DOGFATHER

Shame, I think he'd have gone well for us. However, I'm not convinced spending big money is necessarily the right move for next season anyway. Even if we broke the bank and spent far more than we could sustainably afford, I still can't see us being able to compete with the 4 full time clubs next season, or big spenders Featherstone. Therefore, the best plan might be to build a squad to comfortably achieve 6th or 7th and not engage in a war we cannot possibly win, with clubs with far more spending power. Maybe, it would be better to wait for the restructure the season after next, to take 2 full time teams out of the equation. Then make another tilt at a top 4 finish. It will be interesting to see how Fev fair if they fail to make the middle 8s next year and how they will pay the wages losing £300k in funding, plus the loss in gate receipts from replacing Bradford and HKR with possibly Catalan and Toronto.

1. One of the best run clubs in the game 2. Despite League One gates we are still a competitive mid table Championship club 3. Superb Ground

Reports in the T&A suggest we are looking to sign Joe Keyes from Bradford, it would seem a bit of overkill to sign both him and Hemingway. I would love to see us sign Keyes on. Keyes to the Dogs?

Unless a couple of the SL chairmen get there way and take the funding for 2 additional SL teams from the Championship clubs, which I believe has been proposed by Lenagan at Wigan.

No disrespect intended and I'm purely playing devil's advocate here, but I'm not sure whether we have under-performed this year, or whether we just massively over-achieved last year. Maybe a bit of both? We started poorly and gradually got better over the season. In fairness to Diskin, he said it would take 6 months to put his plans in place. Which proved to be about right, we have played better in the latter part of the season. However, it must also be said that our upturn in fortune has also coincided with playing less games against the teams above us. The only disappointing thing for me is when we have been playing the teams above us, we haven't been anywhere near a match for any of them, possibly with the exception of Halifax. When looking at the player budgets for HKR, London, Toulouse and Featherstone, realistically we shouldn't really be a match, maybe we are expecting too much? However we haven't just lost to them, we have been thrashed and not even competed in most of the games. As much as I hate the messing about with the game, I'm hoping for the league to be restructured sooner rather than later. I just cannot see how any of the part-timers are going to compete with any of the full timers next season and beyond.

I was really surprised Richard Marshall was overlooked for the prize. At the start of the season they seemed in disarray, players leaving, pay cuts and with a fraction of the budget of London, HKR, TO or Featherstone and they managed to get in to the top 4.

Maher Scott Ainscough

I couldn't agree more. The quality of the reserve competition must also be a factor too, even whilst established in SL. For a start, not every team runs a reserve grade side. Secondly, with so many of the better reserve grade players being farmed out on DR, there has to be question marks as to how useful it is to get players ready for playing first team football in the top flight. Whilst there are a some really talented lads that look really good in the Championship, there are lots that don't look anywhere near the standard of the Championship never mind SL yet.

I understand the reasoning behind them, but parachute payments just seem to be a bit of a reward for failure, which just doesn't sit right with me. I agree, the jump to SL is not as big as it used to be, but looking at the number of players Leigh signed this year, and even with those signings, no disrespect intended to Leigh, but since the early part of the season, they seem to have struggled to be competitive. They have still finished in the bottom 4 and are not safe yet from relegation. Playing in the 8's is very different to mixing it with the best in the country every week. I think it will be the same with HKR next season too, maybe more so. From the bits I've seen of them this season, I don't think they look as good a side as Leigh did last year and I wouldn't be surprised if they sign at least 7 or 8 players for next year.

Prior to the uplift in payments, I know there were some clubs that did not want to be promoted, whether that has changed since teams get an extra £700k a season in SL is anybodies guess.

Sorry, I'm not sure what you are getting at.

Instead of a parachute payment for the relegated club, how about a bigger payment for the newly promoted club to overcome the difficulties of recruiting? Part of the problem with promoted teams, especially with P&R, is the that they will be seen as a bigger risk for players than signing for an established club. Looking at the last few promoted sides, most have had to resort to signing journeymen players who have usually been discarded by other struggling SL clubs. Which I'm sure is part of the reason that we see teams yo-yoing. With more money, it will help to compensate them for having to build a squad later than most of there rivals and may allow them to sign a better quality of player.

Surely this Hemmingway rumour must be a wind up emanating from one of the Dewsbury faithful? If not, and he is the standard we are looking to bring in for next season, we can effectively kiss a top 6 finish goodbye. I'd love to know if we were in to sign Tom Holmes and how much, if indeed we did try to sign him, we were out bid by. He is the standard I believe we need to be bringing in if we are going to move forward.

Being honest, I'm gutted we didn't sign Holmes, he's absolute class, pace, excellent hands and can play hooker if needed. He was playing for us whilst we were playing very poorly. He had a great game against Sheffield away, which was one of the few times early season that our forwards got on top. The games he didn't look quite as good were, as you'd expect for any half back, when we were getting trampled in the forwards. I don't know of any halfback that would do anything if the forwards were beaten.

1. The point I'm getting at is, you seem happy to wield the axe based upon current support and nothing else. I'm simply saying there should be more to a decision of whether to kill a club off or not, than it being based entirely on how many people have turned up to watch them this season. 2. If you kill everything below SL, you also kill the pipeline of player production, so where do the players come from to fill these franchises? 3.If you really think the RFL have any power at all you are sadly deluded, the clubs in SL vote on every change that is brought in, they are ones making the decisions not the RFL. 4. Try reading it again, you stated P&R is holding the top clubs back, I asked you how it is holding the TOP clubs back, not those at the bottom of SL or in the Championship. P&R has absolutely no bearing on the top clubs, 5. I don't know where you get this from? I've no problem at all with people being successful, that is what sport is, success and failure. The issue I have is with short-term, elitist views that can only end one way, in the demise of the game, because we concentrate everything in to the top and the foundations are left to crumble and fall apart, which will in turn kill the game at the top too.