Re: Season ticket sales : Sat Dec 20, 2014 9:38 am  

j.c wrote:

Its not beyond the realms of possibility that the 3 pro club go through the league undefeated except when playing each other.If thats the case then i think the game has added importance for an opening game, especially if finishing top gives you more home advantage in the middle 8 games.
Plus both clubs have been in a dark place recently so will want to keep the good vibes going.

I don't think we should underestimate some or any of those teams which are part time. I'm sure that there will be quite a few surprises during the course of the season. It can't be taken for granted that just because a club is training full time it automatically means they will be significantly advantaged in a one off game, particularly away from home. That's not to say that there won't be any blowouts, but there will be plenty of close fought encounters I'm sure.

Those part time players will be playing with an equal amount of enthusiasm and in many cases similar skill sets to the ones training full time.

[Bulliac]

Re: Season ticket sales : Sat Dec 20, 2014 11:16 am  

fifty50 wrote:

I don't think we should underestimate some or any of those teams which are part time. I'm sure that there will be quite a few surprises during the course of the season. It can't be taken for granted that just because a club is training full time it automatically means they will be significantly advantaged in a one off game, particularly away from home. That's not to say that there won't be any blowouts, but there will be plenty of close fought encounters I'm sure.

Those part time players will be playing with an equal amount of enthusiasm and in many cases similar skill sets to the ones training full time.

Agree about teams being underestimated and that there are likely to be some surprises, though I'm pretty certain that Jimmy won't allow that within the club - but I think speccies are likely to be a bit more realistic and at the end of the day it doesn't mater a jot what we think.

As you rightly say, a few of those clubs will have similar skill sets however the extra stamina and time honing those skills afforded by being in full time training, plus not having to put in an eight hour shift, is a tremendous advantage and also maybe the major reason why cup upsets are as rare as rocking horse doo doo in RL these days. Having to make the ten after every tackle is a great demand on players' fitness which gives a great advantage to the pro sides, particularly when the semi-pro teams are likely to be the ones doing most of the defending. All that said, there are many games to play and the odd upset shouldn't be too much of a surprise, particularly with the clubs with bigger squads using that depth to keep players fit and maybe not always having their top 17 on the field.

Re: Season ticket sales : Sat Dec 20, 2014 2:06 pm  

Some interesting comments from Marc Green today. We've reached the 2300 mark, with less than 100 of those being complimentary season tickets for sponsors etc.
Last year we sold around 3500, but over 700 of those were given away for free

Re: Season ticket sales : Sat Dec 20, 2014 2:22 pm  

The free ones were children's passes. They are making a charge for them this year.

[Bulliac]

Re: Season ticket sales : Sat Dec 20, 2014 2:58 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

The free ones were children's passes. They are making a charge for them this year.

you can see where the 700 figure comes from if they were kids' tickets.

Must admit to being a bit either way on this one; I can certainly see Marc's POV, but to be honest, I've always regarded giving freebies to the youngsters as sowing seeds to harvested in later years and, in many cases, a young child using the freebie needs a full paying adult as chaperone anyway, which is a win win.

Re: Season ticket sales : Tue Dec 23, 2014 7:09 pm  

fifty50 wrote:

I don't think we should underestimate some or any of those teams which are part time. I'm sure that there will be quite a few surprises during the course of the season. It can't be taken for granted that just because a club is training full time it automatically means they will be significantly advantaged in a one off game, particularly away from home. That's not to say that there won't be any blowouts, but there will be plenty of close fought encounters I'm sure.

Those part time players will be playing with an equal amount of enthusiasm and in many cases similar skill sets to the ones training full time.

Oh there will be upsets thats for sure.
Fev & Dewsbury away should be great games and the games in Cumbria will be testing especially if the weather is nasty.

You might get a good idea as to how good a coach Lowes is going to be,the last couple of years has shut the anti Rowley lot up at Leigh.

Re: Season ticket sales : Tue Dec 23, 2014 9:58 pm  

fifty50 wrote:

I don't think we should underestimate some or any of those teams which are part time. I'm sure that there will be quite a few surprises during the course of the season. It can't be taken for granted that just because a club is training full time it automatically means they will be significantly advantaged in a one off game, particularly away from home. That's not to say that there won't be any blowouts, but there will be plenty of close fought encounters I'm sure.

Those part time players will be playing with an equal amount of enthusiasm and in many cases similar skill sets to the ones training full time.

The thing is, last season only Leigh were full time. They lost 1 league game all season. There are 3 full time teams next year, Leigh, London and us. So realistically, even though the part-timers are going to push us to the best of their ability, I don't see us having losable games apart from against Leigh and London. It's certainly not a level league in terms of funds for players or in terms of player ability. I think I read some where that out of our 29 players we've got something like 23 who've played at SL level. You compare that round the rest of the league and you're looking at maybe half a dozen in each team who've played at the higher level.

I know a lot of people don't want to say we've got an easy season because they don't want to look either arrogant or the possibility of having egg on their face depending on results. However, I think that should we lose more than 3 league games next season then that is an unacceptable number of losses of a team in our position.

Re: Season ticket sales : Tue Dec 23, 2014 10:44 pm  

Leigh were part time last season.

[Bulliac]

Re: Season ticket sales : Wed Dec 24, 2014 1:01 pm  

My understanding is that Leigh were 'more or less' full time, ie they had a bulk of full time squad members but had retained the odd part time player who, for whatever reason, didn't want to give up their 'day-job'. Better question to ask might be, "when did they do the bulk of their training - Tues and Thurs nights or during the day"?

Re: Season ticket sales : Wed Dec 24, 2014 1:22 pm  

Leigh's squad trained in the evenings and on Saturday mornings. None were on full time contracts last season.