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West Wales Raiders - laughing stock


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Just now, welshmagpie said:

Only 8 players at training this week. Two coaches have indeed walked away. 
 

Still no head coach. 

That is dire isn't it. Do you know why the coaches have walked away? 

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Just now, welshmagpie said:

Unsure. I imagine reasons linked to failed promises, lack of players to work with, seen the inevitable mess.

Heartbreaking. So who is accountable? Who's holding the baby? 

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2 hours ago, steve oates said:

So why did you bother to make the rather rude reply in the first place? You say.... "The heartland clubs need individuals to bankroll the clubs - after years of money from broadcast deals that the majority of expansion clubs never see".

Most heartland clubs indeed need individuals to bankroll their clubs to meet their ambitions. Indeed most heartland clubs have over the last 100 years and more have had a long history of many such gentlemen running their clubs.

But the problem with "expansion" is exactly that.  The expansion clubs either don't have someone rich to develop the club in the first place, or if they do and he leaves there is very often nobody else with real money interested in taking over.

Who is bankrolling Cornwall??

Apologies for being rude.

What is the point of your argument against expansion?

Every person acknowledges that the sport requires funding and each club,heartlands and expansion,requires large input every season.

History has shown clubs flounder,or collapse,when a rich owner leaves without a replacement,or the dishonest people,earlier accepted by the RFL,prove,again,to be dishonest and leave the club in great difficulties. 

Supporters and players suffer the most.

We thank whoever is bankrolling Cornwall and hope it is the start of something which grows,develops and improves the sport,locally and nationally. 

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     No reserves,but resilience,persistence and determination are omnipotent.                       

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Just now, fighting irish said:

Heartbreaking. So who is accountable? Who's holding the baby? 

I don’t wish to point fingers but let’s look at all of the pieces.

Three south Welsh lads have gone north to Hunslet in the same league. Why would they need to do that if they felt WWR were meeting their needs?

Its taken nearly four months to source a head coach and still one hasn’t appeared. Worth noting Aaron Wood was out of the door way before the last game of the 2021 season. 

They appeared strong against Widnes in the cup because they were the only show in town. Local RU was locked down so they had free pick of interested players.

Geography. It’s Llanelli… we’ve said a hundred times before this team is best somewhere around Cardiff where it can pull in emerging talent from the Aber Valley, Torfaen, Cynon Valley, Aberavon, Blue Dragons and Bridgend clubs.

A young dual code lad is going to seriously need to love league to want to travel upwards of an hour west to Llanelli to play. 
 

All of the above are circumstances.

Aside from this it’s Peter Tiffin and Andrew Thorne who seem pretty clueless to the reality of what’s happening. No plan, very little idea and sadly little accountability. 

 

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4 minutes ago, welshmagpie said:

I don’t wish to point fingers but let’s look at all of the pieces.

Three south Welsh lads have gone north to Hunslet in the same league. Why would they need to do that if they felt WWR were meeting their needs?

Its taken nearly four months to source a head coach and still one hasn’t appeared. Worth noting Aaron Wood was out of the door way before the last game of the 2021 season. 

They appeared strong against Widnes in the cup because they were the only show in town. Local RU was locked down so they had free pick of interested players.

Geography. It’s Llanelli… we’ve said a hundred times before this team is best somewhere around Cardiff where it can pull in emerging talent from the Aber Valley, Torfaen, Cynon Valley, Aberavon, Blue Dragons and Bridgend clubs.

A young dual code lad is going to seriously need to love league to want to travel upwards of an hour west to Llanelli to play. 
 

All of the above are circumstances.

Aside from this it’s Peter Tiffin and Andrew Thorne who seem pretty clueless to the reality of what’s happening. No plan, very little idea and sadly little accountability. 

 

Well it must be costing them a lot of money, every year to remain clueless.

Do you think they are going to let the club die? Have they had enough?

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Just now, fighting irish said:

Well it must be costing them a lot of money, every year to remain clueless.

Do you think they are going to let the club die? 

Again, I have absolutely no idea. Even if they go ahead and get organised where are 20 players going to come from?

The Welsh league is nowhere near League One standard and whilst there may be a handful of decent players they’re likely to be signed to RU clubs, whose season is going to run over in the summer as it is.

Look elsewhere? Every one else will be signed up by now whether that be semi-pro or amateur. It’s a big decision to decide to forget all your hardwork in preseason and upsticks down to west Wales. 
 

Australia/NZ? Surely they’d want to know who’s coaching them and there’s also the visa issue that’s arisen in recent years (they’d need a European passport) 

The way I see it. They could not sleep for the next week and work non-stop but the bottom line is they’re fishing in a very limited ocean. 

 

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26 minutes ago, newbe said:

What are the consequences for League 1 if WWR and Cornwall fail to complete there fixtures?

I’ve seen it mentioned a few times on here regarding Cornwall. I can’t say I’ve seen anything to suggest they will fail to fulfil fixtures. I might be missing something but it certainly seems like people are willing them to fail. 

Cornwall play their first game on April 2nd. They have six or seven announced now and have been pretty transparent with trial dates and training, including pictures of the events. They have plenty of time to sign enough players for the short-term, at a bare minimum. West Wales play in a week and have about eight players and no head coach. They’re the “problem club” here, not Cornwall. 

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The lack of head coach is the most bizarre thing for me. Sacked their last head coach for not making the playoffs. They were supposedly taking time because there was so much interest but brought in 3 assistants before getting their head coach which is completely bizarre. And here we are a week before their first game with more than half their squad signing elsewhere and no head coach still. They arent a new club any more, you'd think they would learn from past mistakes but it appears not.

 If they do fulfill the Swinton fixture which seems unlikely it'll be an absolute hammering. Not a good start the season when trying to get people out to watch your team. 

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3 hours ago, welshmagpie said:

I don’t wish to point fingers but let’s look at all of the pieces.

Three south Welsh lads have gone north to Hunslet in the same league. Why would they need to do that if they felt WWR were meeting their needs?

Its taken nearly four months to source a head coach and still one hasn’t appeared. Worth noting Aaron Wood was out of the door way before the last game of the 2021 season. 

They appeared strong against Widnes in the cup because they were the only show in town. Local RU was locked down so they had free pick of interested players.

Geography. It’s Llanelli… we’ve said a hundred times before this team is best somewhere around Cardiff where it can pull in emerging talent from the Aber Valley, Torfaen, Cynon Valley, Aberavon, Blue Dragons and Bridgend clubs.

A young dual code lad is going to seriously need to love league to want to travel upwards of an hour west to Llanelli to play. 
 

All of the above are circumstances.

Aside from this it’s Peter Tiffin and Andrew Thorne who seem pretty clueless to the reality of what’s happening. No plan, very little idea and sadly little accountability. 

 

But South Wales Scorpions played nearer Cardiff and despite their interesting individuals on the board of directors failed to fulfil the fixtures.

Then the RFL approved another ownership,and club,at Llanelli. 

Expansion isn't working for some reason.Perhaps an outside,fully independent governing body is required to overhaul the governing body.A root and branch review is urgently required.

When M62 followers appear to be allergic to travel, it is despairing to read that a trip of over one hour is a problem.

     No reserves,but resilience,persistence and determination are omnipotent.                       

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22 hours ago, steve oates said:

With respect I think you protest far too much here. “Expansion” won’t be achieved by rudely shooting down free speech and opinions (nay facts) you do not like. The serious attempts at expansion were London in 1980, and 42 years on it hasn't worked and it only exists as Mr. Hughes personal plaything.  The next was a Gary Hetherington Sheffield and they even went on to win the Challenge cup but that failed to do anything for the club in terms of more investment, more spectators and more people playing RL in the soccer town despite it's closeness to the M62. He gave up.

South Wales was first started in 1995 and that didn't work without the money, but perhaps did the best when Samuels had a go with his money as the Crusaders with decent crowds and results. One season however was enough for him as it was for the Aussies who had a great superleague season with Gateshead  in 1999 coming in sixth in SL but losing £Hundreds of thousands in the process. 

Organic growth/expansion does not work outside the heartlands and success can only come if someone is prepared to bankroll a club to the tune of many Millions over many many years - at levels of money well in excess of Mr. Hughes efforts.  This is the truth. It is neither negative nor ignorant. 

Just because you type in bold does not make it the truth. 

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1 hour ago, Angelic Cynic said:

But South Wales Scorpions played nearer Cardiff and despite their interesting individuals on the board of directors failed to fulfil the fixtures.

Then the RFL approved another ownership,and club,at Llanelli. 

Expansion isn't working for some reason.Perhaps an outside,fully independent governing body is required to overhaul the governing body.A root and branch review is urgently required.

When M62 followers appear to be allergic to travel, it is despairing to read that a trip of over one hour is a problem.

You may need to enlighten me here but I don’t ever remember Scorpions forfeiting a fixture. Happy to be proven wrong. 

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1 hour ago, Angelic Cynic said:

But South Wales Scorpions played nearer Cardiff and despite their interesting individuals on the board of directors failed to fulfil the fixtures.

Then the RFL approved another ownership,and club,at Llanelli. 

Expansion isn't working for some reason.Perhaps an outside,fully independent governing body is required to overhaul the governing body.A root and branch review is urgently required.

When M62 followers appear to be allergic to travel, it is despairing to read that a trip of over one hour is a problem.

Interesting individuals ?

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1 hour ago, welshmagpie said:

You may need to enlighten me here but I don’t ever remember Scorpions forfeiting a fixture. Happy to be proven wrong. 

They didn't, maybe the ironmen did? But I’m not sure. Scorpions had nothing in 2014 but wasn’t far away in a lot of fixtures and won 2. 2015 the money was reduced even further and was just not doable at all think they still won a couple, the 2014 season was a struggle but 2015 just couldn’t be done. They actually had 7 lads picked for Wales at the end of 2014, young player of the year nominee and coach of the year nominee.

They got a decent side together as the Ironmen and had money I’m led to believe, I’m not sure the reason the raiders took over.

The Raiders by all accounts have money but just look clueless when it comes to recruitment or keeping lads for longer than a season. 

They need some serious continuity as it seems to be problems at the end of each season.

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8 hours ago, steve oates said:

They are indeed doing brilliantly to date but they need the very large sums of money from their Chairman to do so. You could have also argued that Toronto Wolfpack was a success story to climb the leagues all the way to Superleague but where are they now? Money that merely gives us the impression a club is doing well which once removed leads to complete collapse as was the case with Wolfpack isn't the kind of "expansion" we ideally want.

That's not to say that if Mr. Kurdi goes on for another 10 years we may well indeed have a real "expansion" success. If so what will that teach us about how to expand the professional game?? 

No large sums pumped in, only went pro this year and have organically grown. I am sorry if this truth doesn't fit your rhetoric.

 

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9 minutes ago, DEANO said:

Let’s get real. There is no real appetite to either play or watch rl at a decent level in west wales. Never has been never will be. Unfortunate but true 

If that was true the club wouldn't exsist in the first place. There also wouldn't be a historic list of welsh players whom excelled at league. 

Infact at junior level Wales are competing, the issue appears to be one above desire and will.

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2 hours ago, welshmagpie said:

You may need to enlighten me here but I don’t ever remember Scorpions forfeiting a fixture. Happy to be proven wrong. 

My error.Sorry.I did mean Ironmen as pointed out by RLNew.

55 minutes ago, DEANO said:

Let’s get real. There is no real appetite to either play or watch rl at a decent level in west wales. Never has been never will be. Unfortunate but true 

https://wrl.wales/coleg-y-cymoedd-invite-16-18-year-olds-to-begin-their-path-to-super-league

     No reserves,but resilience,persistence and determination are omnipotent.                       

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1 hour ago, yipyee said:

If that was true the club wouldn't exsist in the first place. There also wouldn't be a historic list of welsh players whom excelled at league. 

Infact at junior level Wales are competing, the issue appears to be one above desire and will.

People keep trying to flog a dead horse. It doesn’t work

sometimes you have to take a step backwards to move forward

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2 hours ago, DEANO said:

Let’s get real. There is no real appetite to either play or watch rl at a decent level in west wales. Never has been never will be. Unfortunate but true 

To be 'real', there's no appetite to play or watch RL across the vast majority of Yorkshire and Lancashire.

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Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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It's the RFL who are laughing stock here, who gave them permission to rename and relocate and thought oh West wales, sound as a pound. West Wales! even the Raiders moniker was already in use (I mean clubs sharing the likes of Rovers etc is acceptable as was done eons ago, all a tad shabby as per)  who thought all this would be a good idea? small population dispersed widely across a large area thats quite a trek from anywhere else where people live in the Uk? Should have stayed in the South Wales (Swansea / Cardiff area) or been allowed to fold......on that note, no idea why Coventry suddenly felt the need to change to Midlands, ridiculous. 

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