Re: Bulls v Fax - Post match : Sun Sep 27, 2015 9:44 am  

woolly07 wrote:

You have missed the point though.
Everyone says they should have rested our best 17 apart from just a few that needed game time such as Gaskell, Seijka and Lauaki etc.

What people are fed up with is the total lack of interest and enthusiasm. Please work out how much it costs for a bloke to take his wife and two kids to a game. That is why I am sick and tired of this attitude of "it didn't really matter". It bloody well does matter that they try at every game!

Clearly, my problem is that I have watched the Northern / Bulls for 40 years and this was still a local derby against the Fax. I had still paid good money to get into the stadium. I expected a game for goodness sake.

Is this what we can expect. Pay top money for 28 games a season but the club and players will decide which handful of games they will try hard in. If that is the case then don't buy a ST and just pay at the gate on 3-4 games.

Green is a businessman. He must understand what I am getting at when I talk about wanting VFM or we don't come back again. If he does, he must have some concerns about his coach, players and Ferres. People will only pay for rubbish for so long.

It was the last game of the Season, before your home crowd and we were expecting a good performance. How can you expect a supporter who went to that game for the first time to feel. Would he /she think about going again... I think not! It is not just about winning it is about the playing of the game, and entertaining your audience.

Re: Bulls v Fax - Post match : Sun Sep 27, 2015 9:51 am  

rugbyreddog wrote:

I haven't missed the point. I agree with you entirely. Most of the season we have been short changed by the team who have turned in a lot of substandard performances. The attitude of all at Odsal has been that as long as we get promoted the fans will accept anything - and I suppose they are right to a certain extent. With this in mind I was saying that we could not go into the club's most vital match in it's history on the back of playing our full strength team and getting beat by Halifax. Too many on this board are under the impression that if we play out top strength team everything will be alright. Unfortunately this is not what I believe. If Wakey are off their game and we play our best we have a chance. But that's all. We beat Salford which probably said more about them than us. We beat Leigh who have struggled in the qualifiers and face finishing 7th. We beat Sheffield. Every other team has put 50 on us.
Now, should we fail to get promoted, how do you sell season tickets or charge exorbitant admission prices next year? This years prices were qualified by the reasoning that if we want to get back into SL we have to pay for it.

As your posts often demonstrate you're clearly a glass half empty person. But what the club actually sold was, if you want a side capable of competing for a return to SL then you have to pay for it. We're in the £1M game which getting back into the real world was the most likely route for a return to SL. So you could argue that the club and the coaching staff have delivered what most fans would ask as a minimum of the 'exorbitant prices' to fund the squad spend.

The selling of season tickets next year could be tricky because I still think too many of our supporters saw this season as a one off before we return to SL. Personally I always thought it a tough ask but I am confident that this side can beat Wakefield next week if they perform like they can. Yesterday wasn't pretty and whilst not acceptable I can understand why a performance like that happened. Some of the players in that shirt won't be here next year and a few probably knew they weren't going to get a look in next week either. You'd hope they'd have a little more professional pride but as Jimmy has said it makes his job a little easier now for next week.

[Bulliac]

Re: Halifax Game is now SATURDAY : Sun Sep 27, 2015 10:00 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

As I said, dead rubber, irrelevant to anything. I will only say all season many been on Lowes back for not playing some of these. The bonus for you is you can now slate him for playing them. This debacle and especially the players who gave up in the second half can continue their rest next week. From their point of view I am surprised though. How can you get a chance, yet pack the game in as if it was all beneath you? It was a dead rubber for Fax too, but they played with precisely the opposite mindset. Another 50, at home, against part-timers. They won't even dare ask to be selected.

I think you alluded to the real problem we had yesterday in the second sentence, about Lowesy not playing these lads all season. He should have played them more through the season imo, one or two at a time, both to give the 'regular' starters both a break and a bit of recovery time and, of course, to give these 'reserves' some game time. If he'd done that, instead of, after spending most of the season sitting on their backsides, just slinging them all in, en masse, they would have been nearer to being properly match fit and have played a bit better,and looked a little bit more like a.....well, like a team, so yeah, I guess I'm taking my bonus!!

At the end of the day though, Jimmy was tasked with bringing the side into the final play-off and he's done that - job done.

Re: Bulls v Fax - Post match : Sun Sep 27, 2015 10:08 am  

Rarebreed wrote:

It was the last game of the Season, before your home crowd and we were expecting a good performance. How can you expect a supporter who went to that game for the first time to feel. Would he /she think about going again... I think not! It is not just about winning it is about the playing of the game, and entertaining your audience.

I am beginning to believe that half the people on here are either totally bonkers or else trolling.

Look, as a general point all the stuff about VFM, entertainment etc. is valid and yes you could rightly have a whinge at those on the field in the second half who badly let us and themselves down, but that was NOT the fault of Green and it was NOT the fault of Lowes.

Regardless of whether it had been , I find it mind-boggling that here we are on the eve of arguably THE MOST CRITICAL GAME in the history of the club, yet some people are whingeing about a poor performance in 40 minutes of a dead rubber. Several players let us and themselves down, yes we all saw that, it happens and it needs no underlining as we're not blind, but in th circumstances how many flying foulkes do i give? Not many, tbh.

What I am most looking for is for the team against Wakey to play with the determination, energy and resolve that they did against Salford and at Leigh. Then maybe, just maybe, if things go our way ... and even if it doesn't happen, if they do that, then I will go home happy enough. Either way, the dead rubber before the big game was, to anyone who thinks about it, just an unwanted meaningless fixture that we had to fulfil before getting down to very serious business. As it happens they played crap in the second half but just cos they did - Lowes didn't plan or want it that way. But... SO WHAT? Yes he needs at some stage to consider and deal with those who badly underperformed but he has bigger, whale-size, fish to fry just now.

Did you go to the game oblivious to what is coming up? Sounds like it.

Re: Halifax Game is now SATURDAY : Sun Sep 27, 2015 10:18 am  

Bulliac wrote:

I think you alluded to the real problem we had yesterday in the second sentence, about Lowesy not playing these lads all season. He should have played them more through the season imo, one or two at a time, both to give the 'regular' starters both a break and a bit of recovery time and, of course, to give these 'reserves' some game time. If he'd done that, instead of, after spending most of the season sitting on their backsides, just slinging them all in, en masse, they would have been nearer to being properly match fit and have played a bit better,and looked a little bit more like a.....well, like a team, ..

I am not having that. The issue in the second half was nothing to do with fitness. It was about the team not being interested. They gave up. You can't even say that was due to several stiffs being in as our normal team has done the same several times, once we get behind, with us there is a risk we will put the cue on the rack, this is why we continue to get regular 50 point towellings.

Surely you'd agree that the reserves are all full-time professionals and so should have full fitness, plenty fit enough to match part-timers? And that as they were getting a rare chance, you could reasonably expect them to - if anything - play harder and with more determination than the regulars, to try to force themselves into contention for the big one?

No, they gave up. Simple as.

Bulliac wrote:

At the end of the day though, Jimmy was tasked with bringing the side into the final play-off and he's done that - job done.

Exactly. He knows what he has to work with, and we are in that game. Paul Rowley and his lionized Leigh wonders, who have been playing as a squad for some years now, have gone to pieces in the playoffs and are not. We knocked them out. On their own patch.

Re: Bulls v Fax - Post match : Sun Sep 27, 2015 10:25 am  

[quote="Ferocious Aardvark"]I am beginning to believe that half the people on here are either totally bonkers or else trolling.

Look, as a general point all the stuff about VFM, entertainment etc. is valid and yes you could rightly have a whinge at those on the field in the second half who badly let us and themselves down, but that was NOT the fault of Green and it was NOT the fault of Lowes.

Regardless of whether it had been , I find it mind-boggling that here we are on the eve of arguably THE MOST CRITICAL GAME in the history of the club, yet some people are whingeing about a poor performance in 40 minutes of a dead rubber. Several players let us and themselves down, yes we all saw that, it happens and it needs no underlining as we're not blind, but in th circumstances how many flying foulkes do i give? Not many, tbh.

What I am most looking for is for the team against Wakey to play with the determination, energy and resolve that they did against Salford and at Leigh. Then maybe, just maybe, if things go our way ... and even if it doesn't happen, if they do that, then I will go home happy enough. Either way, the dead rubber before the big game was, to anyone who thinks about it, just an unwanted meaningless fixture that we had to fulfil before getting down to very serious business. As it happens they played crap in the second half but just cos they did - Lowes didn't plan or want it that way. But... SO WHAT? Yes he needs at some stage to consider and deal with those who badly underperformed but he has bigger, whale-size, fish to fry just now.

Did you go to the game oblivious to what is coming up? Sounds like it.[

No one apportioned blame, it has to be value for money whether it is a meaningless game or not. Perhaps we can be informed which games we should attend. You have much knowledge of the game we realise, but the rank and file of our supporters have a very different view on how they spend their hard earned cash. Also, if we are lucky enough to progress into SL will this attitude still prevail. p.s. Will the many thousands of TV viewers be so understanding as you expect our supporters to be.

Re: Bulls v Fax - Post match : Sun Sep 27, 2015 10:38 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

I am beginning to believe that half the people on here are either totally bonkers or else trolling.

Look, as a general point all the stuff about VFM, entertainment etc. is valid and yes you could rightly have a whinge at those on the field in the second half who badly let us and themselves down, but that was NOT the fault of Green and it was NOT the fault of Lowes.

Regardless of whether it had been , I find it mind-boggling that here we are on the eve of arguably THE MOST CRITICAL GAME in the history of the club, yet some people are whingeing about a poor performance in 40 minutes of a dead rubber. Several players let us and themselves down, yes we all saw that, it happens and it needs no underlining as we're not blind, but in th circumstances how many flying foulkes do i give? Not many, tbh.

What I am most looking for is for the team against Wakey to play with the determination, energy and resolve that they did against Salford and at Leigh. Then maybe, just maybe, if things go our way ... and even if it doesn't happen, if they do that, then I will go home happy enough. Either way, the dead rubber before the big game was, to anyone who thinks about it, just an unwanted meaningless fixture that we had to fulfil before getting down to very serious business. As it happens they played crap in the second half but just cos they did - Lowes didn't plan or want it that way. But... SO WHAT? Yes he needs at some stage to consider and deal with those who badly underperformed but he has bigger, whale-size, fish to fry just now.

Did you go to the game oblivious to what is coming up? Sounds like it.

I made the point at the game was it felt a lot like the regular season game week before the cup final. The players who knew they would make the team next week didn't want to get injured and the replacements just underperformed in a game they had a chance to put themselves in the frame for next week.

Re: Bulls v Fax - Post match : Sun Sep 27, 2015 11:37 am  

Disappointed to lose in the manner we did, but it was a game that didn't matter. Lowes made the right call in resting half the team. If we had have beaten Fax and O'brien or Mullaney or Sidlow or whoever got injured, the forum would be in melt down of why we played our key men in a meaningless game when we have our most important fixture in the clubs history next week. If we win next week then no one will care about today.

4th was never realsitic as Fax are a damn good side and haven't been hammered once in the middle 8's. That said some of our players should never wear the shirt again for the effort they put in.

For me we've got through this week looking like we will be able to select our strongest squad for next week. That's a good thing!!

But Lauaki should be nowhere near the squad next week!!

Re: Bulls v Fax - Post match : Sun Sep 27, 2015 12:02 pm  

I think it would be fair to say that Fax are probably the team that has come out of the middle 8's with the most credit and barring a last 5 minute slip up against Sheffield would likely be the team from the champs in the middle 8. Its all speculation though and we might not of beat Bulls first team(I think we probably would tbh) so its hard to say but one thing that looked evident was that for whatever reason the Bulls were devoid of fight and its ok saying this and that but as a squad you would think the players would be pretty tight and pulling for each other and if that is not the case then theres a very good chance that runs right through the squad and not just in the players going through the motions yesterday.

As a Fax fan who does not mind Bradford Im not going to be wishing you luck next week because the Bradford crowd is a good money spinner and we wouldnt get that with Wakey, I also think we will probably bridge the gap between Bradford and Leigh next season so it could be a good battle with more at stake than the games this season.

Re: Bulls v Fax - Post match : Sun Sep 27, 2015 2:18 pm  

Agree with most of what FA has already pointed out.

I wasn't as excited as the usual game day yesterday as it was meaningless. My main concern was that the ones who will have a role to play next week (Mainly Clough, Clare, Pitts & Ryan) didn't get injured.

Henry,Baille,Halafihi etc have hardly played in months. Won't have been going into this one full of confidence.

The 2nd half was very poor but for me I didn't want to see Pitts, Clough and Gaskell especially flying into challenges.

We also had none of our leaders on the pitch - Addy,Purtell,Obrien, Sidlow will all make a difference.

Nielsen instead of Henry Is a big one too - Henry should have had time to work on his tackling by now!