: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:19 am  

Wakefield have shown us that you don't need a team of superstars, or even anything like a full uninjured first team, to perform well and above expectations. Seems we need to learn something from their achievement and pretty quickly? The difference APPEARS to be that they were playing as a team and were working their gonads off for each other. I suggest that's what Bulls fans want to see from our lads, cos its not looked that way? That's got to be the challenge for Steve and the senior players this week - and the injury crisis is not doing them any favours. Thats my tuppenceworth, anyway.

The things is Adey, when Wakey are going well they are held up as a benchmark. When they are losing nine of their last ten games of the season, with sixty put on them on Wire and a kick short of fifty at home to Cas they're forgotten about and another, more in-form side is used as the stick to beat McNamara with.

I sympathise a lot with your calls for tranparency, but the club have gone a long way to make it clear what's going on. Many just don't want to know, writing it off as 'excuses'.

As for effort being all the fans want to see... I don't think that's the case either, going by the first two games of the year where effort was generally agreed not to be lacking. Some still accused the players of not trying, while other conceded that they had but made it clear that still wasn't good enough.

This place is a bit of an echo chamber and not half as important as we'd like to think it is. I still think it takes big stuff to shift wider perceptions - summer rugby, getting to Wembley and winning trophies for the first time in yonks were it in 1996. Now don't think even winning trophies wll really cut it. There was little bump from either of our 2003 or 2005 wins.

The good news is we do have big stuff that looks achievable - a pack full of Burgesses would help put the club back on the national map; a team full of young British lads would be something the whole game would have to applaud; the OSV would be such a shock to every Bradfordian, most of whom seem unaware that this scheme actually looks like it has a chance, that they might even crack a smile. Might. Just maybe.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:45 am  

Andrew, for the avoidance of doubt - I am going on about perceptions more than realities.

Like as you rightly point out re Wakefield - John Kear has a track record of getting teams to overperform short-term, but long-term his record is far more suspect. Maybe I was naive in using them to demonstrate a point, but I deliberately emphasised "APPEARS" to try and get across that its perceptions that are pretty crucial right now.

The big problem now is that - for valid reasons or otherwise is not the real issue - we have a support base which appears in general to be pretty negative and demoralised. You well know a lot of that negativity is doing my head in (and ME can probably attest to that a wee bit too... ) but we have to recognise that its there and will continue to be there until something happens to break the cycle of negativity.

As you point out, the received wisdom of how to do that is to sack the coach. Then it will all be alright again.

You and I and some others believe that would be madness in the extreme right now - and I'm sure we don't believe for one minute the club are contemplating that whatever clamour there is from the "fans".

What I was doing was trying to suggest more appropriate means of breaking the cycle - by which we really mean changing the fans' perceptions. At the moment its like a mass meeting of the 1970s - hands of the vocal and active members go up at the front, and the masses behind follow. If more of those vocal and active members at the front have their perceptions changed, it will have a huge leverage effect IMO - NOT (just) on here, but at the ground and in the pubs and in the workplace and everywhere else where it really matters.

Rightly or wrongly, the only people who can shift the current perceptions are up at Odsal.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:11 am  

There is no reasonto sack the coach.

We can't afford to sack the coach.

We don't need to sack the coach. We have a rare thing, as a result of the franchise process: we may have struck lucky in this respect. As it happens, the current early phase of our re-building co-incides with no relegation till 2012. Happy days, because it doesn't matter, even if we finished rock bottom, we would not go down. So unless Hood & Co become convinced they have the wrong man, the calls for Mac's head are never going to be answered. Why? Well, the hotheads just need to realise that a club is only going to sack the coach for no reason other than a change of scenery if it is in danger of serious consequences such as relegation. If that doesn't apply then why would they waste all that money?

There is no better coach available and affordable anyway.

Don't get me wrong - we can't afford performances like Wigan. It is stating the obvious that if that effort suddenly became the norm, then indeed the coach would go in short order. But thankfully we extremely rarely get such poor efforts. A handsome win soon would be sweet, but it wouldn't make us the champions, any more than that freak horror show makes us the dunces. The rality is we are and will by the end of the year still be in an early re-building phase, and we just have to get used to the idea.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:34 am  

All of which is fair enough and very well meaning. But the underlying assumption is that those in charge believe that McNamara is the best long term option and also that they are right

Where though is the line beyond which McNamara is no longer good enough? In the argument on this thread what would need to happen for there to be a regime change? What criteria for success as coach of Bradford Bulls should we be applying in the short, medium and long term?

There is a very good point made on a thread elsewhere about the Bradford legacy and coaches throughout SL brought up in the Bradford team of 10 years ago, that by implication they have not had the learning to succeed in the more modern game, that Steve McNamara (and others) are not good enough. And it is that that is my primary concern. I don't think that McNamara is the right man for the medium or long term. Simple. Short term is a point for discussion I suppose.

Apologies that this is a pretty prosaic post in the context of this thread and also that it doesn't offer a solution, but I do think that it is at the heart of the issue.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:21 am  

Had we won our first two games (which could quite easily of happened) would it still be this bad?

Yes, the Wigan game was a disaster, but it wasn't the first big defeat and it won't be the last we'll ever see.

Is Macca the right man - probably not, but as other posters have put, who else is there? The franchise system allows us to try and build a team - granted Macca doesn't seem to be doing a great job at the minute and has had a couple of seasons to do this.

But,

We have to admit that our time as challengers for trophies has gone, we're on the downer from the most successful period in the clubs history.

The sooner most fans realise that the salary cap is starting to work and that our club is not the standard bearer for the league the better.

We need the OSV to come off for investment in the club (and city) and a few more years for the kids to come through and be established in the first team. We all know this is an area the club has focused on but won't bear fruit immediately.

I'm afraid it's gong to be a long haul - the quicker you accept it - the better.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:51 am  

So the underlying thoughts in this thread are that:
1) accept that we are rebuilding.

Questions - Are we? What evidence is there for that? What have the club said? Are we blooding new youngsters this season then? Were we not rebuilding last season?

2) accept that we have no divine right to win every game.

I accept that. But we should still be competing in every game shouldn't we?

3) we might finish bottom, but that's ok this season as there is no relegation.

Is it really ok? We, as fans, would be happy with that would we? I'm not sure I would. Is that really all we can aim for this year?

4) accept that Macnamara has a master plan to get us through this and knows where we are going

Ok, it would be nice to know what it was though, and where we are going and when we are likely to get there.

5) accept there is noone else available as coach and no more players coming in.

No, sorry I don't accept that. We have not spent up to the salary cap, that has been widely mentioned, we missed out on Bird, so we have money. What are we going to do with it? Who are we signing?

I think the club should perhaps speak out a bit and let the fans know whats going on.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 9:20 am  

I understand the frustrations of many on here, but it is still too early to be thinking about sacking the coach.

It will be critical how the team responds in the next few games. Anymore like the Wigan game and I think McNamara could be out, but if the team can show marked improvement or even get into winning ways then he should be OK.

As I've said before, it is silly to sack coaches during the season unless things have hit rock bottom and show no sign of getting better. If McNamara was going to go he should have been sacked at the end of last season; as he wasn't he should see out his contract until the end of this season unless the Wigan result wasn't just a flash in the pan.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 9:26 am  

Trimalchio wrote:

I understand the frustrations of many on here, but it is still too early to be thinking about sacking the coach.

It will be critical how the team responds in the next few games. Anymore like the Wigan game and I think McNamara could be out, but if the team can show marked improvement or even get into winning ways then he should be OK.

As I've said before, it is silly to sack coaches during the season unless things have hit rock bottom and show no sign of getting better. If McNamara was going to go he should have been sacked at the end of last season; as he wasn't he should see out his contract until the end of this season unless the Wigan result wasn't just a flash in the pan.

Its come to something when it takes a Leeds fan to talk utter and complete sense on this forum!

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 9:33 am  

Regarding a god time to sack a coach:

The coach needs to go before any decisions are made regarding the following season. If they are thinking of letting him go, he should not be involved in any potential contract negotiations for playing or coaching staff.
This gives the incoming person a much freer hand in assembling his own side.

In my opinion, we should use the money we were going to spend on Bird to pay off McNamara, St Hillaire, Richards, and Clawson. If we need to pay them off that is!

Keep Medley in a caretaker/transition role, and let Morrison and Menzies do some coaching in the very short term.

We should do nothing until we have a signed contract with the next coach, as the whole coaching team, not just Mcnamara needs changing.

[Bullseye]

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 10:09 am  

As I've said on a few other threads it's no good firing the coach unless the alternative is a proven candidate who could do better. As I see it there aren't too many of those around, if any.

As many have said on this thread the only way the club's hand could be forced on this is if the shocking performance at Wigan became the norm. If that happened there's no option but to sack McNamara as performances like that jeopardise the whole future of the club.

It'd be a gamble to get rid but if crowds start plummeting to 7 or 8k due to poor performances they have no option but to take the gamble.