The Phantom Horseman

Oldham have now confirmed that Koppy has signed for them. Sure he won't miss the journeys across the M62.

Back on topic... Fev social media thanking Koppy for his efforts for us and wishing him well in his new venture (Oldham seemed to be the suggestion IIRC). No surprises there, Koppy was a good signing in my view though we didn't get so much out of him this season.

I'd imagine the decision to release him was made a while ago. He probably wouldn't have been one of our lower earners by any means and until Briscoe got injured he was a fringe player this year. I think the time was right to move on, he's been a fine player for us but he'll be 36 in February and given his best position is probably wing I can understand why we might have wanted to move on.

Greg Minikin the latest confirmed arrival

Within 20 minutes in fact...he's signed for Doncaster.

Craig Hall's departure confirmed. Unclear at this stage what his "next venture" will be but am sure we'll find out soon.

Possibly true, but Joey might still be in negotiation, or indeed set to retire.

Not sure about"splashing the cash", reading between the lines of the chairman's open letter I think our overall spend will be significantly less than in the last couple of season, but that the reduction in spending will come partly from a handful of the highest-paid players moving on or retiring, and perhaps a number of players accepting somewhat lower offers. I don't really listen to rumours about players' salaries but it wouldn't be surprising if Leilua, Ford, Kheirallah, Hall, Kopczak, Moors, maybe Taylor, were amongst our higher earners, and if maybe 4, 5 or 6 of those guys aren't with us next year that could lead to a significant drop in the overall spend. I think most of us fans will be quite happy if we can keep a significant core of the squad, and the early signs seem quite promising. Most of us are used to fans of other clubs predicting disaster for us year after year so it will be quite amusing if little old Fev are still a competitive team towards the top end of the Championship next season.

A good start for next year's squad.

Think we're all going through what psychiatrists call The Five Stages Of Grief Being A Fev Fan. We've done Anger, Denial and Depression and some of us are reluctantly trying to move towards Acceptance now. The club will be going through the Bargaining stage for a while yet though

Confirmed by the club. He's had a terrific career. Sad that injuries restricted his appearances with us but he still showed a fair amount of class when he did play.

Think both Wakefield and Cas will be looking on with interest (maybe even some of the more affluent current Championship teams), the likes of Aekins, Hankinson, Jones, Springer, Cozza would all not be out of place in their squads. Depends on what we are in a position to offer. In financial terms there are so many unknowns - we don't know each player's salary, we don't have much idea of which players are contracted beyond this year, we don't know the club's current balance sheet, we don't know how we're looking in terms of sponsorship for next season, so it's guesswork at this stage to try and speculate who we might be able to hang on to. Trying to put some sort of positive slant on things (and God knows it's hard at the moment)...I wouldn't mind if we managed to re-adopt our traditional underdog status in some way. The most enjoyable wins are the ones where you weren't expected to win, and going into nearly every game this season knowing it would be seen as a massive shock if we lost sucked some of the fun out of things for me, especially when the outcome of the season all comes down to 1 or 2 games in October.

Was genuinely just speculating about this, but it does make a lot of sense, good signing for Batley.

Luke Cooper has been announced as leaving Fev at the end of this season. I guess Doncaster is his likely destination given he's been on loan with them for much of the year but he'd be a great fit at Batley, local lad, good quality Championship player with over 150 games at Fev, a proper team player and really popular with the fans.

Depends on what his contract states in terms of having a relegation get-out clause. His name gets mentioned on just about every SL forum as a potential target though, young, British (so non-quota) middle, they're at a premium.

There was an article on rugbyleaguehub suggesting both St Helens and Wigan were interested in him, so we might face an uphill struggle to get him.

Wait, are Fev being lectured about aspects of their stadium by a Wakefield fan?

Again...names? Players of SL quality who will sign for a Championship club that's already spent to a max and can't guarantee a SL spot next year at this point? I mean, if you think Lachlan Lam will be tempted, let me know and I'll pass it on.

Indeed. As I'm sure you'd agree, it's okay to have a few top-end Championship players in a SL squad, but you need a core of genuine SL players in there too. If it's any consolation, there aren't any teams in the Championship at the moment with remotely SL-ready squads. Fev are the nearest by a fair margin, but as you have pointed out, there are a lot of ageing players in our squad, and if we did sign the likes of Watts, Massey etc, they would be replacing the likes of James Lockwood, Craig Kopczak and Junior Moors, who are all 36 or 37 but still amongst the better middles in the division.

But you could just use that as a reason for every club to spend more. Leigh are fairly close to being one of the top teams in SL this season, why aren't they spending more money to try and attract a couple of world-class stars to push them over the edge? Similalrly, should Bradford, Toulouse, Halifax etc also be throwing money at trying to get promoted? Maybe get a few bidding wars going until someone goes bust? In any case, you clearly haven't noticed that since you started doing these kind of posts, Fev have "improved their squad a little" and signed a number of players (Arama Hau, Dan Smith, Ellis Longstaff, Dane Chisholm), some of them from SL/NRL clubs, which suggests you haven't really been paying attention. But there's a limit to the players that a Championship club can realistically sign without a sugar daddy.

Where do you suggest ambitious Championship teams without a vastly rich sugar daddy do their recruitment? Especially in a year when the team that looks likely to be relegated has very little talent worth targeting.

This has been explained to you on numerous occasions Harry.

In terms of accessibility, I'd say that how easy it is to get to from the nearest point on the M25 is a key question, as surely the aim is to attract people from all sides of London. With that in mind, Ealing, a quick jaunt down the dual-carriageway A40 from J16, would have been more "accessible" for lot of people than the Cherry Red, which is a bit of a convoluted car journey from most parts.

On their forum, a Toulouse fan sugested "1,000, 1,500 absolute maximum" but it was reported as 2,430 in today's League Express. I've said it before but the reporting of attendances is going to become a hot topic (and it already should be) with the clear possibility that averaging over 3,000 will make the difference between being awarded a place in SL or remaining in the Championship. There have been a number of very questionable attendances in the Championship this year in my opinion, especially as we know that the IMG grading handbook specifically states you can't include non-present season ticket holders.

Here's a band named after* the favourite scoring method of a mercurial half back of the 60s/70s, singing a song extolling the virtues of shifting the ball wide to a legendary winger# . * possibly # again, possibly