BD20Cougar

Yeah I had it in my head that it was 5 years for some reason. Actually makes it more puzzling to me from a Keighley perspective that we've ended up with a lower score than Oldham, Rochdale and Hunslet despite having a much better on field performance and attendances than all 3. Presumably IMG aren't big fans of the facilities down at Cougar Park and also makes me wonder about our finances.

Seems about right towards the top but becomes an absolute mess the further down you go. Highlights being a Newcastle Thunder that may not even make the startline for 2024 being above the likes of fax and Batley, and London's comically low score. I have nothing against Doncaster but I'd be interested to see the breakdown of how they managed to sneak into category B having been in league 1 for most of the last decade. Also wasn't expecting much for my own club and we're presumably still being hurt by our league position from 2019 when we had a points deduction.

Apologies if it has been mentioned somewhere but one major problem I see with reserve teams being added into the league that I haven't seen brought up is the potentially huge variation in the quality of lineup they'll be able to name from week to week, and the effect this will have on the integrity of the competition. For example a Wigan Warriors reserves at full strength, perhaps with a couple of first teamers playing to gain match fitness is a completely different entity to a Wigan reserves side at a point in time where the first team is having an injury crisis and have called up the better reserve players to the first team or prevented them from playing so as not to risk more injuries. In short, I believe the gap in quality between how a SL reserve team could look at their best versus at their worst is just too great for them to be a part of a league where teams are competing for real rewards. Automatic promotion or the race for the last play off spot should not be decided by who got lucky with the reserve sides they played against.

Storey is definitely another leaver, not sure why he's not been announced along with these 8. Heard a few weeks ago that Ioane and Adebiyi were both staying but not sure if relegation has changed anything there.

York's win last night is a bit of good news for us as it means Halifax head into their final game against Swinton with a playoff place still in their hands.

Ioane and Sid being back is massive for us. The Seventeen for THAT game against Bradford, probably our best performance of the season was as follows: Young, Graham, Webster, Storey, Stephenson, Chisholm, Gale, Santi, Doyle, Ioane, Keinhorst, Gibbons, Walker. Interchange: Spence, Adebiyi, Parker, Gaylor. So despite all the change since, 12 of the team from that day are set to be available for selection this weekend, plus Junior Sa'u is an upgrade on Webster. Bibby and Robson aren't a disastrous step down from Santi and Keinhorst so as Indigogo says, the only major area for concern is in the halves. I'd agree that now is the time to just pick two and stick with them. In my opinion it has to be Roby and one other. I'd be tempted to go with Stead as he seems to me like the only name on the list with a half decent kicking game (although I'm not particularly familiar with what Sweeting is like in that regard). Whoever we go with, I think barring injury to some of the key players, there's just about enough quality in the squad now to pick up the points we need to stay up, but this weekend is definitely a must win.

Announced on twitter (but not Facebook yet) that Joe Gibbons has returned on loan from Leeds for the rest of the season, along with prop forward Tom Nicholson-Watton. Very happy with this one, I thought Gibbons looked a cut above the rest of our back row options in the few games he played before his injury.

Positive appointment on the face of it, looks to have been doing well down under. Sincerely hope Matt has been given some assurances regarding investment into the squad and hasn't flown halfway around the world purely out of loyalty to the O'Neill family.

True, if they'd just left lovegrove in charge I have no doubt we'd be in a better place currently. I was meaning more that the last month or so they seem to have been hoping Jymel and Jake Webster would work miracles with the mishmash squad we've ended up with when it was pretty clear to everyone watching week in week out that they were out of their depth. I'm glad we're now trying something/someone different.

Getting hammered by an in form, play-off hunting Bradford at Odsal is one thing, but shipping 50 points (and lets face it, could have been much more) at home to a side who we began the day level with in the table is an absolute disaster and an embarrassment. I'm relieved to hear the owners are now taking some action but fear it may well be too little too late. It should have been clear after losing up at Newcastle that changes were needed but it's been heads buried firmly in the sand the last month or so. Seems to me that the owners are too proud to admit they've got every big decision wrong this season.

Strongly implied by Rhys in his post Halifax interview that Chisholm will be back this weekend. Head injury protocol has been keeping him out.

Rib injury.

Really don't like the narrative being pushed by our Facebook fans that Jack Miller has been in some way betrayed by the club. As far as I'm aware clubs weren't exactly queuing around the block to sign him up when Doncaster released him in 2019, now in 2023 he's (presumably) a starting halfback for an established championship side. It's professional sport, and it's a two way street. I absolutely respect the guy, as I do every player who stuck with us through the bad years and I'd have loved to see him stick around. He would have no doubt have got plenty of opportunities throughout the season as there's obviously no way Chisholm and Gale are going to be fit and available for all 27 games but if he wasn't happy with being relegated to the status of squad player then 1) Being a Keighley cougars player clearly wasn't as important to him as some seem to think. 2) The club absolutely made the right call allowing him to go. Can't have an unhappy camper in the dressing room. I just hope that the whole debacle doesn't unsettle any of the other players as Miller was clearly highly thought of by the boys. Onwards and upwards and we keep our fingers crossed for no lengthy absences in the half back position.

Interesting one the forwards, I think Rhys has always preferred a lighter, more mobile front row. Even in league 1 it wasn't unusual to see us outsized by the opposition. I think the telling thing particularly in the Featherstone game was that even though our pack was much smaller, they didn't seem any faster or more mobile than their opponents which I think just goes to show that we are against a higher caliber of athlete this season, which some players will cope with and some won't. On this weekend, I think this is where the season really starts for us. I said before the Fev game that I didn't see us taking any points from our first two but I saw enough from us at Widnes to be fairly confident we'll get off the mark this weekend. As mentioned above though, anything less than a win and it might be time for some tough questions to be asked.

No doubt Widnes away will be a very tough game but I don't think too much should be read into them beating York who are missing a lot of players that would be starting through injury.