We are certainly light up front, need at least 1 more prop and a hooker/halve

This I agree with but I think the club feel they have say we are promotion candidates even if they don’t think it’s realistic, to keep fans on side.

I think most fans are much more realistic these days but they are probably keen to avoid putting out a message that we are midtable championship because it does sell as well

people talk about SL ambition, if we did manage by some fluke to get promoted we don’t have to stick with same side!!!!!

My issue with Featherstone is that they had around 5 loanees plus dual reg whilst trying to gain promotion which in my opinion is wrong. The teams of Hull KR and Toronto only had 1 or 2 loans.

When we had 5-6 loans in 2017 we were kept in the Championship after liquidation and had to assemble a squad in pretty much 2 weeks. That was needs must. A promotion contender should not be having dual reg AND loans too.

Oh wow really?

As I say, I am quite content where we are, I just think it is time to move away from talking about SL and getting Bradford back to where we belong etc. It still gets trotted out in interviews with new players etc and that would be fine if we were investing to make that a realistic aim.

I guess our best hope might be that some of these young players all flourish around the same time and we hold onto them long enough to form a side good enough. But generally they seem to get picked off as soon as they show promise, which is understandable but frustrating.

The point I’m making is people are criticising for showing SL ambition but adding loan players. Budgeting unfortunately for most clubs means a sprinkling of top quality champ players padded out with journeymen or kids with potential that aren’t costing the earth. That’s what makes a champ squad unless you have money ala Leigh and are able to build a team which looked too good for this years championship. Surely there is nothing wrong with this .