Effort : Fri Apr 11, 2014 11:11 pm  

Throughout the season the team have been praised putting in superb effort. Tonight though I thought this was lacking in certain areas of our game. Not for one second saying they didn't try, but after watching the Cas game, who absolutely busted a gut against Saints, then watching ours, just incomparable. Powell has more or less the same squad he inherited last year and has turned them from 13th to a team in second. He's probably made them a little faster, fitter stronger etc But it's the effort all his players put in EVERY SINGLE PLAY is why they're doing so well. I think we need to ingrain this into some of our players.

Example in defence. All game if Salford played the ball on the right hand side, the right hand side moved up, the left hand side took a couple of steps forward then stopped to have a rest.

In attack, when a player takes a hit up, the rest of the team stands and watches. Not once did one player back up looking for an offload. Dummy runners. We didn't have people running angles at full speed to try and confuse the defence. Too many players having rests watching someone else take the ball up. If your not receiving the ball it doesn't mean you can have a rest. We should have two or three players pushing up every tackle.

We had a strong team out today, I just thought we took a lot of shortcuts and players not working hard enough.

Powells completely transformed Castleford by changing attitudes and making every player work ther backsides off in every play.

It's putting effort in to all the little 1 percenters that we didn't do at all today.

Re: Effort : Sat Apr 12, 2014 12:42 am  

I largely agree. The difference was remarkable. When we had the ball, for much of the time we looked like half the team didn't want to get back in the line, and too many times played one-up rugby, making it much easier for Salford to defend. In contrast most of the time Salford had the ball in attack, the overall impression was that they were twice as fast as us, and as a result they easily got from one end of the pitch to the other, whereas we struggled to get away from our line all night. This was because when Salford were in possession typically each man who got the ball was invariably already running at pace, and received an accurate pass; too often our passes were laboured, and the man taking the ball was stationary or the pass was poor, and so too often the defence was all over us and strangling off all avenues of attack.

We did score some good tries in amongst, although more individual efforts than good team moves (Kear's was a peach) but the fact is that we were never in danger of winning the game, Salford were comfortably ahead of us for most of the 80 minutes.

It was like a boxing match where the weaker boxer is quite handy, and does land a lot of punches and scores quite a few points, but just starts off behind on the judges' scorecards and falls gradually further behind. You can see he is having a go, but you can see that there is only ever going to be one winner.

[Bulliac]

Re: Effort : Sat Apr 12, 2014 10:05 am  

I described the team as "lethargic", on the match thread - which is the same, I suppose. We just seemed slow and had no urgency - Salford raced in at the ptb and kept us pinned down, whilst we seemed to amble to the ball carrier and they made, at least, ten metres nearly every carry.

All of this seemed strange, as no matter how you look at it, on paper, the Salford game was probably our best chance of taking the spoils for the next couple of months.

Re: Effort : Sat Apr 12, 2014 10:22 am  

What annoyed me the most was the Bulls cocking up their first sets after scoring. It is so unprofessional by the team, and so frustrating for us fans.

Re: Effort : Sat Apr 12, 2014 10:54 am  

Just watched the Cas game and what a difference. Both teams were much quicker and more enthusiastic than us last night. I have said for many years now that Bradford play with a one man charge style and are very easy to see what we are going to do. Cas have no big stars but they play as a fast thinking team. Other teams are much quicker than us. When they attack the whole line moves. Players get the ball when they are moving fast. Ours get it as they are trotting and you can see who is going to get it. We are going to need Wakey to lose most games for us to miss the drop.

Re: Effort : Sat Apr 12, 2014 1:14 pm  

grattanboy wrote:

What annoyed me the most was the Bulls cocking up their first sets after scoring. It is so unprofessional by the team, and so frustrating for us fans.

I agree. It seems every time we score we mess up on the following set and the opposition seem to score off those mistakes.

[Bulliac]

Re: Effort : Sun Apr 13, 2014 10:04 am  

woolly07 wrote:

Just watched the Cas game and what a difference. Both teams were much quicker and more enthusiastic than us last night. I have said for many years now that Bradford play with a one man charge style and are very easy to see what we are going to do. Cas have no big stars but they play as a fast thinking team. Other teams are much quicker than us. When they attack the whole line moves. Players get the ball when they are moving fast. Ours get it as they are trotting and you can see who is going to get it. We are going to need Wakey to lose most games for us to miss the drop.

I'd say that is a fair reflection on our performance on Friday night but not over all the last couple of years - indeed I feel the effort and commitment from the players on the field has been the one shining hope we've had to cling to over this awful period.

Our attack has certainly changed since we lost Sammut's ability to drag something from nothing and it's also reflected the loss of 'go-forward', with a few of our strongest forwards leaving and, to be fair, when you add in only one 'real' half for much of this period, that's hardly surprising the attack has looked a bit ragged.

We've got a new prop, with hopefully at least one more to come, and most of the injured players back on the field, so hopefully when they get back to full match fitness we'll see the benefit. I hope...