It sounds a little more promising .

Uncle Tony's reputation in the game is masking a few of his failings currently regarding youth and team discipline, if it were an inexperienced Aussie, we'd be asking for him to go by now

We do need to be careful with the likes of Martin, basically cone from a few reserve ganes to playing every week. Happened to Litten last year.

Not a bad squad. We have 3 hookers in the there so maybe why Balmforth not in..Again we don't know the ins and outs. But can't see Smith keeping him on if he doesn't rate him. Just could be a fitness thing that's hes not happy with ?

We do, but two are going to be playing at halfback, I'd guess Charles will be on the bench and come on firm Houghton and move Brown to 9 or 13 like the London gane, but seems alot of changing when they could just bring on Balmforth.

I'm sure Dan will put something out about it.

If Tindall is fit then I can understand if he comes in to the squad, as good as Lewis Martin has been for us a rest certainly wouldn't be a bad thing for him. That said with Sutcliffe back in and based on form I'd actually keep McIntosh in the centre and drop Carlos and have Tindall & Martin on the wing. Guess a lot depends also on the fitness of Scott too.

What does concern me, is that even with Houghton coming off with tightness in his hamstring Smith still doesn't seem to want to include Balmforth again even in a 21 man squad. I can only think as he played reserves last week that he doesn't have any future at the club under Smith which is a shame as he's certainly seems a decent player and offers us something we haven't got at 9 and just not seemingly been given an opportunity as we still obsess in flogging Houghton for 80mins, even though after about 60mins he's just no longer effective.

Yes we do have 3 hookers but as Dave points out two of them are playing in the halves.

So unless Charles is going to be on the bench and get more time than just a cameo appearance I fail to see any reason not to include Balmforth if there is no fitness/injury concerns. If he is fit to play and just not getting selected at this current time I doubt he will at any point moving forward unless we lose Houghton for a period of time.

Smith should have let Houghton retire last season , His wage could have been used to strengthen other areas we are struggling in now .

Start of a big 2-3 weeks for us.

If we could win the next three games (and I know that is a tall order given our current circumstances) then everyone is going to feel a good deal more buoyant about the months ahead on the back of a cup quarter-final to come and a derby win.

On the other hand, lose all three and the season will effectively be over before April fools day (fairly apt, some might say!!) with the only realistic goals of finishing above Cas and London to look forward to, while wistfully hoping for better news regarding 2025.

We really could do with a win (and a decent performance to go with it) on Saturday to put some hope/energy into the fanbase. Hoping some of these rumoured player returns are true and we can at least have something starting to resemble a first-choice line-up to judge.

The issue is, with the lack of quality domestically who could we have realistically signed to strengthen our squad. If he was a quota player, then yes definitely, I still like Houghton, but he shouldn't be playing 80 minutes.

I'd definitely be more confident if Houghton, Pele and Scott are in the 17.

Could do with Lam and Amone missing out.

Powell would've been a better option

Short term maybe, I don't rate him that highly particularly in attack, I'd like a more dynamic hooker.

Ackers would've been perfect but obviously we couldn't match Leeds offer for him

Not realistic, would never choose us over Leeds and as you say we wouldn't pay a fee.

He should be realistic though, this is how far we have fallen Adam and Clarky want us to believe these sort of signings are out of our reach and we should be happy where we are. Not that long ago we attracted Ellis when every other club wanted him.

Didn’t Leeds stump up £250,000 for Ackers and Brodie Croft? Didn’t see other clubs offering that sort of money. Ellis didn’t require transfer money, his other option was Leeds and it was quite a coup to sign him.

It was rumoured that every club had made Ellis an offer, but we must have delivered a good contract and also at the time we had a new owner investing big in the squad so it felt like a good project for him. How times change.

If we were prepared to make Clifford a marquee player, and we're linked with Blore, surely there was money there that we could have used to pay for a transfer fee for Ackers? I imagine Brown and Okunbor are on far less than Blore and Clifford would've been on

This is why im intrigued at the amount of the covid loan. Youd like to think whatever amount it is that weve paid off will go towards next seasons squad build.

Rumours of 500k. Well if Croft and Ackers cost 250k , i know its not always that straight forward, but surely we invest big next season with no loan to pay, a more favourable tenancy agreement agreed, and the continued backing of fans with season pass sales, corperate sales and sponser deals.

from God?

I agree with you.He is living off his past success

This is from our penalty machine Jordan Lane
I was quite bad at the weekend. I gave away about three or four penalties or six agains. It's something that I'm working on personally to try and negate from my game. Tony also showed us in our review that we gave away 16 penalties and 10 errors. so we need to eradicate them

Is the penny starting to drop?
The on field indiscipline has got worse since Tinkering Tony has been here yet he has done sweet FA about it.
I just think he his just going through the motions knowing the clubs financial situation

Why do fans go on about his fitness?
If he was fit enough to be on the bench two or three weeks ago and do 40 mins plus then he surely can do that now
Think we have to accept that Smith either doesnt like him or rate him as it seems he would rather play a one legged Houghton for 80 minutes

Thats why they call him tinkering Tony
Like last week at Catalan when Russell went off.
We had three forwards on the bench so rather than move Okunbor to wing,a position he has played he moves Walker to the wing and Hoy to full back which then negated the possibility of moving Hoy into the halves to add more zip which was probably the intention of having him on the bench

Im hoping when everyones back he starts holding the penalty machines accountable