TrueBull

You seem to have forgotten that 12 years have passed.

Fair point about the ground. A side effect of IMG is that money is now only spent on improvements that tick boxes - gantries, directors boxes etc. The point in Bradford's favour which isn't touched on, is finance. Especially when we are talking about Salford's issues. Bradford are spending enough money for a strong championship squad (£500k?) and a full academy setup (£150k?) on the usual Championship incomes - TV deal, tickets, sponsorship & corporate and have broken even or made a small profit each of the last 2 years accounts. The Championship central funding is now pretty low. If Bradford were to get the £1.5m or so of SL central funding, the majority would be able to go on the squad. Especially if corporate, sponsorship and ticket sales all improve as well. You would basically have a club that can spend at or near the salary cap on the current SL central funding whilst breaking even. Not a lot of clubs can do that. Although one with a pitch that would need dispensation every year.

I vaguely remember that being done in the last 5 years. Big trenches filled with sand being dug under the pitch. Although I accept your word "properly" does affect the answer...

I'm thinking the pitch, might, just be playable if you've had the covers on since before it was freezing. But the area around is unlikely to be safe for supporters. It's going to be below 0 until Sunday, I don't think its going to be on, unfortunately.

My other question was, for you guys, what are you thinking for Oldham? They have put together a good looking squad, but it is all on Longy to make it work. And you've the most recent knowledge of Longy as a championship coach. I thought he was doing a good job for you before he got sacked. But I'll take your assessment over mine....

That's a bit simplistic. Looking at our squad, he seems to have done similar to 20yrs ago - a mainly English pack - (and he's a great forwards coach) and a mainly Aus/NZ/Pacific back line - currently Taufua, Okunbor, Armitage, Blake - and we've got Keith Senior as a backs coach by the looks of things. There is the possibility that we could have quite decent strike in the outside backs. There has been a bit of turnover though, so possibly some gelling needs to happen. I'm quietly confident we can improve on 3rd place. But there has been a change of personnel and coaching style.

I think the point I'm making (badly).... is that teams that make fulltime work have matched it with with a squad of 25+ players on an average fulltime spend of £30-40K+ per player. If a team tries to make fulltime work on a small spend (Sheffield, Newcastle) - that ends badly. If a team wants to keep a parttime squad on £25k basic per man + bonuses - they'll be able to scoop up the best parttime players. It all comes down to the spend, in the end. But a Fulltime squad, properly funded at a fulltime rate, will always come top, in the championship. And this year, it's Toulouse and I think they're doing it on a relative shoestring type of budget. Which opens things up.

Nice, didn't have a job outside of RL? So the standard way of doing that is half salary from the club and half salary from the community side, as a community officer type of thing? You can only do that for a few players. That's good use of resources, but at best, it's a hybrid way of getting some fulltime players in your team. The defining moment is when do your players train - Fulltime - during the day or evening, after their job. I don't think Fev, as your example, has ever trained 3 times a week, 8am - 12noon. Wakefield did, Toulouse do. I think Leigh did. Bradford haven't, they tried a hybrid model a few years ago which didn't work.

If they had been part-time, they wouldn't have had better players. They would have been competing with everyone else for the smallish pool of good players with fulltime jobs who train twice a week and play at weekends. Historically Batley have been very good at keeping a decent core of them on a small spend.

The Fulltime team finishes top - so that’s Toulouse, although they are the weakest Fulltime team for a while. Bradford, York, Fev 2-4 Widnes, Oldham, Sheffield, Batley 5-8 the rest Then Hunslet, unfortunately

The most important thing is Full time. The full time team generally finishes top. Part time teams have some built inconsistency, regardless of spend

Toulouse will finish top as the Full-time team always finishes top. See Wakefield, Leigh etc. A one-off game in the playoffs adds the jeopardy- see London/Fev

They understand that. That's what I think the RFL are doing. They are trying to keep tackle height at this level whilst maximizing every other HIA protocol they have control over - training for medical staff, this app that they are tendering for, objective and validated head tests - balance tests, memory tests. Which is why the book (and I think they were right to do so) has been thrown at Aston.

This is one of the drivers. Both codes believe themselves separate from each other but from an Actuary/Insurers point of view they're both collision sports and if one changes its rules to reduce contact height, the insurers will see that and reduce the risk to that one and therefore proportionally increase the risk (and premiums) of the other .

For those that aren’t interested enough to hit the link, no totals but we’re up 71% on last years sales. Hopefully that’s new/returning fans