The Phantom Horseman

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.

Turner Hardcastle Bussey

Back to the Halifax game...I though it was probably the fourth game in a row that we could well have lost but managed to eke out a win. I guess the good thing is that we are managing to find a way to win games, though we continue to look vulnerable in certain areas especially defensively out wide. Fordy is at least trying to address our weak areas as best he can, he's tried Bowes, Jones and Addy at half back, I think we all know none of them are the long-term answer but we are managing to win games still and we might have Reynolds available soon, and then Lacans a fair bit further down the line. He also tried switching Gale and Wynne to opposite sides presumably in an effort to shore up that right edge defence. ironically Gale whose decision making is usually quite good jammed in twice when he didn't need to, one led to Eden's try and on the other occasion Eden dropped the ball. Feel for Gaz a bit, having not had too many tryscoring chances lately he had to watch from the other wing as four fairly straighforward chances fell to Wynne on the wing where Gale has played all season, and then he gets sent off, under the current rules it probably was the correct decision but he has done that type of "body check" many times before and not been penalised for it, just the timing of it and getting his shoulder there before wrapping cost him. I thought Massey showed the value he should be able to bring granted a clear run of health, he played big minutes without showing signs of tiring too much considering his long absence. He's not the type of forward who will steamroller opponents or make highlight-reel plays but we have lacked a grafting, big-minutes forward since Lockwood retired and hopefully he'll be a steadying influence especially in defence and round the ruck now he's back. By contrast Albert played like he'd had a bit of a rocket up his backside following a couple of ordinary performances, ran in with a bit more venom and managed offloads on his first three carries, and he charged onto a short ball for his try. He was almost statuesque though when Keyes waltzed past him in the second half and he was taken off almost immediately afterwards, at the moment he looks a short-term impact middle but doesn't seem able to sustain his game for long periods. He looked to be limping a bit at the end so maybe that had an impact. Turner is our star turn at the moment and I don't think we would have won that game without him. He played the decisive part in four of our six tries and helped set up the position for another, as well as taking on most of the in-game kicking responsibilities. He's the only player in our team who looks capable of creating openings at the moment, he does have quiet periods like any half back but at this level if your half back is creating 1 or 2 tries each week he's probably doing his job, Chisholm was similar even at his peak in that he would often have a quiet day but produce a couple of bits of brilliance that would have a big impact and Turner looks out of the same mould to me. I hope we can hold on to him because even though he'd be a quota player he'd probably be appealing to one or two of the lower SL clubs. Think the season will continue all the way through with hard-to-predict games so it should continue to be a fun rdie.

I think you're right. He has posted on his Instagram today from Shell Cove (in Aus) which seems to suggest he's already back home.

This is exactly what is happening and I have said as much on the Trinity forum a few times this year, from well before the season started, there isn't another good team in the Championship by the standards of recent years to challenge them (hardly surprising when everyone else is spending 1/3 or less than what they are) and for future prospects they need to be measuring themselves against SL standards not the opposition they will face this year.As you mention, a decidedly vulnerable Fev team steamrollered much of the league last year.

I think that's an important point. The teams that have done well this season (Sheffield, Widnes, not sure about Swinton) seem to have not been quite as plagued by injuries as the likes of us, Halifax, Bradford and 1 or 2 others, and we don't have anything like the quality depth of last season.