The Phantom Horseman

If you are from Featherstone, male and between 18 and 35, you have a chance of about 1 in 2 of being in the squad next season!

It's certainly a very unsatisfactory state of affairs and doesn't help fans receiving these short-term loanees engage with their team. It's really a reflection of where the game is though. Lower league clubs who don't have a big backer are struggling to afford a squad of sufficient depth to see them through the season, and having the option of short-term loans, as and when positional need requires, can save them a lot of money over the course of the year. Meanwhile, the rate of attrition in SL means that clubs at that level are very reluctant to loan out players who they might need at short notice, so it's only players who are at least two or three injuries at their position away from a starting spot who they would even consider releasing on a slightly longer-term loan. There are now 2 more clubs in SL (albeit one of the extra teams is based in France), which will presumably mean plenty of players who would previously have been on a Championship roster will end up in a SL squad, and also there will be more SL fringe players looking for game time in the Championship. If you're the chairman of a Championship club with financial issues, it will probably make sense to milk the loan market for all its worth as it might actually be a buyer's market.

It's worth noting that the difference between DR and loans had become negligible anyway and in 2026 one-week loans will be allowed; in theory, this should make it easier, not harder, for teams to bring in players from other teams into their squad, as SL teams will be much happier to release players on loan knowing they can recall them after one week if their own team gets injuries/suspensions.

I suggested a while ago that instead of "6 again", "3 extra" might work better, ie turn it into a 9-tackle set. Then you're punished the same whether the offence is commited on the 1st or 5th tackle (and in my view teams get away with more on the 5th tackle as refs are understandably hesitant to give another set at the end of 5 tackles unless it's a stone-cold obvious slowing of the PTB).

30 or 40 years ago they were fundamentally different roles, but you can't have different roles for positions that don't exist any more. You will never hear a modern coach saying "I'm going to switch him from scrum half to stand off" or vice versa, because they don't select a scrum half and a stand off any more, and haven't for many years. They select a left-side half back and a right-side half back. Now those 2 players might have slightly different skillsets and that might be what you are alluding to, but they aren't playing different positions. As for Woodburn-Hall, I'm not a Halifax fan btw (just an interested observer) but to me Woodburn-Hall struggled as a half back because his best position is full back, and that IS a totally different position from half back. But you describe him as having "struggled at stand off", are you implying he should have played "scrum half" and if so in what way do you think his role would have differed?

There hasn't been a "position 6" (or 7) for umpteen years. Virtually every pro and semi-pro team has a left-side and right-side half back who essentially fill the same roles, albeit they might have different strengths and weaknesses. As Lawford has played most of his career on the left-hand-side and Hansen has featured more on the right, presumably that's how they will line up.

Apart from a year later at Wembley, presumably?

The posts concerned have both been removed and in each case very much crossed the line in what you can put on a public forum, as I said a few posts above.

It depends on what you mean by the BOD, as there seems to be a bit of finger-pointing between different factions, and there are probably very few people who are personally privy to the actual details of what has happened at the club over the last 3-4 years. We've all got our own views I'm sure but personally I'm loath to start slinging mud, publicly at least, unless I'm 100% sure of the facts. As an aside a few days ago there were a few posts removed from this forum, and I think at least one poster was banned, after some obviously libellous posts were made on here. People really need to realise that this isn't like chatting down the pub, anyone who puts clearly libellous posts on here is putting both themselves and the forum publishers (ie TotalRL) in a very vulerable legal situation.

I think we have been a bit unlucky with Hull KR in that a lot of their fringe players are youngsters who haven't really progressed yet, Gorman, Barley, Tennison etc whereas from Leeds we did get some future internationals early in their career (Newman, Handley, Oledzki etc). One of the few complaints from Hull KR fans over the last couple of years is that none of their promising youngsters barring the obvious exception of Mikey Lewis have really progressed into first-team calibre players. It also probably hasn't helped that none of them really got an extended run and were used as fillers for injuries.

I'm not sure "being in it for the money" is in any way relevant to the decisions most Fev players are having to make at the moment. Danny Addy has a job outside RL, a lot of the ones who have been announced elsewhere don't and will have mortgages etc to pay whilst receiving no income in recent months.

As I pointed out earlier in the thread, there's a video still on YouTube of the incoming director/finance officer Jim Minton paying tribute to him for taking him through the books and for keeping the club going for the previous 25 years.

I'd say crowds are an increasingly small part of revenue. We didn't have especially big crowds in 2022 or 2023 when we splashed out huge money (though more than we could afford as we all know), and the likes of Oldham, York etc have been spending money which bears no relation to their crowds. Having a wealthy owner and getting big sponsorship money are more important these days, the likes of Wakefield and Oldham have been completely transformed by getting wealhy owners.

James Maker (Raymonde) brings us on nicely to The Smiths, as he was a friend of Morrissey and appeared on stage with them as a dancer at their first couple of gigs. His singing style in Raymonde was remarkably similar to that of Morrissey. Talking of early Smiths gigs, I think this was their third-ever gig (the introductory blurb on YouTube claims it was their second). Everyone reading this will have already made up their mind whether they love or hate the band, but it's hard to deny how remarkably close they are to what became their fully-fledged sound at such an early date in their concert history.

This one presumably (though no Three Johns on it)?

That seems a much more reasonable summary than some I have read. There are also a few Widnes fans who use the fact that he used the phrase "I hate rugby league!" on his LinkedIn page as a stick to beat him with, without acknowledging that he wrote a report on every game and always started with "I love rugby league!" when they won, and "I hate rugby league!" when they lost, which I think puts a somewhat different slant on it.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying I necessarily think he will be any more popular with some of the fans here than he was at the other 2 clubs. After all, he's coming into a club that is at its lowest ebb for years, he's likely to be presiding over a period of austerity and perhaps not the level of success, in the short term at least, that we have been used to. Just trying to make sure we have all possible sides of the picture.

I'm just going to play devil's advocate here, because I have no personal experience of Chris Hamilton and it's pretty clear that a lot of Oldham and Widnes fans seem to have a very negative opinion of him. Maybe he brought that upon himself, I don't know, but CEOs are rarely especially popular unless they happen to be at a club that is thriving, and that definitely wasn't the case when Hamilton was at Oldham or Widnes. Here's a piece from Roger Halstead, a well-respected local journalist who has been heavily involved with Oldham for many years (I think he might still be the club president, not sure). This was after Hamilton finally left the club in 2023. https://www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-features/139/main-news/151156/farewell-chris-and-thanks-for-the-memories At a fans' forum not long after he left the club's new financial chief paid tribute to Hamilton for talking him through the club's financial situation and keeping the club going for the previous 25 years. I don't doubt for a moment that he has rubbed some supporters up the wrong way but fans tend to be much more tolerant of club officials when things are going well than when they're not.

Indeed, it's probably no coincidence that we have also got through a lot of coaches in recent years (on average 1 a year since Daryl Powell left about 12 years ago) and it sounds like we're about to lose another one. In fact since Powell left I don't think we have had a single coach who has been in charge for two full seasons. Jon Sharp came close when sacked with one game left in the 2017 regular season, and James Webster was there for 2 full years but the 2020 season was cut short after 5 rounds because of Covid.

This is quite a well-known video but it's worth a look for anyone who hasn't seen it before. Ren and Sam Tomkins, both of whom now have 7-figure Spotify monthly listeners (and Ren had a number 1 UK LP), busking in the streets of Brighton about 7 years ago. This wouldn't be anything like the type of music I'd normally listen to but it's hard not to acknowledge their talent.

Not really a fan of tribute bands in general but I have to say both the Smyths and also The Smiths Ltd (whose singer has Morrissey's mannerisms/dancing off to a tee) are very good at what they do.

With Tom Holmes just announced, Doncaster could field this line-up next year 1 Tom Holmes 2 Luke Briscoe 3 Alex Sutcliffe 4 Sam Smeaton 5 James Glover 6 Cory Aston 7 Watson Boas 8 Gadwin Springer 9 Connor Jones 10 Jordan Baldwinson 11 Brad Knowles 12 Tyla Hepi 13 Loui McConnell subs Muiz Mustafa Luis Johnson all ex-Fev

Yes, I felt sorry for the people running the BWV page at times as some of the questions they were being asked were well beyond their remit, people asking them to explain every piece of bad news at a time when the club was clearly still struggling financially.

Earlier today there was a message saying it had been taken down for a couple of months and would reappear in January, but as you say it's now disappeared altogether. I think the people who contributed tried really hard and I thought it was really worthwhile, but it's hard to see how it could continue given it was an enterprise linked with Paddy and Martin and one or two of the BWV group have been fairly vocal on social media about how unhappy they are with how things have developed. If/when we're back up and running in 2026, there will be work to be done trying to re-engaging as much of the fanbase as possible, as there is a fair bit of mudslinging at the moment and we are going to need every supporter we can get.

Why do you say that? It's been clear for some time that most of the higher-paid members of the squad (and coaching staff) are unlikely to be with us in 2025, but I doubt that MC has returned, appointed a new CEO etc without the aim of having a team. I'm only guessing but assuming we get through the winding-up petition my guess is we'll have a 2019-style squad assembly - done fairly late and on a reduced budget from previous years.