RSN

I'll be surprised if we don't finish above at least 3 of Sheffield, York, Bradford and Batley based on the signings we have made. Unsure based on signings how you can say Sheffield will finish above us. We managed to finish above them last year with one of the worst injury crisis' I've ever seen. We were playing lots of teams with 15 players. We've signed 2 PNG internationals, Jake Spedding (one of Sheffields best players last year) Gareth Hock, Deon Cross and Tee Ritson and signed all our best players from last year. A couple of good signings are also meant to be inbound aswell.

If we had a rule which stated 'Any tackle on a kicker after the ball has gone is a penalty' then it would ruin the game. You literally see it happen all the time. How often do you see someone do a grubber kick and someone tackles his legs half a second after he has kicked the ball? No one bat's an eye lid. People are getting annoyed due to the force of the tackle. The force of the tackle is only relevant when it's late. If the tackle isn't late then the force doesn't matter.

The weight of the player is completely irrelevant. It's the force of the tackle and if he has time to pull out. The New Zealand players did not have time to pull out, they were aggressive hits but if you watch the footage they quite clearly went to tackle Tomkins before he began kicking the ball. Late tackles where the player starts the tackle after the ball has been passed and can see it has been passed (usually by this point the player is relaxed hence more damage to the attacker) should be an instant sin bin. This wasn't the case.

He was their best player by some distance and has probably established himself as one of the best full backs in the world in the past 3 games against England and Aus.

I disagree too, none of them were penalties.

Think New Zealand put a lot into that 1sts half and should of gone in with a couple of try lead based on territory but English resistance (Makinson in particular) kept us in the game. Last 20 our forwards dominated and we managed to edge it out. What a cracking test though. Both teams gave everything. The world cup is going to be very competitive next time round. I don't care what anyone says Australia don't have replacements anywhere near as good as Slater, Cronk, Thurston and Smith which have lead to their dominance over the past 15 years which will lead to a 3 horse race and potentially 4 with Tonga if their players stay loyal to them.

6 - 6 HT. That was pretty brutal. England had to be pretty resilient they didn't have much territory and were taking some heavy hits bringing the ball out. Will be interesting to see who fatigues 1st. England only made 17 more tackles more but it felt the Kiwis were putting a lot more into theirs especially when England were bringing the ball out. We look much better with Hodgson in the halves. Tomkins and Lomax both go sideways too much so when we have the ball in my opinion.

New Zealands 5th tackle plays seem to be targeting Makinson which I don't understand. He's safe as houses plus once he is tackled it means McGilvary can return ball 1st or 2nd tackle.

Makinson had no right to stop Proctor there.

Amean will probably be 1st choice full back. Deon Cross is a winger. I imagine Ritson will start on the wing with Creswell and Toal injured. He's absolutely lightning. Cresswell can obviously cover wing and full back. When everyone is fit the competition in the backs will be fierce.

I'd say sign that French prop we had back end of last season and another prop and we have a complete squad. Maybe a couple on loan from Wigan as I'm sure there was some clauses in the Bullock deal about getting 1st choice on loan players. Stack will miss 1st half of season due to injury so maybe another 2nd rower whilst he is injured.

Can't look past Tedesco personally.

You can barely blame the club for putting things on facebook rather than here. The Gareth Hock post got over 650 likes, 227 comments and 150 shares. I reckon the post will have been read by 30,000 people whilst on here the reach is a few hundred.

If memory serves me right our average was 2200 in 2009 excluding the Wigan game. Pretty sure we hit over 3000 at home to Widnes and Halifax towards the end of the season.

There has been a fair bit of money from people involved in the local community, at the time the club were in dire straights due to bad planning with the wages. They have got through that now and are planning for the future. The club behind the scenes are putting in a tremendous amount of work to bring money in. What's generally happened with Barrow for the past 15 years is a small BOD who keep most things to themselves and then only inform everyone else when it's all gone wrong. The BOD has now been overhauled with a great mix of people with a lot of transparency through the club with people taking up various roles to improve income for the club. Barrow in theory should have a better side than a lot of the league. They had the 6th highest crowds last year, have a core of local players to choose from plus own our own ground. We averaged 500 more fans than Sheffield last year which works out 7000 extra fans a season. At £15 a head that's £105,000. If we are making that much more on the gate and take all revenue from games why should they have a squad which beat us twice last year?