Yes, that's true, but its all mixing and matching around injuries isn't it? For example, when Kearney gets injured at some point of the season, then Kear has to go to full back, Purtell goes to the wing - but then that leaves us short in the centres etc etc

Basically, at the moment, I don't think we have enough players to cope with a full season of SL

Purtell played wing in the NRL for the whole of 2006 and most of 2011 season, 2010 he pretty much played centre and 2007 - 9 he alternated (and the occasional second row) His tries/game ratio is virtually identical for wing and centre. forty plus games at wing in the NRL makes him our most experienced winger. Except he prefers centre and was clearly signed on that understanding, though what that means now is another matter.

Well the Bulls seem to have had more than their fair share of injuries the last few seasons, playing SL with a skinney Squad will be tempting the Fates once again

If Purtell is not cleared to play in December then we are fecked !

I think that might be ever so slightly ott..

Not necessarily. It would be very late for recruitment, but we'd have a full quota spot and his wage available to source a replacement. Pretty certain we'd be able to find someone to recruit, doesn't necessarily have to be a back either given Blythe,walker,platt and one if young lads are all capable of playing centre.
Don't really see point in making too much of a judgement on our recruitment until its complete TBH. I'm sure coaching staff can see the weak areas in squad and are trying to fill them. Think at this stage we just need to be patient and see who else we bring in.

That's spot on imo. Individual ins and outs aren't [ithat[/i important, particularly for a club in our position, it's the overall makeup and balance of the squad which is important. I hope very much that Purts recovers fully and can come back to play though, but his health is far more important than our squad.

The RFL could be partly responsible for Ainscough moving to Ozz with them cutting out sky cash...well done RFL

NOT

I doubt it. It's more likely a case of us having to use more of the cap to keep hold of Nas, Gale, Bateman etc. and players like Ainscough are deemed surplus to requirements. I know it sounds harsh, but wingers like Shaun are easily replaced.
That being said I wish him all the best, and it's unfortunate that he has found himself in this position because I certainly think he is good enough for SL, and way too good for some amateur side over in Aus.

He's not the only player looking for security in oz and hardly surprising given the rumours about various clubs.

We can see in terms of numbers where there are holes in the squad, what we cannot read is FCs mind as to how he wants to play the game and therefore the players he wants. so as mat says simply knowing we are several props and however many wings etc short isnt enough, the picture becomes clearer as the announcements are made. Doesn't stop the speculation though!

I agree that we are probably paying Gale, Bateman, Nas a little more that last year, but i can't imagine we are close to the cap spend. This is what is concerning me the most. Shaun will not be after a large wage (assuming) and as we are not prepared to retain this player, just makes me feel that the money is not there (not really a surprise).

It's just confusing that OK has previously stated that the Bulls will spend up to the cap this year, but based on current recruitment and playing roster, we must be way, way short of the cap limit.

Jefferies, KP, Joseph, Hargreaves, Donno, Addy, Crookes, Ainy + more - we can't have swallowed that cash up already, surely?

If your 8 best palyers average £100k p/a that only leaves £800k bewtween the remaining 17. I wouldn't put Ainscough in top 15 players, never mind top 8, so there's not much left to reward him for his enthusiasm.

Write an adequate cheque but give it to him well and with a boyish smile.

...or drop it just short of him.

It's all very well everyone wanting us to "spend up to the cap", but we got into a real fine mess doing that when we didn't have the money.

People need to get used to the idea that what we are able to spend will - must - be curtailed by what money we get coming in. Taking into account modest season ticket sales, and especially taking into account that we are starting £500,000 down on income as opposed to every other SL club.

OK and GS have saved our skin, but they're not Penn and Teller, and I don't believe we have an alchemist on the books, so where is the money everyone wants to spend going to come from?

Which I agree and understand, but why come out and say you will spend the CAP?

Well the cap is 1.8 million.

I believe the figure they were going for regarding season tickets was 7500? I'm sure I heard that figure at the fans forum.

So, basic math shows 7500 x £180 (the early bird basic ground entry price for a season ticket) = £1350000. So that means the club would just need to raise an additional £45k to cover the total cost for playing staff (Or, to put it another way, 2500 full price adults on top of the 7500 season ticket holders for the first home game of the season giving us a first home game crowd of 10k, an easily achievable number of people through the gates I'm sure we'd all agree). Clearly, if season ticket sales aren't going as well as predicted or hoped then there's going to be a lack of funds for signing players because the club still has the rest of it's expenses to cover (food, day to day staff etc etc).

Just because we could go out and spend to the cap, doesn't mean that we should. It seems to me that the big plan the previous regime had for the cheap season tickets was that it would attract big, bumper crowds who'd be buying shirts, programmes, food, drink etc and making up that shortfall the club didn't get from the cost of the season tickets. But they still spent to the cap on a speculative basis and that kind of dropped us in the cacky.

It would seem the new owner are a bit more frugal when it comes to things like budgets. Which is what we need. We don't want to spend ourselves back into the ground.

Same opinion here

Tend to think message owners wanted to get out was IF we sell 7.5k season tickets then we will be able to spend full cap. Obviously there will be a lower budget set for lower levels of ticket sales, which is how it has to be given mess we got in previously spending money based on projections rather than actual income.
This has got garbled with various quotes about full cap being available so that people now expect full cap is available irrespective of ticket sales.
This is something that could easily be clarified at forum this week and could convince people who are planning on paying on gate to get season tickets in the knowledge their going to improve the team this year.
Provided crowds hold up then the income over the season is similar whether people get season tickets or pay on gate but its a big gamble spending money on squad and then hoping crowds will turn up paying on gate and cover the expenditure. Especially when we're 600k down on central funding for next couple of years. Seems pretty obvious to me that at least part of that 600k shortfall is going to come out of player budget, hence reduced offer to ainscough, loan players etc.

Maths wrong. Sorry.

Apart from you meant to type £450k, a £180 season ticket yields £150 to the club. And £30 VAT to HMRC.

And a £1.8m salary cap means a player payoll cost of just over £2m, if all salary cap payments are subject to NIC.

Your numbers should be £1.125m compared with £2.048m, a shortfall of £923m.

That would be reduced a fair bit by the season tickets for the stand, selling at higher prices.

Costs other than for playing staff will not be that much adrift from £2m.

How much?



Sorry, couldn't resist.

Omar Khan said in France that we would be spending the full cap well before the 7.5k figure was mentioned.

That was also before amount of RFL funding being withheld was determined. Don't doubt he meant it at time but can't see it happening now. We've lost approx 16 players and signed 4 plus 2 contract upgrades. Figures just don't add up.

Fair cop! Looks like the typos are contagious.

Not determined just made public.