Nor should they.

I wonder if the original poster's thoughts are still the same as when he posted this. Let's hope his confidence was well founded



3 massively important games coming up that will probably go a long way to deciding where we will finish this season

Without Long, and with Horne/Washbrook in the halves, I'd say 6th-8th and out in the first round of the play-offs. Better than last year, mind.

Exactly. We know we're not going to win anything and we play the most mind numbingly boring lacking in flair rugby that you could wish to see. Worse still there is nothing on the horizon that's going to change it. Last year and the year before we had "Crockers coming" , "Lauacki will be here soon" , "big name signings Fitz and O'meley to come" , "Longy the messiah arriving next year", " Horne Berrigan et al to come back from injury" ; all things that we could use to convince ourselves that things could only get better. Fourth with no prospects of anything better this season , no entertainment and nothing to come but more of the same with "Agar and his team" for at least another season is pretty depressing stuff. Actually I'm being unfair cos we one of the minnows usually pull off one or two shock wins over bigger teams ( like Crusaders beat Leeds , we beat Saints that sort of thing ) so that we can all get excited..................

Are you a Rovers' fan? We're 4th FFS.

You clearly don't care if you think things are going the right way at the moment. I care about the future of the club I've supported since living in Kings Bench Street in 1956 and desperately want to see an FC team that can win something and entertain at the same time. You know like Leeds , Saints , Wigan have done over the years. Do you think we've any chance of winning anything this year? Will it be different next year? Why? Did you enjoy the game on Friday? Apart from the two Saints games have we really had any entertaining rugby? I just want better than what we've got and at the moment can't see where/how it's going to change. Enlighten me.

If you think our performances and results vs last year are going backwards, you're a nutter. Serious question - we finished 12th last year and were absolutely abject. Did you expect us at this point to have recovered to top 2 playing champagne rugby? Really?

We didn't play well last night but still got 2 points , I think some of our attacking play this season has being better than last season , catalans are a good team when they have a full team like they did last night

Of course not , it's the future that conerns me because with contracts as they are I can't see where we improve. I was agreeing with your original point that we'll finish in the 8 but get no further. How do you then see next year? Same again? Poorer? Where will the improvement come from? There is unlikely to be any big name signing , are the players we've got good enough or are we looking at 2012 , 2013 until we can start to think about competing for trophies? Is our player recruitment strategy right? At the moment I just can't see us getting better than where we are now. Hope I'm wrong and there's Greg Inglisesque centre on the way with a European passport and he finds a top class scrum half to bring with him but......

If you didn't expect to be top 2, 4th at this point in the season has to be satisfactory at worst.



We said all along that our season rested on keeping Long on the field and that's not going to happen now. But we've got to 4th without really hitting form and pretty much without our first choice halves on the pitch at the same time. Plus we're offloading Cusack and maybe getting LMS or Fielden, which is would be an upgrade. Plus Houghton, Briscoe, Turner and Tansey have a year's more experience at first team level. I'm very happy with our pack. I'm actually less worried about our backs now too, with Briscoe, Turner and Tansey all improving. Half back is the key concern, but as said, we've not seen our 2 halfbacks on the pitch together, so if we can do that for more than a couple of games next season, why should it be a given that we'll go backwards?

Much rests on Horne coming back from injury/illness and regaining some form but on his own anyway he'll create nothing. Long is another year older and less likely to be on the field next year. Fitz , tower of strength that he's been will be hard pushed to keep up the sort of 80 minute performances he's put in this year. Dowes and Radford will not getter bigger , quicker or better and who knows what Lauacki will do. Berrigan if he stays and continues in his current form will just waste a place on the bench. Just too many question marks and little sign of any improvement over many players. If we are to finish in the 8 this year and make no progress in the play offs , which you believe to be the case , then we don't need to go backwards for another unsuccessful season in 2011 just do the same again. I'm sorry but I cannot see how we're going to improve for 2011 and I worry about our recruitment , especially half backs and threequarters , for 2012 and beyond.

By the way not a nutter just a passionate FC fan expressing his personal views of how he sees the situation to use a "Wilfism". Just as you do and oddly enough I agree and concur with you more often than not. The pressure of being a fan as you should know sometimes leads to a probably irrational form of depression and frustration. Fact is if I didn't care I wouldn't bother to air my views.