Templegreen

This was on a Skolars fan group facebook page... Very worrying for their future as the comment is from the original owner who still sponsors the team. I assume he is still in contact with the club and will have sone idea what is going on behind the scenes.

Just got home to Leeds from Colwyn bay (Great to see Crusaders finally back ) and am left to ponder if maybe, just maybe that might be the last time I get to see London Skolars in league 1 Their team today had about 5 players worth mentioning: Small, Thomas & Junior in the backs, plus big shift from prop Gale & loose forward Ross who both played the full 80. The rest are nowhere near league 1 - repeated missed tackles, poor shape, lack of basic skills, bad decision choices etc… pretty much the same story as in the rest of the away games i’ve been to this year. (Can anyone comment if they putting any better performances in at home?) It’s blatantly obvious there is not enough of a talent pool in London for 2 part time teams. If Broncos stay mid table & part time, coupled with league 1 funding at such a derisory level it doesn’t even cover travel expenses,I wonder if the current London Skolars board will choose/be able (delete as appropriate) to continue to subsidise them or will they decide to cut their losses (or be forced by the RFL) & go back to amateur competition.

Cb2 - I agree with the general theme of your comments on this thread you obviously know about the club & it’s current circumstances, but, I didn’t say it was the coaches fault the squad was not good enough - i said it was the coaches fault there has been zero improvement at all over the season. Being a London exile, I only get to watch the away games, but the fans I have spoken to at the odd game they traveled up to have said they knew & understood this season would be very difficult. What frustrated them is not losing (they are used to losing), but the lack of any improvement in performance from game 1 to game 16. Surely after a whole season the coach should have had sone positive effect in performance. the squad can put in a performance at North Wales on the weekend & show they can be competitive.

I’ve seen most away games this season & there are certainly a handful of good players in the squad, but the rest are clearly not up to league 1 standard. Not convinced about coaches at all - team selection has been very erratic & at times clearly not playing the obviously much better players. While coaches can only work with the players they have got, there has been no development or improvement at all from 1st game os season to last - a decent coach would at least be able to install the basics & systems that 1/2 the team clearly can not do.

The current owners have financially kept the club alive after the cut in central funding from ~£70,000 2 years ago to ~ £15,000 for the last 2 years. Without the current owners the club would not have existed the last 2 years. In January at the pre season friendly prospective new owners publicly announced they were going to buy the club & make it the #1 London team - they then delayed at every stage of due diligence process & repeatedly made excuses for not making any payments to Skolars, finally last week saying they were not going to purchase the club. The current owners I am sure would more than welcome new owners/parties to move the club forward - the reality is for over 10 years Skolars have tried to secure additional expertise & investment only to be burnt by Argyle & then ARC.

Skolars down to bare bones (3 experienced & powerful players missing - Smalls ban, Juma ban, Gale England university tournament), but even so they looked poor today. Awful performance & currently on train back to Leeds wondering why i bothered!

Broncos taking Basset is fine & shows the progression route offers a pathway in London from amateur to Skolars to Broncos & possibly higher the way he is performing for them atm The realm issue is the current size of £400 fee for a loan - would any of Broncos fringe players make much improvement to Skolars? (Broncos fringe are mainly academy players stepping up & the current Broncos reserve team is almost exclusively current academy kids which reflects in the Broncos reserve team getting hammered every game they have played.) In contrast a couple of years ago, a friends son who was at Wigan and played a few games for Skolars on loan told me they got £100 for a loan fee.

Do many players progress from the university rugby league competition? Interesting to see The South beat The North for the 1st time ever last weekend. Don’t know if The South’s players are genuine southerners, or are Northern lads that have gone to uni down south?

From how Midlands performed today with a man down for most of the game, i’m pretty confident they will beat Cornwall comfortably & finish above Skolars.

Midlands (even reduced to 12) man for man looked very good & were arguably the better team. Considering Midlands heartland recruitment this year & loans/DR they have underachieved - The performance from them today was good enough to suggest they should have won more than they have - that’s a compliment to their players performance i saw today, not a dig at the team. Skolars full back won the game scoring/making most of their tries with sone individual brilliance. Skolars to their credit are playing with an almost all London pathway developed squad - sone great athletes, but need to develop their rugby skills & game plan.

What is Midlands squad depth like? is it a big squad with enough fringe players who will be able to step in? Are there any players from the now amateur Coventry bears team who might be able to step up & do a job in the last 3 games? (against the 3 weakest teams in the division) Skolars v Midlands will be interesting, it should be a close game, but if Skolars basic skills self destruct (see my oldham post/most skolars away games this season!) then Midlands will win convincingly.

Very disappointing from Skolars at Oldham - wish i had not bothered travelling to watch that! Skolars have some solid, dependable & consistent players who seem to regularly hold their own. The issue is the basic skills of a number of their players - the amount of dropped balls & awful passes that Oldham then ran pretty much the length of the pitch to score was unbelievable! One of the Skolars players even made a complete hash of passing standing still from a restart - embarrassing. Oldham were good, deserved the win & the crowd were friendly bunch - they told me the 3 loan lads from Wigan had made a big difference, but Skolars only have themselves to blame for the embarrassing score line.

interesting few weeks for Midlands & Skolars coming up. I expected Midlands to do better this year - i was confident they would win against a few heartland established teams & be in the top half of the table. Their recruitment was strong & their squad is significsntjy better than last years. Just doesn’t seem to have clicked consistently through the whole game. If they can win their run in games it would really be a statement of intent about what could be possible next year. Skolars lost their coach & squad was decimated, pretty much starting from scratch. If they can beat Oldham tomorrow & beat Midlands (both very difficult, but both also winnable) i think they will have had a great season compared to where they were on day 1.

Really well deserved win from the hurricanes - how many did they have on loan? (not a dig, most teams are doing it - just curious about who played) Are Hunslet really poor (i think that’s a harsh assessment) - or just living within their means after a drop in central funding from around £80,000 to £ £18,000 -I think a few of the so called established northern teams that are having a slightly disappointing season are just cutting their cloth accordingly to the budget in terms of who they can afford to sign.

Excuse my ignorance, but when are the deadlines for signings/loans/dr? and are the deadlines for signings/loans/dr the same in SL/champ/L1 ?