The rest of the RL world seems fairly consistent in there thinking that we will be bottom of SL come Sept 19 viewtopic.php?f=2&t=620707 Anyone willing to offer anything better than bottom??

The rest of the RL world seems fairly consistent in there thinking that we will be bottom of SL come Sept 19 viewtopic.php?f=2&t=620707 Anyone willing to offer anything better than bottom??

Second to bottom is fine, hopefully higher, but staying in SL will be enough for me. Though knowing the RL management they will announce a change of structure half way through the season ( bottom two relegated, bottom 4 relegated......... Grand final to be Leeds v Wigan every year any other club who mistakenly makes the final has to pay £1m to cover any losses.........)

Unless we can bring in 2/3 more players of experience/quality in certain positions I think we will struggle to win many games. Great spirit in the squad last season but sometimes that is not enough (it helps). Unlike last season, we cant get away with fudging players in certain positions to cover for a lack of depth.

Finishing anything other than bottom will be a great achievement.

Looking at your current squad I think getting any points at all would be deemed a great achievement, I think your only hope is that Salford implode or Leeds 3 so called big boys don`t work out for them, leaving them with a squad that is probably on par with yours.

What I do not understand, we worked so hard to get to SL, great achievement. Why not invest in the squad to give ourselves the best chance of staying there??? I understand keeping faith with the players that got you there but there was still room to bring in some quality additions. Replacing Sammutt for example. Castleford are looking to replace Gale, lets see who they get in. Just think we should have signed a few more quality players.

I think the days of DH splashing out on big name players are probably behind us although there may still be the opportunity to pick someone up who is out of favour elsewhere once the season has started.

Fair point, but why not spend a bit with the intention of securing our place in the top league for a season or two while continuing to bring players through. Going down again puts us back to where we were.

Maybe another loanee could come in ( longer term ones preferred rather than the ones who are in for a month and then gone again).

Our squad is under strength and inexperienced, perhaps DH doesn't have the big bucks any more but what is the point in giving the coach the the backing to get the team up and then not doing so to keep us in SL?

A lot will depend on how we start the season. Perhaps a few teams will come to Ealing expecting us to be the whipping boys, but perhaps as Salford found out we can give a few of them a game.

We should at least have a 'team' rather than a bunch of disjointed individuals like we had in the last SL season we endured.

Yes, a strength last year was that we were a team that was more than the sum of its parts. That certainly shone through in the latter stages of the season.

Much prefer to see a team working together rather than reliance on one player.

Think the first 3 fixtures will show if we have any chance at all of finishing where we need to!

Looking at the squad numbers/list, I'd be pleasantly surprised if we pick up more than a handful of wins all season.

Very top heavy with hookers and light in terms of quality and experience in the halves and the back row.



Hope I'm wrong!