The Phantom Horseman

The biggest downside of the 7-tackle set for me is that it seems to discourage expansive play from the attacking side; the mantra seems to be that with 7 tackles you can grind your way upfield without taking too many risks. As this thread is about drop outs though, I agree with the consensus that they seem to offer a poor risk to reward, for me kick offs from the half way line are a better risk/reward option.

Not sure about that. In both cases it's a useful sidestep from first or second receiver that makes them dangerous near the line, and whilst I know they have both played 9 in the past, I think if over a period of time they would both struggle defensively in the middle where they'd have to make 30+ tackles per game and they'd have big props dominating the collision against them all day.

This doesn't make sense, a player that's average at SL level tends to stand out in the Championship. FWIW my view on Morgan Smith is that he has always been a good Championship player who has appealed to a couple of SL teams as a cheap 3rd half back option because he's British and doesn't count on the quota. He doesn't have the creativity in terms of the passing game to be a SL half back, in fact he's a very similar player to Lacans, a dangerous runner near the line with a decent short kicking game and tries hard defensively, my only concern with bringing him back is if it went well does he keep Lacans out of the team when he's fit again? In terms of a long-term signing at half back I think it seems fairly evident that we don't have the finances to do that at the moment, in fact we have done very well to sign Turner when we did.

That's who I thought the previous couple of posts were about! He's, er, filled out a bit hasn't he? I thought Jack Bussey would be the only Fev player I'd ever see make the transition from half back to prop but now I'm not so sure.

I think he should be sacked if they lose a game to Championship opposition in the Challenge Cup too.

That's been the case for some time though. At one point it was massively lopsided (in an attempt to help the higher-finishing clubs to bridge the gap and compete with SL teams in the Middle 8s). Then a few years ago it was announced that they were drastically reducing the differential (from what I remember, it was something like £5k increments per positional finish). I also seem to remember something about payments being linked to turnover or something like that? But I doubt it's being "kept secret" for those reasons - it has historically always been very difficult to find out what the distributions were, whatever the methodology.

Most notably, in central funding. There really hasn't been enough made about the relative drop in funding for lower-league clubs in comparison with SL clubs in recent years. It's not easy to get accurate figures for how much the distribution is at each level as the figures don't seem to be published very often, but from the limited information I have seen it seems like over the last few years SL clubs probably receive about 70% of what they did, say, five or six years ago, whereas high-end Championship teams are at around 20% (and League 1 teams I believe received just £20k). In my opinion, that's why we're seeing a gradual drop in quality in the Championship and why, other than teams with a vastly wealthy owner, there is little prospect of most Championship teams progressing sufficiently to become SL aspirants under the new IMG system, with things like attendances, sponsorship and merchandise sales inevitably falling as the quality on the pitch is reduced.

Gaz Gale has picked up a ban for his sending off, but only for 1 game.

Possibly, I am just speculating but from the outside it looks to me like the relationship has gone sour for whatever reason. Pity they didn't do a straight swap with Hull for Morgan Smith as he would have been a very good fit for us on DR.

These are all good points, but for me the biggest story here is why are Hull KR letting Reynolds go for the rest of the season having paid what was described as a "significant" transfer fee for him around ten weeks earlier? Reynolds himself stated "The club has gone above and beyond to get me here" when they signed him, it's very interesting that having seemingly gone to great trouble and some expense to sign him they are now happy to effectively swap him for a player who returned fairly recently from a very bad long-term injury and who can't get into the Cas team.

Personally I doubt it's money related, especially as they appear to have moved immediately to secure a replacement in Richardson. Reading between the lines of Shaw's piece... "the Black and Whites have signed the Rovers playmaker after he was unexpectedly made available" and "But after making just two appearances for the Craven Park club, a decision has been made to allow him to seek another challenge, which has ultimately emerged at the MKM Stadium."....that makes me wonder if relationships have soured between Reynolds and HKR. It will be interesting to see the wording if and when this is announced by HKR.

Of relevance to us in terms of DR options: https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/hull-fc-sign-kr-halfback-9272793 So assuming Shaw is correct (and he usually is), Ben Reynolds has been allowed to leave HKR on loan - I wonder what the story is there - and joins Hull FC, with Danny Richardson joining HKR from Cas. From our POV clearly that means we won't be getting Reynolds back on DR, though Richardson might be an option. For me, Reynolds is the known quantity in terms of current playing ability, but Richardson (who has hardly played over the last 18 months) might bring less baggage.

If a player has been allowed to play on for over 20 minutes with a broken jaw after receiving treatment and without leaving the field under the current HIA that's mind boggling.

Indeed, as you say it all depends on expectations. For instance, Makahesi Makatoa was a very solid and popular member of our good 2019 team, but he played nearly 50 NRL games over the next 2 seasons (for a good team too) and if he'd come to us on the back of 50 NRL games we might have almost been underwhelmed by his performances. By contrast Leilua was a big name who was a high-profile signing in terms of column inches, for me he made lots of good contributions for us as well as a few howlers but his previous career and (presumed) price tag meant a lot of fans were a bit underwhelmed by him.

I agree. Leaving aside Tanner as we don't really know what his situation is, we have Bussey, Addy, Springer, Massey, Kamano, Albert, plus Roberts who has looked okay when he's played, and Fishwick looks very steady too, with Tennison another possible DR option if injuries strike. I suspect we don't have much money for further signings at the moment anyway but at the moment we're doing ok in our bid to challenge for a top 6 spot so as you say I'm not sure we need to spend any money right now. Kamano has really impressed me, I think he has steadily improved as the season goes on and seems to be having a few more carries now where he gets plenty of yards after contact.