What Say thee now? : Thu Mar 30, 2017 8:53 pm  

At risk of being told to not get ahead of myself, which I'm aware I am, many of us here, including myself, thought that after the decimation of the club and exodus of the players that starting in the league below was the better option.

Having seen the performances and pride in the shirt already this year from our squad, many of whom are homegrown, do you now believe it would have been better to take the lower league as our starting point, is the point deduction perhaps not the death sentence it seemed at first?

Re: What Say thee now? : Thu Mar 30, 2017 10:02 pm  

HAPEtobehere wrote:

At risk of being told to not get ahead of myself, which I'm aware I am, many of us here, including myself, thought that after the decimation of the club and exodus of the players that starting in the league below was the better option.

Having seen the performances and pride in the shirt already this year from our squad, many of whom are homegrown, do you now believe it would have been better to take the lower league as our starting point, is the point deduction perhaps not the death sentence it seemed at first?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But 99% of me still says we should have been in League 1. Those are the rules and we have clearly been made an exception by the RFL (regardless of their motivations). Besides at the time we didn't have the players we do now. However we are where we are and the lads have done well to get to -4 so far with plenty of the season left.

On the other side to your question. Had we not secured the services of Smith, Moore (especially), Larroyer, Murray, Lilley, Oledzki, Jordan-Roberts and Hallas and put out a similar team to the one we did vs. Keighley but on a weekly basis. Would you say the decision to keep us in the Championship was right?

Re: What Say thee now? : Thu Mar 30, 2017 10:03 pm  

I think I've pretty much got over it, tbh. There's a part of me that wonders if we shouldn't just stick everything on black and try to go up.

Re: What Say thee now? : Thu Mar 30, 2017 10:10 pm  

vbfg wrote:

I think I've pretty much got over it, tbh. There's a part of me that wonders if we shouldn't just stick everything on black and try to go up.

This would 100% be my aim next season. Survive this year. Recruit and push for promotion next season, providing the system stays the same or there is still a promotion to SL as I am not 100% sure how we would do in a franchise system at the moment.

Re: What Say thee now? : Fri Mar 31, 2017 12:31 am  

Bulls Boy 2011 wrote:

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But 99% of me still says we should have been in League 1. Those are the rules and we have clearly been made an exception by the RFL (regardless of their motivations). Besides at the time we didn't have the players we do now. However we are where we are and the lads have done well to get to -4 so far with plenty of the season left.

On the other side to your question. Had we not secured the services of Smith, Moore (especially), Larroyer, Murray, Lilley, Oledzki, Jordan-Roberts and Hallas and put out a similar team to the one we did vs. Keighley but on a weekly basis. Would you say the decision to keep us in the Championship was right?

This is part of my question as i see it.

Without this league we wouldnt have any of these players who have been spectacular to watch, even i the knowledge we may not see long term benefits from most of them, and as such had we been in the league below we would have been watching a much weaker and less entertaining brand of rugby.

I personally think the style of rugby that is promising from the current side is precisely what is needed to restore the fans and support to the club

Re: What Say thee now? : Fri Mar 31, 2017 5:45 am  

Bulls Boy 2011 wrote:

This would 100% be my aim next season. Survive this year. Recruit and push for promotion next season, providing the system stays the same or there is still a promotion to SL as I am not 100% sure how we would do in a franchise system at the moment.

I believe that may be the plan which is why so few players coming in are on more than 1 year deals.

Survive this year. Steady the ship. Then coming back guns blazing in 2018

Re: What Say thee now? : Fri Mar 31, 2017 7:27 am  

I have no doubt we will still be in the second tier next season. There is a growing sense in the press that there are going to be significant changes to the structure next season and the Bulls are believed to be part of the RFLs plans. The RFL encouraged and chose Chalmers and Lowe so I suspect there were private words spoken to them to encourage them to take the club on - no evidence of this but I strongly suspect this was the case. Having said that, I think we will play ourselves into safety with the team we have + new players that will arrive.

As far as next year, I doubt Chalmers and Lowe with throw cash that we don't have. I think they are very canny rugby people and would expect a few surprises in some quality people joining us due to their links in the game and persuasive powers in the way they talked Toovey to swap Bondi with Bradford. I expect many unknown players to be signed who hopefully turn out to be a pleasant surprise. I have always believed that there are a large number of good players out there that for many reasons have been dropped by SL and NRL clubs and just need someone to identify them. I thought Rohan was someone who could do that. Toovey, Lowe and Chalmers are possibly also in that position to unearth some gems that just need persuading to come to the Bulls.

I feel confident the club is in good hands now. I doubt though that Toovey will stay very long and hope Chalmers has other people in mind that will eventually take over and continue the rebuild. I hope I am wrong and he stays for a number of years but I think he will be persuaded by a higher league or Ausie (not better) club.

So, in summary, no big spending in the off season on big names but a steady building process with quality players who will continue to give 100% as the current youngsters are giving.

Re: What Say thee now? : Fri Mar 31, 2017 7:55 am  

Agree about the comments about the loan players. If we didn't have them, we would be struggling big time. I like the team we are rebuilding though. The left hand side in particular is very exciting. Ross Oakes and Ryan have scored 6 each tries each already. Bentley just gets better and better and has the grit and determination our SL wannabes have been missing the last few years. We are a very young team still. Players like Thomas, Keyes are still in their very early 20s. There is pride in this team.Someone on the Fax board (I think it was Greg) said this was the worst Bradford team they had ever faced. I disagree. I think we're a much better team than last year.

[Bullseye]

Re: What Say thee now? : Fri Mar 31, 2017 8:09 am  

Without the loan players we’d be stuffed. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. In the forwards particularly we’d have been bullied in every game. We’ve done well to pick up Moore and Smith but Moore may yet become unavailable. If that happens we’ll be significantly weaker. We’ve lost Oledzki until after Easter at least and Murray could easily be recalled which leaves us with only Kirk and Magrin as bona fide props. We’re not out of the woods yet.

Add to that the injury to Keyes which hopefully isn’t serious but if it is we’re relying on Leon (who’s no longer young and fit enough to do 80mins week in week out and Lilley who could be recalled).

Only in the backs am I reasonably happy with where we are as a squad. It’s still a case of battling to stay up and it will be close. We need to continue to be lucky with injuries and loan signings.

If we do stay up there’s a massive recruitment challenge. There won’t be any U19s ready to move up to 1st team for another year or so as the last group earmarked for that was signed up by other clubs during our period of admin. That means we’ll need to bring players in and maybe play the loan system again. We’ll need at least 2 halfbacks, 3 props and a backrower for starters.

Re: What Say thee now? : Fri Mar 31, 2017 8:40 am  

Bullseye wrote:

If we do stay up there’s a massive recruitment challenge. There won’t be any U19s ready to move up to 1st team for another year or so as the last group earmarked for that was signed up by other clubs during our period of admin.

To be fair, Ricketts, Bentley and Wilkinson are all still eligible for the 19s. They've just be thrown in at the deep end. Reiss Butterworth will no doubt move up and he's only in his second year. Not sure if he's training full time now. Think they could be a couple of other second years who may be offered full time deals if they grab their chance. Unfortunately it won't be the golden generation of Joe Brown, Jake Trueman, Cameron Scott we had coming through. (Cheers Marc Green and Steve Ferres)

On recruitment, we can start planning nowthan starting our recruitemnt one week before the season starts like this year.