Good that we had a good turnout- hopefully some will return despite tonight’s loss.
Last season we were very much a mid table Championship side until we got some quality players in, namely Norman and Whare.
I’m not writing off the season yet ( and I recall from last season that our worst performances came in wet conditions) but without another quality player or two then pastings at home could become the norm. Admittedly we are missing a few key players but even so we are miles behind the top SL teams, unsurprisingly.
We’re going to have to hope we can get better results against the mid and lower table opposition I reckon.
Small matter of Wigan next home game……

Waine was handing out those clapper things in fan zone. Eccles in the online programme said he’s taken a knock and they are waiting to hear how bad it is. Walker seems close to returning.

It's a pity those TRY signs never got used

Can’t argue with that. Feels just like 2022 season get big crowd in, team not up to it. Obviously Catalans are very good and our team is very much better than the team we put out at start of 2022 against Widnes and Whitehaven but, yet again, the concern is we have missed our one chance to impress and grow crowds. As an aside considering how difficult we have found to recruit FT in the Super League, gawd knows how we will get a squad together for next year. Anyway that’s a problem for a later date.

Yup not even close. Loads handed out- never heard a one. Wonder if Boafo might be an option to create some mayhem. He has genuine pace, is elusive and is prepared to put in a defensive effort. Other than that it’s difficult to see how we change things up until Walker, Bienek in particular get fit.

He was playing at HAC on Wednesday. Not sure if returning from injury but was a class apart from anyone else in that game.

I seem to recall Boafo being a very decent attacking option for us in our SL season in Ealing, maybe he could repeat that sort of form given the opportunity?

To my mind our starting fixtures are no accident. Super League have set out to destroy our season and any chance that we have of drawing in and retaining new fans.
Giving us starting home fixtures against the teams that finished 2nd place Catalan, Winners Wigan and 6th place Warrington. Throw in our starting away fixture against 3rd place
St Helens, just to put us further on the back foot. Spiteful, very spiteful.
They are hoping by destroying our season, the joke IMG gradings will not become an issue for them. We finish bottom, relegation deserved. Problem solved!
I do hope our team, who last season started poorly and came charging through at the end with a wet sail, sure with some spanking additions, can do the same again in 2024.
Should we not finish bottom, it would put the powers that be in a very awkward position, I believe. To relegate us in such a situation, would show the world what a poorly run sport ours is.

Well...excellent crowd which beggars the questions:
a/How did they achieve it?
b/why the fark has it taken this long to do so?

Let's hope they have ALL the contact info of those who attended and revisit them asking for feedback and inviting people to come back.

I love a conspiracy theory, but I agree both RFL & IMG end up with huge amounts of egg on their faces if Broncos finish anywhere other than bottom & fixture manipulation is as good a way of trying to ensure that as any.

2 other things occurred to me, just how embarrassing are RL scrums? Either return to contested scrums or replace them with a PTB. Also the Referee I thought was pretty poor, guess whether a try had been scored & letting the video Ref make a decision. Nice to know being "square" at the PTB isn't always an offence.

It really has been men against boys these first 2 games with Saints & Cats being bigger, faster & stronger than us. Not helped I suppose by our 3 old boys playing well for the Cats. This is going to be a season to watch from behind the sofa & through your fingers. At least the boys stuck at it however much in vein.

Of course it would be nice to know how many of the 5k paid to attend & if as suspected, not many, as Orange said, we got everyone's details.

Hughes is clearly miffed by the IMG ratings. He's cut off his nose to spite his face with the academy given it garners no points directly. Perhaps he also sees putting in an effort to get a crowd as another way of socking it to them. Let's hope it wasn't a one off effort and a leopard really can change its spots.

I don’t know if they paid but I had assumed they came under the ‘heavily discounted’ camp otherwise surely to god we’d have been out there making a big noise about the size of the crowd. What the actual number was who attended I don’t know but it was clearly the biggest at PL by miles and of the type we used to see when club was last in SL. The difference with 2022’s early inflated crowd was this seemed more targeted youth clubs and rugby clubs from across the south the type who might want to go again. I also noticed a lot of faces who I didn’t recognise wearing older shirts. This may well be because the club has spectacularly failed to produce replica shirts for the start of the season but I felt it might be a few people coming back to give it another go. The crowd size was a definite positive let’s hope that at least some were not put off and will try again but perhaps later in the season when we have a SL ready squad.

I went into the shop to see if, in reality, any merch is available. I couldn’t locate the Broncos stuff. Did anyone have better luck? If not my suggestion get the stuff in for the Wigan game - failing to do so for the 2 biggest gates of the season is like missing an open goal.

I have to say that despite all the rain that we have had over the last few weeks, the torrential downpour that we had in the few hours before the match. The pitch stood up well.

Agreed Vic, it looked good. Probably why they won't let us play on it for so long in the summer.

Nice that Tony Rea & Steve Magee were there handing out player shirts,

Pitch wasn’t a problem, but like last season we were poor in wet conditions

Last season we were making (many) mistakes in wet conditions. Did we make (any) mistakes on Friday that appeared weather condition related?

I thought we played okay, in fact better than that. Just appeared we were totally out classed. Came into yesterday's game concerned if we;d win a single league game this year. Now also concerned how many games we will be totally shut out on.

Thought some of our quick passing along the line in the first half was excellent and reminiscent of how Eccles turned the team around last year (prior to Warne and Norman?), The difference this year was the Catalans recovery defence meant those moves were ultimately snuffed out.

And I still can't get this. The kicks from Catalans put us under immense pressure and were a far better tactic for the Catalans than running on the sixth tackle. In contrast our kicks were caught unpressured. Looked to me in the second half that was tactical. We didn't pressure the receiver and instead positioned ourselves for the first tackle. I guess that was because the Catalans ascendancy allowed them to commit players to the ball, whereas the risk for us was leaving gaping holes if we over committed.

I believe we played three foreign players short on Friday. Two injured and one yet to be signed. Not sure how long we can do that considering our playing strength. Thought I heard that the Catalans signed three new players direct from the NRL. All three played on Friday night, but assume we fielded those three and the Catalans didn't, would the Catalans dominance have been far less?

Pity they didn’t hand out mine!

Think yours had been given to Jacob Jones cos they'd run out.

The handing out of shirts of course is quite American. I quite like the idea but do it before the first game of the season & not after they had already worn it.

Maybe they could persuade Tony to put his boots back on as we're short of a hooker or perhaps try for Stormy Daniels.