Rob95

Yea likewise can't disagree with much of this ,other than would change the "Yes we will walk " to "We should walk league one with our budget but sport being sport there is no certainty ". Although the bookies seem to think we are . Not convinced so far that our dummy half's are an upgrade , but yes I did rate our previous pairing , but the past is the past we move on ,as have they and other former players . As others have commented I think the result is a blessing in disguise , Swinton deserved the win and we were never going to win the Challenge Cup , getting out of League one is the priority. It may also be the wake up call that pushes us on in the 1895 cup to get to a final , it will still be hard to get there but at least we aren't on Wakey's side of the draw who are by far the favourites. WRT concerned about Toulouse and Wakey , with the IMG system in place I think there are more teams to add to the list Bradford, York , Sheffield and maybe Doncaster , probably others too , 4 cities there that regardless of our budget could score higher than us and prevent any progression to the top table in the future.

I fully understand the need to improve player safety when possible, just think this could have been better achieved by increasing the punishment for contact with the head . Players and coaches will find loopholes in this rule , for example how can the defence wrap the ball up to prevent an offload or grounding the ball over the try line ,if the ball carrier just carries the ball above armpit height . It does not address whiplash injuries and appears a knee jerk reaction to the ongoing litigation by some former players . Rugby players know there is a risk as do boxers, but I agree concussion protocols were virtually non existent a few years back , seeing players coming out of a tackle staggering back to the line and carrying on .

Certainly got the squad size and depth now

Woohoo a former Wests Tigers player got my jersey at the ready . It's going to be a weird feeling for us this with all of the long suffering past , I know sport's a funny thing and I don't in any way mean to be disrespectful to any other team in the league but we really should walk the league with this squad . I worry about the lack of money situation in rugby league and therefore the future of the game outside the Super League , maybe this is controversial but we might be one of the clubs where IMG works in our favour . We know what we need to do get a grade B then high grade B then grade A , Wakey seem to be optimistic about this and so why not us . The main optimism for IMG is their belief that Super League could expand to 14 teams so they would have to spread TV money out between 14 not just the 12 .

Agreed on both comments. I made it clear I believed that in Wilky and Slater we had the best pairing at 9 in the league , if they had been playing behind our new awesome pack then they would have torn up the league . They did more than a good job playing behind a frequent slow play the ball and a pack on the back foot at times . Now we know Slater was just plain released as Wilky wasn't in the first released list then I guess there was an offer made but it was not to Wilky's liking or as good as another offer he may have received , I know nothing about Aldridge and he will hopefully be good for us , but his pedigree is no better than Slater's and if anything not quite as good , of course that doesn't mean he won't work out better but Slater's first season was hampered by a long term injury . Wilky you would have to think with the signings that our new coach will be bringing a first choice 9 that he knows/trusts although I do still think there should have been room for Wilky ,a squad in reality should have 3 no.9s to allow for suspensions/injuries and I just don't see Paga as that cover . I think we have only 4 players from before Fordy , I'm not saying that's a bad thing just hope we get enough pre-season friendlies of quality to get the new team bedded in , at the moment it doesn't look like there will be many games in the season to be able to recover from any slow start

Totally agree and totally agree with the Hunslet Chairman who also says there are Championship clubs looking after their own self interest who rejected the proposal for a merger of sorts . I do fear that the best we might get from the Championship is League 1 has 8 teams next season only 1 gets promoted and 3 get relegated from the Championship , this would leave for 2025 12 in the Championship and 10 in League 1 , providing we don't lose another before then . I hope I'm wrong about this outcome and that they are bolder and more forward thinking , it is just my thoughts though I have contacts in the game but they don't stretch that far up the ladder .

Yes . On BBC Sport website too

I should have probably spotted this thread first before putting this on the squad thread I did fear for Newcastle a while ago now . I predicted this loop fixture rubbish back on the IMG thread last month but that was before Newcastle pulling out of the comp . We have I would guess Super Leagues preferred 2 in the championship playoff final , for the last ever promotion on merit . I just don't see how you can run league 1 on 8 clubs , it will become a farce and I can see Newcastle not being the last club the withdraw from the season at this rate . They need to restructure the Championship and League 1 , North/South , East/West whatever works best , but all of the clubs need to seriously look at the bigger picture and not just put their self interests first . Bottom line is no club will vote to relegate themselves as that would be financial suicide , as fans how would you feel if the board said we played well enough to be in the Championship but decided to be relegated to league 1 . There needs to be a restructure / rebrand , 2 separate areas with the winner of each "league" having their own play offs for the winner to go through to a final against the other "league" , in effect as the NFL do with their Superbowl AFC v NFC .

I did fear for Newcastle a while ago now . I predicted this loop fixture rubbish back on the IMG thread last month but that was before Newcastle pulling out of the comp . We have I would guess Super Leagues preferred 2 in the championship playoff final , for the last ever promotion on merit . I just don't see how you can run league 1 on 8 clubs , it will become a farce and I can see Newcastle not being the last club the withdraw from the season at this rate . They need to restructure the Championship and League 1 , North/South , East/West whatever works best , but all of the clubs need to seriously look at the bigger picture and not just put their self interests first . Sorry gone off topic on this thread , squad looking great a lot of positives , the amount of 2 year contracts is a plus but that does obviously have some negatives particularly in view of this with Newcastle

You would have thought so , maybe we have more decent options for coach than normal and they're at the short list stage .

Good signing , wonder when they'll catch up with all the signings we've announced already on here . Be interesting if there's one or two that none of us on here catch wind of , but that's social media and the numerous press and web sites hard to keep much secret nowadays.

Agreed . I really do hope we get to see a list of how each club is rated , for arguments sake say we get awarded grade B 10 points (no I have no idea how many points we'll get !!) , we won't know how good that is unless we know how many teams are higher than 10 points . Also whilst I'm not asking or expecting the club to produce a full forensic analysis of how our score was made up , it would be good to know aside from more money and higher league places , what areas we could realistically improve our scores . As fans we can do little to improve the score apart from attend games , follow and post on social media unless I'm missing something . But for example Boundary Park has LED advertising boards which is a plus but unless my eyes have really gone there is no big screen which is a minus , are the club in a position to address this as one example , or can we just find a HD projector and a big white sheet from somewhere . To next season will IMG have any input or say on how the Championship and League 1 are arranged . Current and past players and coaches I've spoken with all seem to agree a change was needed , but I do fear that if we are not careful the recent rejoining of Super League to the RFL will again end in a split , but this time with a group of non Super League teams breaking away .

Whittel , Johnson and Ellis I knew about, wasn't sure what the situation was with Moran and Rawsthorne but as they are not on the released/not retained list then hopefully we have convinced them to stay with us rather than return to France and Halifax ? . But I'd also base this on the fact that Carr who was not our player and up for League 1 young player of the season is on the released list , if that makes sense . As it stands there will be more signings announce to fill in the areas we are short but the list of props looks good . We all could see that we went into the season short on props which was made even worse when we lost one of them before the season got going , we should never have been in the position of having to get Pat Ah Van to play as a prop during a game , although he did do a decent job . If we had gone into the season with those props then Wilky and Slater and in fact the entire back line would have had a field day , but that's ifs and buts and I'm sure we'll be able to say that a few times next season . Not disrespecting Dewsbury who were by far the best team this season , but we appear that we will be more like Keighley were , of the teams probably coming down I don't think they will be the threat to us that Doncaster would be if North Wales upset yet another team .

Sad to disappoint you but it is true , I managed to get my mobile number to the former player who at their request will remain unnamed . They forwarded me the text which I have read , they also confirmed both they and several others were released this way . I very much doubt all 12 were released this way but would 12 phone calls really have been so hard in this era of rugby league cares and mental health etc . I'm not saying that I think most of the 12 should have been retained , I have issues with the way Fordy has handled it .I offered to have my HR speak with the former player but he said he was OK and had a HR at his main employer anyway. So for the other posters it isn't BS I don't have an agenda apart from wanting Oldham to succeed but for any who believe I have some different agenda I quite frankly don't care . Yes I have the right to an opinion as do you ,maybe as a Sam Burgess fan the glasses I wear aren't as rose tinted when it comes to Fordy , yes I think he has done a lot of good for Oldham and I have praised him for this , but I will not ignore when I think he has got things wrong . The text is not nasty but I am reluctant to post it just in case there are subtle differences in each text which could identify the player , my issue is you DO NOT treat people this way .

First re IMG gradings , I tried reading the criteria again and while somethings seem relatively straight forward to understand other areas I can't seem to get my head round . Thankfully it does look very transparent and so someone at the club will have a good idea . As best I can see we will score the minimum for crowd attendance as we average less than 1500 , we can guess where we will sit on the performance score . Boundary Park and the clearing of the debt will be very useful to us , as will the increased engagement with the community clubs . I can't in all honesty se us being grade A , but hope we will be grade B rather C . Supposedly clubs have an idea where they sit but we won't know until later in the year . Once we know how many grade A clubs there are we then know how many of the 12 places remain , but we need to know where we stand against other grade B clubs . it isn't just clubs like Salford and Cas etc , we need to know about York , Halifax , Bradford etc . Re next season hopefully Newcastle are OK too . I don't know what the league will do , I can't see them effectively relegating extra clubs to balance the leagues . I hope I'm wrong but I can see a 9 team league playing each other 3 times to get 24 fixtures , as we know Superleague love their loop fixtures