Yet another excuse in a long line of them rolled out over the last 20+ years by the club. The reality is that we should never have been in such a position in the first place, so it should hardly come as any surprise that the architect off our downfall was again found wanting when it came to making key decisions back in October.
The fact that we don't have a recognised Rugby League coach (100% down to Hughes) is surely the biggest concern (or should be). Combine that with the offering or part-time roles (Hughes) in a full time "premiere" competition with the 100% assurance of championship football in 12 months (Hughes), rattling around a 75% (and growing) empty Stadium (Hughes) based on how many extra £20 we can squeeze from the shrinking fan base (Hughes and Lobster), it's no wonder that even curious ANZACS aren't bothering. Working visas have been easy to come by down here for the UK, after Brexit forced Britain to cede access to Aussies and Kiwis in return for trade deals (Irony there somewhere), so why aren't we packed with holiday making kids? Why the insistence of exposing just how poor the standard of London trained players is? Again, this is Hughes "showing his contempt" because he doesn't get his own way.
Everyone is entitled to be a little bit stupid from time to time, but Hughes has simply abused that privilege over and over again. What was needed last October was a new CEO, tasked with hard negotiations with IMG/RFL/SL and a search for an ANZAC roster with an ANZAC coach, as both would possibly score more points than a conveyer belt of average London talent.
Castlefords win at Salford has simply confirmed our finishing last this year and we will vanish with a whimper soon after.....which is a shame, because Hughes really could have blown the sport wide open if he's made it clear that all IMG were wrong by building a competitive side instead of sulking like he did in 2013/14

That's easy. They should have signed SL quality players regardless. We won the championship because we had brought in some top quality players part way through the season. Before that we were pretty average.

I seem to recall we have been here before, apparently spending to the cap with a very under performing team. To quote Orangeman, somebody is stealing a living if that figure is true.

Perhaps Hughes is paying his son a big amount

I will say that when IMG binned us off, I was the first to knee-jerk and say that we should move straight back to Trailfinders or even go all in at RiskyPArk, turn up get hammered every week with an amateur squad and pocket the 1.8 million for spending over the next 5 years in the lower tier. I was joking of course, but it would seem that other than Wimbledon FC and expats fans of SL sides who live on London, nobody else is benefitting from our surprise SL status this year.
I'd hazzard a guess that the brewery are paying 2 tenths of bugger all for the shirt whilst the London Irish charity was a simple "mates call" as the corp guy has worked there before....it's really a shambles AGAIN with free tickets being handed out as confetti but achieving nothing more than a bemused locals watching us get mullered week in week out, declining fan numbers and Hughes sitting in the gold lounge surrounded by 40-80 hardcore fans thinking everything's fine.