Re: Expectations for 2020 : Fri Sep 20, 2019 7:21 am  

tad rhino wrote:

we are as good as most in one off games. whether we can do it over a season is anyone's guess. def need a few more in

It totally depends on what we bring in. Can't judge anything until then.

Stay as we are currently, and we will not finish any different to what we have. Possibly lower, considering others have strengthened already, and we don't have the benefit of London next year. Strengthn ourselves and we should move up a couple of spots. But it would take some conisderable changes to get us to the level the top five will be at next season. Hopefully we take those considerable changes, and I do think Gale and McLelland will be a big upgrade for us.

Re: Expectations for 2020 : Fri Sep 20, 2019 7:49 am  

Gotcha wrote:

It totally depends on what we bring in. Can't judge anything until then.

Stay as we are currently, and we will not finish any different to what we have. Possibly lower, considering others have strengthened already, and we don't have the benefit of London next year. Strengthn ourselves and we should move up a couple of spots. But it would take some conisderable changes to get us to the level the top five will be at next season. Hopefully we take those considerable changes, and I do think Gale and McLelland will be a big upgrade for us.

Agreed

Re: Expectations for 2020 : Fri Sep 20, 2019 7:53 am  

Gotcha wrote:

and we don't have the benefit of London next year.

London we're not of any benefit this year (for us I mean not the competition), quite the opposite!

Re: Expectations for 2020 : Fri Sep 20, 2019 8:03 am  

Gotcha wrote:

It totally depends on what we bring in. Can't judge anything until then.

Stay as we are currently, and we will not finish any different to what we have. Possibly lower, considering others have strengthened already, and we don't have the benefit of London next year. Strengthn ourselves and we should move up a couple of spots. But it would take some conisderable changes to get us to the level the top five will be at next season. Hopefully we take those considerable changes, and I do think Gale and McLelland will be a big upgrade for us.

Don’t agree mate on this one. We are a young side and I’d expect Newman, Walker, Handley, Smith, Oledzki to show improvement next season. Holroyd, Johnson and one or two others will be making appearances too.

Lui, Ava and Martin are all new starting 13 players, which we didn’t have most of last season and all made a difference when they came in.

The side that begins 2020 will IMO be superior to the one that started this year, even without the additional signing or two I’m expecting (and Mellor confirmed).

We do need some more surgery if we’re going to really challenge again, and I think the younger lads will need to be near their career peak which they won’t be at 19/20/21.

The club clearly needs to lick its wounds, regather and put in a big pre-season - but just one or two new signings and I think we’ll be OK. The squad we’ll start next year with is very different from the McD era end and we are in better shape, without me papering over the cracks.

I wouldn’t even try to guess precisely where we’ll finish next year but I’d expect we will be a club not in danger of relegation and showing signs of moving forward with the talent we have coming through.

Re: Expectations for 2020 : Fri Sep 20, 2019 8:07 am  

Had we appointed a proven quality coach I would have said top 5 without a doubt. Even without any signings I'd have said it.

With Agar I'm not so certain.

Re: Expectations for 2020 : Fri Sep 20, 2019 8:18 am  

christopher wrote:

London we're not of any benefit this year (for us I mean not the competition), quite the opposite!

Yes they were. We took four points off them. Without them we would have been relegated.

Re: Expectations for 2020 : Fri Sep 20, 2019 8:22 am  

Gotcha wrote:

Yes they were. We took four points off them. Without them we would have been relegated.

Or had they have performed like expected and not won 10 games we would have been safe a lot earlier, anyway it's all a bit pointless as we don't know yet who is coming up and how well they will fair

Re: Expectations for 2020 : Fri Sep 20, 2019 8:25 am  

Bang wrote:

Had we appointed a proven quality coach I would have said top 5 without a doubt. Even without any signings I'd have said it.

With Agar I'm not so certain.

A proven quality coach is not a guarantee of anything, Tony smith went to Hull KR and nearly got them relegated, Justin Holbrook had never been a first team coach and has got Saints above and beyond anyone else in the league, our most successful coach was not proven quality.

Re: Expectations for 2020 : Fri Sep 20, 2019 9:31 am  

If we stick with the current squad of players then I'd expect 5th to 8th depending of form, injuries and that of the clubs around us. Better than that would be great and an overacheivement, worse and we need to be looking at wide scale changes again I'm afraid.

With new players in, who knows it would depend on who they are.

Re: Expectations for 2020 : Fri Sep 20, 2019 10:46 am  

I'm not sure there's any evidence that without a couple of quality players we're likely to compete with the best. We look more solid but that's about it. The win against a post cc wire was nice but proved nothing.