Rovers out of the bottom 4 challenging the 8 though.'"

Would agree more if Peacock was playing, not convinced Dixon will either be a top 8 player, too many weaknesses in his game, I think he is better on the wing were he finished the season positively for you.

He's too short for a winger.

We need to spend and hopefully he's doing this already, all of our time putting bombs up into a swirling wind.

Then, after that, he needs to massively improve his passing game, particularly from left to right.

His elusive running game his is strength, and in broken field this is best utilised from full back.

I won't even go into last line of defence as I've done this many times before.

He reads offensive plays pretty well, but he doesn't call the defensive plays with enough author, I don't think he understands that aspect of the game at this level.

It's just not a question of telling your team to jam left or right from the play the ball, a full back has to have done his homework and be able to read the oppositions plays and make an educated decision about what they're going to do and then neutralise that.

For me, there's not been an all round complete full back since Lockyer was playing there, and the game has changed since then.

I agree Dave, Sio at fullback and dixon on the wing for me. You can still utilise his blistering pace but feel safer with Sio at fullback defensively but still brings great attacking quality. Makes more tackle busts n all and gets your set starting quicker.

Dixon in open space is brilliant, so if you could play him outside thornley who can potentially slip him a few passes, he could be lethal. Remember his try at leigh in round 1 of the middle 8's, got slipped by his centre and nobody even tried to catch him.

Chris Chester needs to make a decision early doors and ensure he starts to build some partnerships with wing, centre and fullback. No point continually experimenting for me.

Forwards, i think you will see a completely different tilse and allgood this year, and with green coming on think we will be alright. We always made yards, it's defensive technique we need to work on in our middle. Too easy to make yards and quick play the balls.

This is bye no way any sort of excuse because the club knew this would happen but we went through a huge bedding in period last season and by the time things where looking up then the skip got injured it sort of drained the club, this season there won't be any sort of bedding in all our imports are here early and know what they will be up against after a year of being here.

Regarding the centres Salter played almost the full season after gouldings injury (which was a disaster in its self because he was a very good player) but that leaves thornley (who Wigan wanted to keep) and minns (2nd in the championship young POTY awards) to replace welham

Full back will be Ken sio so no worries in the slightest on that 1, Dixon Charlie or Shaw will play on the wing.

And i can see your point regarding the pack but if we can keep campo and Kelly fit then we can keep Blair in the back row with Clarkson and a new signing and upfront we did it really tough last year and looked pathetic at times so allgood coming back will be a huge boost and 3/4 into the season we had ruined Adam walker so hopefully a preseason under his belt we can get the 1st half of the season walker back 1 or 2 more props to come into add to tilse and the impressive green i hope we will be ok

Add to that a new more professional backroom staff all hand picked by our new football manager things will improve next season I have no doubts at all and all this is coming from 1 of the most pessimistic kr fans about

On our 2016 squad thread, I have just posted a summary of Neil Hudgell's comments on RH Sportstalk tonight about our intention to sign another couple of forwards for 2016. As this is likely to happen, given the source, allied to other improvements and settled squad factors for now, I think Oafy's and others predictions of a better and more successful 2016 is a good bet. Time will tell, but reasons to be cheerful, 123.
BTW - I agree that Minns and Thornley are good upgrades at centre over Welham and Salter.

The problem with the forwards was not only the lack of metres made but more worrying was the amount of easy ground given up.

This season we consistently allowed teams to take more than ten metres from every play the ball with one out rugby.

Hodgson used to shut that down, we desperately need to be more efficient around the ruck.

Once teams get a roll on us we hugely struggle, and then our awful goal line defence engages and we all know what happens after that.

Agree 100%. That's because we lost the arm wrestle in the collisions, resulting in quick ptb's. That meant we never got our markers set. We need to watch the video of Leeds v Wigan in this year's GF again and again to learn how it should be done.

I think that the chairman said that we are looking at 1 or 2 new forwards. One prop and one backrower. Targets have been identified and the deals will be done if we can agree terms.

That's how i heard it and he said we still lack a bit of punch in the forwards