If this is going to be a regular yearly occurance, please explain why I bother shelling out for a ticket at the start of the season. By buying in advance you never know if the fixtures are going to interfere with holidays etc, but I still buy one.

I agree that more support has to be drummed up, but that doesn't mean that the half-season ticket offer is bad in itself. For example, some people just can't get to the club to sort out the advance ticket, and I include myself in that. So I get £120 worth of rugby for £72. That has to be good, and for some people, that might drag them to games they would otherwise skip.

What bothers me most is the number of people saying that it is all rubbish and that they have had enough with the club, which I can't quite understand. For most of our seasons, we haven't been play-off finishers, and so I would be interested in why people seem to feel so hacked off. Is it:
1. style of play? Some people have said that is is boring. I think that so far there has been some good stuff and some good matches, and some mediocre matches. Is that unusual?
2. loss of key players? Do people feel that the start of season promise has just evaporated with the loss of Newton, Brough and the big mush who didn't like Durkar?
3. lack of atmosphere at Belle Vue? I think it has seemed a bit insipid of late, but I suppose that links in with a couple of mediocre matches where there has been little away support (salford, Crusaders, Giants).
4. lack of relegation taking away the fun? I can understand that perspective, because although it was nervy stuff, it was compelling stuff, and has that edge to the season now gone and so nothing seems to matter as much anymore?

The club are not doing anything differently than before. We are in the top eight and could still mount a play-off challenge, as we are capable of seeing off the others below us. If you take a long-term view, this seasons play-off finish is as important as earlier relegation battles, because if the stadium is well-advanced but not as advanced as we would like by the middle of next year, the successive play-off finishes could be the deciding factor.

So I am curious as to why people are turning their back. Why are worse than we were before, when we have clearly been much worse before?

because we have had a taste of the play offs twice now they expect to improve even more, the atmosphere at Belle Vue is the big factor

I wonder how much of a factor was the actual play-off game. The crowd against Catalan in the play-off was really, really poor, given that it was a play-off game, and we played them because they got an unexpected win against Saints away, which booted out Bradford. I wonder how different things would have been had we played Bradford?

Every thing has a price, and maybe we have just priced ourselves out of things a bit, where what you get isn't what its worth.

This year is about the new stadium, and if things go okay, people will come back, and the burden of that stadium-focus being lifted may allow the club to focus more on marketing. I think Warrington reported a similar thing before the move to Halliwell Jones, that everything drifted as they sorted things out, but they have been on the up since they moved.

Well the good news is no rant about light bulbs, so at least the club are doing something positive

Spot on there McBatt old boy, could not have put it better myself