2005/6 Pre-season Press Conference - Mark Evans
By Prof
August 31 2005
Tony Copsey, or rather Anthony Copsey as he introduced himself to the assembled press, then introduced Mark Evans and Dean Richards for the first part of the press conference and then went on to say that Andre Vos, Will Greenwood and Andrew Mehrtens would be there for the second part.
August 31 2005
Tony Copsey, or rather Anthony Copsey as he introduced himself to the assembled press, then introduced Mark Evans and Dean Richards for the first part of the press conference and then went on to say that Andre Vos, Will Greenwood and Andrew Mehrtens would be there for the second part.
Mark Evans was then invited to sum up events since relegation.
The first major development was when our senior players Andre (Vos), Will (Greenwood), Tony Diprose and the majority of last years squad agreed to either re-sign or to stay with the club. Obviously it’s a big worry if you are relegated from the Premiership that you keep your squad together – that was our first and foremost aim.
I had been in discussions with Dean prior to that and it was also extremely encouraging that Dean didn’t show a moment’s hesitation in joining us.
Also over the summer we were fortunate enough to recruit Andy Friend from the New South Wales Warratahs, he took up post in early July as our Head Coach. Andy’s got a wealth of experience with the Warratahs and he’s just come back from the U21 World Cup with the Wallabies side. He’s going to make a big contribution over the next few years to the club.
This was swiftly followed by the renewal of the main sponsorship by NEC for which we would like to indicate our many thanks. The most concerning thing is to leave your key players, after that you do worry about losing your key partners the fans and sponsors. NEC are going into their 9th or 10th year with us and we’re delighted to have NEC back on board with us for another couple of years.
The other big project of the summer is the building of the new Lexus Stand which will be ready for the 17th September. It is now pretty much finished on the inside, there’s still a little bit to do on the outside. Like all these projects they tend to go down to the wire.
We are very, very confident that the Lexus Stand will be open for our first home game of the season against Newbury. We’re having a bit of a party for about 250-300 guests – former players, former key people in the club and all our commercial partners and we will be formally opening the stand.
On the same day we will also be unveiling the Nick Duncombe Memorial Statue which will be going up in the north-west corner of the ground. It was funded by public subscription. I have been fortunate to have had a preview of it and it is a quite remarkable piece of work, I was obviously very close to Nicky and it really did make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I think it will be a tremendous memorial to a fine young guy.
Obviously in July we announced the partnership with the London Broncos setting up what we think will be the first sole branded, dual code rugby club in the world. It is a slightly different set up to Leeds although it is similar in some ways.
We have been tremendously encouraged by our season ticket sales which currently stand at 4250, our second highest total ever, it’s a little down on last year’s which touched 5000. We are absolutely delighted, to be honest we didn’t think we would be able to keep so much of our core support. I think that is a testimony to their loyalty, and hopefully also a bit of a testament to all the hard work by the community team and the sales team led so easily by Tony (Copsey).
We have also managed to sell every one of the corporate hospitality boxes in both stands. We have doubled out inventory with the Lexus stand being a complete mirror of the East Stand. That gives us a great deal of confidence and a great deal of heart. It boosts morale all round to feel that we still have a bit of commercial clout.
I suppose I am trying to say that it has been a really busy summer for us on a whole manner of fronts – Dean will talk about the comings and goings on the playing side.
I’d like to feel that all those issues that I have mentioned in a very short overall summary shows that the ambition of the club is undimmed. We know what our aim is for this year it is to get into the Premiership and we know it won’t be straightforward or easy. We are very confident, we think we have weathered some difficult times and we think we’ve weathered it reasonable well. We are very much looking forward to the season kicking off up in Birmingham.
On that point I’d like to pass over to Dean…
The first major development was when our senior players Andre (Vos), Will (Greenwood), Tony Diprose and the majority of last years squad agreed to either re-sign or to stay with the club. Obviously it’s a big worry if you are relegated from the Premiership that you keep your squad together – that was our first and foremost aim.
I had been in discussions with Dean prior to that and it was also extremely encouraging that Dean didn’t show a moment’s hesitation in joining us.
Also over the summer we were fortunate enough to recruit Andy Friend from the New South Wales Warratahs, he took up post in early July as our Head Coach. Andy’s got a wealth of experience with the Warratahs and he’s just come back from the U21 World Cup with the Wallabies side. He’s going to make a big contribution over the next few years to the club.
This was swiftly followed by the renewal of the main sponsorship by NEC for which we would like to indicate our many thanks. The most concerning thing is to leave your key players, after that you do worry about losing your key partners the fans and sponsors. NEC are going into their 9th or 10th year with us and we’re delighted to have NEC back on board with us for another couple of years.
The other big project of the summer is the building of the new Lexus Stand which will be ready for the 17th September. It is now pretty much finished on the inside, there’s still a little bit to do on the outside. Like all these projects they tend to go down to the wire.
We are very, very confident that the Lexus Stand will be open for our first home game of the season against Newbury. We’re having a bit of a party for about 250-300 guests – former players, former key people in the club and all our commercial partners and we will be formally opening the stand.
On the same day we will also be unveiling the Nick Duncombe Memorial Statue which will be going up in the north-west corner of the ground. It was funded by public subscription. I have been fortunate to have had a preview of it and it is a quite remarkable piece of work, I was obviously very close to Nicky and it really did make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I think it will be a tremendous memorial to a fine young guy.
Obviously in July we announced the partnership with the London Broncos setting up what we think will be the first sole branded, dual code rugby club in the world. It is a slightly different set up to Leeds although it is similar in some ways.
We have been tremendously encouraged by our season ticket sales which currently stand at 4250, our second highest total ever, it’s a little down on last year’s which touched 5000. We are absolutely delighted, to be honest we didn’t think we would be able to keep so much of our core support. I think that is a testimony to their loyalty, and hopefully also a bit of a testament to all the hard work by the community team and the sales team led so easily by Tony (Copsey).
We have also managed to sell every one of the corporate hospitality boxes in both stands. We have doubled out inventory with the Lexus stand being a complete mirror of the East Stand. That gives us a great deal of confidence and a great deal of heart. It boosts morale all round to feel that we still have a bit of commercial clout.
I suppose I am trying to say that it has been a really busy summer for us on a whole manner of fronts – Dean will talk about the comings and goings on the playing side.
I’d like to feel that all those issues that I have mentioned in a very short overall summary shows that the ambition of the club is undimmed. We know what our aim is for this year it is to get into the Premiership and we know it won’t be straightforward or easy. We are very confident, we think we have weathered some difficult times and we think we’ve weathered it reasonable well. We are very much looking forward to the season kicking off up in Birmingham.
On that point I’d like to pass over to Dean…
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