It seems from a previous post that Doyle has been offered a sum far more than we can afford and from what I’ve heard in terms of figures most other champ clubs wouldn’t have been paying that either. As disappointing as it is we’ve been outbid by someone with deeper pockets than most by the sounds of it

Less than 1000 season tickets next year at this rate

Ditto this!

And ditto this!

It's really hard to see where we go isn't it.

You could almost live with another "re-build" season or two if you could see a strategy and direction you could get on board with.

Unfortunately, the direction seems to be a very slow, torturous and painful death, the likes of Henry VIII would have been proud.

As I've said on another thread, if we were a family pet, we'd have been put to sleep long ago....

Weren't you all expecting Doyle to leave anyway? Or is it just the emotional factor of it being Keighley?
It's just another club with a money man while we stay penniless. This is nothing new.

For me, it's not simply that it's Keighley; it's that he is leaving for a club in the same league as us.

I understand players wanting to play at a higher level, so when people depart for a Super League to "better themselves", then one has to wish them well.

But Doyle is going to a club with whom you would hope we can at least compete financially. It shows that we are not even pretending to be aiming for SL anymore; we're scrapping with the "have nots" in the lower reaches of the Championship.

What even is the point of an Academy anymore? Is it simply to develop players for teams like Keighley, who don't have an Academy of their own, but are apparently "cashed up"

You could argue we should have realised this years ago. Perhaps we've been deluding ourselves?

This was my point previously. If we didn't have this extra expense maybe we could buy good players from other clubs academies instead. Like K-town or everywhere else we seem to sell our best and brightest to.

I also commented on a Facebook post asking why are we running a reserve team if we don't have enough players in the first team and Stuart Duffy (I presume. Who would pretend to be him?) got back to me with "...it’s a requirement of the Academy licence. A lot of the players have been from other clubs..." which seems to be an enormous waste of money too.

Lots of points here. I’ll offer my opinion on them all.
With the background of the IMG strategy reveal pending and reading between the lines, I think we’ve committed to two chances of improvement.
1 - we’ve bet the farm on an academy being important to IMG.
2 - the council & levelling up funding.

This move from Keighley, it feels like a really cut price version of the Tevez/noisy neighbours move. It proves they’re back, it improves their options at hooker and plays really well with their fan base and sponsors.
But, if you think about it, they’ve got to go for it. If we end up with 2x10, and academies are important, then if the current 12 SL teams and the 3 championship teams with academies all get licenses, then there’s only 5 spots left. 5 spots for Toulouse, Fev, Halifax, Barrow, Batley, York, Keighley to fight over.
It’s all high risk with this uncertainty. Keighley are going big next year because they feel they need top6. We’ve gambled on a functioning, player developing academy. Who knows how it will play out.

I’ve seen a few reserve games this year. We’ve usually got 2 or 3 fringe Keighley squad players in our reserve line up, laughably.