: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:37 pm  

Adeybull wrote:

...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...

One of our regulars who posts regularly again now in another place wrote:

...Wakefield...have shown us that you don't need a team of superstars, or even anything like a full first team out on the park, to perform well and above expectations..

Oi! You might at least have given me the by-line...!

Sorry...back to the thread now...

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:38 pm  

Over the last 16 years I have watched Bradford far more than any other club, usually as an impartial observer. I've been to most cup finals/GFs they've been in & fervently got behind them. I met MacN afew times while he was playing & he stood out from your average player. I say these things to try & show I am contributing fairly (despite my obsession with your lack of a scrum half, or the one currently in possession).
A few points from the above posts;
What happened on saturday was different to anything I have witnessed in my time watching. There was lack of/no heart or spirit. This indicates something drastically wrong in my book, usually the coach losing the dressing room. You need a performance this weekend to match the one against Leeds last season when you gave everything with a severely weakened team, to show me I'm wrong. I think possibly part of the problem is the p/ss poor support team MacN has at his disposal (but he chose 'em). I would MacN 2 more games like that, unless effort is shown he should be out.
Bulls are unlucky. Rubbish. 95% of SL/NL teams would swap with you. Unlucky is Wakefield with 10 players out, teams surviving on crowds of a few hundred having their stand burned down, Wire having Reardon, Johnson, Bridge etc almost permanently injured.
Bulls are rebuilding. It's easy to say but this should be an ongoing process, but it should. Since HP left your backs have struggled. How long do you want? A part from Deacon every one of your backs has been signed.
Bulls don't have a sugar daddy. Most clubs don't. get over it.
There are no proven coaches available. None in this country, possibly. No-one on here really knows, there would be plenty of unproven overseas candidates with top pedigrees as players &/or assistants desperate for a chance though.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:47 pm  

IMO
If the players still respect Steve McNamara
If the players don't have some other reason to be against the club (rumours anyone?)
If the OSV is a realistic possibility
If the players can haul themselves out of the pit of despair despite the booing of a lot of the Bradford section on Saturday
If the next generation of first team players are really going to deliver on their potential
If the club can stay afloat financially despite the obviously shaky state of some sponsors and reduced crowds
and If at least some of us can keep going to games and cheering the lads on rather than sitting at home and firing the coach every week...

...Then
I don't think we really have anything to worry about.
I can't answer all these questions and neither can anyone who posts on here.
Saturday was an awful awful game, it's not the first time we've played like that and I'm sure it won't be the last. Can we improve 100% this weekend? I sure hope so.

One thing is certain though, clubs who sack the coaching team three games into the season seldom benefit.

[Bullseye]

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:48 pm  

tigertot wrote:

Bulls are rebuilding. It's easy to say but this should be an ongoing process, but it should.

You're right but this was neglected rather between 03 and 07. Young player development was neglected and proven home gown products allowed to leave when they could've been persuaded to stay e.g Peacock.

tigertot wrote:

Since HP left your backs have struggled.

HP left in 2001 you know, after that we won 2 GFs, 1 CC and 3 WCCs without him. While he was gone Hape and Vainikolo formed one of the best centre, wing partnerships seen in SL with Les topping the try scoring charts. If that's struggling then I'd like to see what success was.

Perhaps it's fairer to say that since Hape, Vainikolo, Pryce and Withers left and weren't replaced with players of similar quality the backs have struggled.

tigertot wrote:

Bulls don't have a sugar daddy. Most clubs don't. get over it.

I can think of six SL clubs that do. Most successful clubs do have wealthy backers. If we didn't have the financial millstone of Odsal it'd be easier to get over it but the club have that as a handicap too.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:51 pm  

Bullseye wrote:

HP left in 2001 you know, after that we won 2 GFs, 1 CC and 3 WCCs without him.

Apart from those, what have you won? Exactly. Was it really 2001? oops.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:52 pm  

Bullseye wrote:

...

HP left in 2001 you know, after that we won 2 GFs, 1 CC and 3 WCCs without him. While he was gone Hape and Vainikolo formed one of the best centre, wing partnerships seen in SL with Les topping the try scoring charts. If that's struggling then I'd like to see what success was.
...

TBF I think when he referred to "HP", tigertot meant Hiestyn Paris.

It's the Waggle Dance, prolonged and ample consumption of which means he's slurring his words, that's all.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:53 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

TBF I think when he referred to "HP", tigertot meant Hiestyn Paris.

Nobody would want one night in that Paris!

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:55 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

TBF I think when he referred to "HP", tigertot meant Hiestyn Paris.

It's the Waggle Dance, prolonged and ample consumption of which means he's slurring his words, that's all.

It could be my other obsession with the talentless, Hilton Paris. So you were close.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:04 pm  

Cullen's gone to Widnes, so he's out of the reckoning.

: Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:05 pm  

tigertot wrote:

...Wire having Reardon, Johnson, Bridge etc almost permanently injured...

Thats not just unlucky though, is it? We let Johnson go precisely because of his being injury-prone, and Bridge for well-documented (if unconfirmed) reasons which his being dubbed "sick note" at Wire did little to dispel. OK, no such information on Reardon, and his taking his bat home with Bulls is not relevant in this argument.

I'd say though that situation reflects more on the Bulls making decsions re some players at least which with hindsight appear better than they may have done at the time? Given we got a few wrong too, at least that helps even things up a bit?

As for the general "unlucky" thread...I'm sure folk could list on here a shedload of examples. Give Mick a page or two on Ganson and the Clown alone... I personally think we have had a bad run of things that have been outside the team (or the club's) control - and I'm NOT talking about injuries, since our bad luck there is part and parcel of the game. But, as I said somewhere else, we have to play the cards we have been dealt. Life's a bitch, and we have to live with it.

tigertot wrote:

Bulls don't have a sugar daddy. Most clubs don't. get over it.

Wigan, Warrington, Saints, Huddersfield, Salford, Leeds (to a point - he's there if needed), Hull KR (to a point, IIRC?) all do. I suspect Cats, Quins and Celtic won't be allowed to struggle financially by the RFL - and if so, probably rightly IMO. Not sure of the "sugar daddy" or otherwise status of Celtic or Quins (now). My latest understanding is that Hull FC(other than the good fortune of the stadium), Cas (good luck to them - does any Bulls fan not like Cas?) and Wakey are the other clubs without a wealthy backer. From my recollection, anyway.

If your "most clubs..." observation was aimed at all pro RL clubs then dead right; if aimed at SL-level clubs, then I suggest rather less so?