DOGFATHER

Not sure I know what you mean Take Fev and Workington as an example then. They have used the same number of players, but very different positions in the league.

I get what you are saying BB, but the theory doesn't really fit with Wigan and Saints in SL.

Manning Hooley Reilly

Not that I hold a grudge, or I am bitter and twisted about it of course.

It appears my poor attempt at humour was missed by some... How either the forward pass from Gilmore, or Kirmond's knock on were missed by the officials is pretty shocking. Almost as shocking as the forward pass Fev got away with for their final try at the Mount. As bad as some of the decisions were, Child was night and day better than Mikalauskas in the York game at home. It was no surprise he was relegated to officiating L1 games until last week, after that performance.

I know, how on earth the officials could miss Kirmond's knock on is beyond belief!

Link to the highlights

Would it be worth contacting the local College's and Universities marketing faculties, I'm thinking of Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield and (Dewsbury if it is still going?) maybe even the local 6th forms/year 12's or whatever they are known as now... to give them a practical assignment as part of the courses they run for students, to market the club and home games? You could even make it a competition between them, offering a prize to the Uni/College that got the most ticket sales through the dedicated ticket web link assigned to each one. For the students, it would provide real world practical experience that they could put on their CV, that might help them in securing their first job. After all, a qualification is nice, but pretty useless without relevant work experience with tangible results that they can quantify. It would also give the club an insight in to which types of marketing/promotion channels work, and which do not. These younger people that we need to aim at, are likely know how to market to themselves and likely to explore all avenues and provide statistical analysis of the returns to each type of marketing as part of the course. At least it would give the club an idea of where to focus marketing in the future. Whilst I applaud the effort to increase gates with last Sunday's offer, may I ask, where was it marketed? I don't live locally, so I might be have missed where else the offer was advertised, was there an advertising board put up and the junction by Tesco's on Bradford Rd, for example? Were the local schools, gyms and amateur rugby clubs bombarded with posters to put up in their dressing rooms and bars etc. to make players/sports fans aware of the offer? The only places I saw the offer advertised, was on this forum, and the Bulldog's twitter site, i.e. places where existing fans are likely to look, but very few neutrals/potential new fans (the target audience) are likely to look. Therefore, the only people who were likely to take you up on the offer, would probably have gone to the game anyway and paid £18/£20, I could be wrong though! Apologies if this post looks like a swipe at you, it is certainly not intended, you guys on the board are doing a fantastic job. I certainly never expected us to be fighting it out for a playoff place at this stage of the season. I just hope we can finally get the support the club deserves!

You can leave the membership number blank and select e ticket in the box below.

Gilmore Hooley Kaye

I reckon we are reasonably well covered, certainly considering our budget. We have 3 good HB's in Gilmore, White and Meadows. Hooley has played a bit at standoff, and if he was needed we have a few options to cover FB.

Hooley Leak Gilmore

As a lad, he seems decent enough, but as an official he is absolutely appalling. However, I personally don't think his officiating in our games is helped by the fact he was a regular at the Mount for many years. He seems so hell bent on making sure nobody can accuse him of favouring Batley, that he has gone to the other extreme. I have heard the argument that referees are professional, and do not favour teams, but surely they will have been introduced to the game as supporters. Therefore, I will never be convinced there is no affinity/unconscious bias towards certain teams.

Especially when you see L. Rush appointed as the ref again for our game!

I hope he comes back, and we can convince him to play on the wing.

I totally agree with you, a bit the same with Pickersgill, Tom Holmes, Chisholm and Ford. Is it a case of signing players so other teams can't? Or an opportunity to control the rest of the division, by deciding who to help and who to hinder, in the league table? The loan and DR systems as they stand have compromised the integrity of the division imho. Regarding motivation, only time will tell I guess. Although, Hall always struck me as an intelligent, switched on and naturally gifted lad, who just needs regular game time to learn some of the nuances of defensive positioning and he will be an absolute superstar once he sorts that out. I reckon he will use this as an opportunity to put himself in the shop window, and really shine in an underperforming team. Keighley isn't a bad shout, certainly for next year.

I see you have brought Elliott Hall in on loan. Regardless of the coach, your attacking threat has jumped massively. I hope he goes well for you.

It's so nice of you to be thinking of us at this most difficult time, when even changing coaches doesn't look to have had the desired effect of turning things around for the rams. But you can rest easy, we should be okay. Apparently we are running on one of, if not the smallest budget in the league according to Lingard, (listen to about 9 mins in on the link below). He will know better than most, don't you think? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0cc36st I guess there is all of that winning pay to find. However, if we get short, Kevin's friend Mark Sawyer, might have a bit of spare cash to lend us, as winning pay has not been an issue over the valley so far.

Gilmore Meadows Morton

I met a Fev fan in Hawaii about 7 years ago. I was wearing a Batley shirt, he was in his Fev shirt.

Same ref as we had at Workington. Bennett is one of last refs you want against the less strong sides. He is a big leveling influence on the game, the type of ref you want against Leigh or Fev. Very slow PTBs, lots of stoppages, inconsistency with how far he takes teams back onside, it could be 5m for one, and it could be 15m at the next tackle, for no apparent reason. All of which helps to negate any attacking flair or fitness advantage teams have. Unless someone at HQ has pointed it out to him, and he changes the way he has historically controlled games, it will be another finely balanced, very tight affair.

It's on the BBC red button, channel 981 on sky. Not sure, but I would assume it will be on the bbc iPlayer afterwards.

And our league, RFL site, YouTube and pretty much everywhere

Lillicrop Manning Meadows

Genuine question, if the women's final was a standalone event, what sort of crowd would you expect? What do you think the price of admission should be?