phildog

Often!

And another thing; this will cause havoc with clubs', not just Batley's, recruitment and clear-outs, teams who thought they might cherry pick from relegated teams, relegated teams who have let players go due to the expected reduced funding etc

Already seen it suggested that the RFL is considering combining Championship and Division 1. Biggest upshot out of that, just as IMG wanted will be the death of Summer Bash and a complete reorganisation of the Challenge Cup. This will probably still lead to divisions within a division as one would still able to pick a bottom 4 or 5, a middle 4 or 5 and a top tier. What with the incompetence and total lack of Rugby League people within the RFL and the clear intention of IMG to feed SL with the teams THEY want, we're on a greasy pole to extinction. There needs to be the threat of a breakaway from Championship and NCL downward.

Good centre goIng spare. Connor Carr back at Giants, impressed ne in the 2 games he actually played; was my MOM in draw with Fev.

Don't think he'd take it, he's been pretty scathing in his comments. We need to go forward, which also means upwards. The time of scraping around the leftovers and throwing pennies in the bucket needs to be gone. Nor do we want some players to re-sign out of loyalty and feeling they owe the club earn they've given it everything. Decisions can be difficult yet need to be made. We'll still be vyjng with clubs spending and spending and clearly we haven't got the really big bucks but we have to make more bucks than we usually throw at the coach to bring in 3 or 4 quality players then a couple that they can help into the side; bit of pace, young mobile busting forwards. Others get 'em, lower down than us, those clubs can't always be rolling in pig muck.

I see us needing to sign a full-back as Giants have put a fee on Aiden, at least 1 winger, Kear to centre; his proper position, but amotger centre woukdn't go amiss, I too wouldn't mind signing a more influential, forward going 7, 2 young(er) props. I know, we'll still be told there's not the money and I don't expect an avalanche of ex SL men but between SL edgemen and cherry-picking around we can be up there again, a full squad this time would have given us players to come in to rest those who were forced to play on and would have stopped that dreadful run. Let's say that we were going to run with a 30 man squad, which is where our shirts finished with Reilly; 1 and 2 were unfilled, as was 27, then 2 players Milthorpe and Richardson were never used, so we ran for 33 games on 25 players, 2 more went out on loan mid-season, some still here were rarely considered, Hirst 7 appearances, Johnson maybe 4, down to 21 +Hooley's return = 22. Take off injured players weekly and we've known a) what the 21 squad was going to be and b) who were only makjng up names. So out of the original 27 players, we've been down to the fittest (not necessarily 100% fit) 17 to play. That can't happen again.

Basically we needed 1 point more from the 54 available which rather backs up my oft-mooted theory on drop-goals which is finding agreement in the people who sit around me. I seem to remember being 2 points down to London and battering away with time to have put 2 or 3 away. York, 14-14 with 15 to go and lots of position. A point up changes the entire direction but we wait and wait and wait, until opponents are fixed on closing down opportunies. But, it's done and the fact that we had 3 hookers filling the front row does show the big hits players have taken, in fact chatting to Wardy's dad, he did point out that with Burton on the bench and White already on at 13 we might at one point have had 5 hookers on the pitch at once. So, yes, best we didn't have suit up again. Rog, what were we saying about Swinton??

Now the hard work begins; the board has to sit down and work out the position of finance from the £10 a ticket move, did it work, do they need to call on the pot of money promised by however many sponsors, if not can they be persuaded to make the fund available for players along with any requests to BISSA? What will next season's prices need to be, bearing in mind the fact that several clubs' prices are already condiderably higher than ours anyway? Will Peter McVeigh's new deal help out in recruitment? Who will Mokko meet with and ask for funding for? A myriad of questions to keep us riding high, both on and off field. Good luck!!

Yes, scored as well, balances out! He just happened to be the one who got picked on by the ref at the end of a long line of niggles and time wasting bits n pieces from Thunder defending their line, ref gave a few quick pens then got fed up of them not listening! Couple of other decent youngish forwards who'd do well here IMO are Brogan and Bennion from Swinton.

Second row was the powerhouse today, starting pair and Lucas when he came on. Also Monday and today there was some promise of half-backs cohesion, Woods still isn't taking the line on enough but he certainly has an idea what Meadows intends and where he'll be next play. Kear shows his class every time he gets shifted to centre. But as I said at the top; Buchanan Manning Walshaw

Came good in the 2nd half, 20-0 and with Bulldog tackling we'd normally have prevented at least 1 of their tries, but give Newc some praise they made it hard for us in both games. If improving our team means cherry-picking good players then I'd invite Boafo and have always been impressed with Ted Chappelhow.

Regarding outs, remains and ins, I'm sorry to churn out the same old, but we have to refresh and improve, a number of players have given what they had and with the best will in the world can't give another year at the same level whilst around us other squads are raising their levels. Assuming that it's Donny who join The Rams coming up, even these 2 will be looking for strengthening, we have to exceed their result just to stay where we are. Even if it's as mentioned above (how is it that we have to glean info from across the valley?), even with the known retirees and movers we're still looking down the barrel of 6 new players, that doesn't happen at our place. Hope we're not just content with 'bobbing along'.

Yes I remember his acceptance speech.

Whoever the 'several' are just a shame they can't all play, I hope they can all be persuaded to be in attendance and are presented after the game, either onfield or during the presentation event, they could be presented with their heritage numbers/shirts as a goodbye. As Flynn won't be available I'd move Bucko to loose, Kear inside and JC on his outside.

Great to see that Peter McVeigh has returned to the club as a major sponsor (not that he's ever really been away); a Batley man through and through. I think I may have caught him in his last season as a Batley player. I hope his input helps in the team rebuild.