Apparently a member of the media put the question to Potter 'are the Bulls just a bit soft'. Potter angrily denied that his team are soft. What do RAB posters think?

Personally I wouldn't label anyone who enters a RL field 'soft' but I think the media man has a point in there somewhere. We have been beaten up in the pack in our first two home games. Will our injured forwards returning solve this problem?

The point is that other teams now regard us as soft. I'm sure its been commented on by the likes of Barry McDermott and Terry O'Connor on Sky, and when you look at other teams forums its a common perception that Bradford are now a bit of a soft touch.

In terms of what we've seen this season and last, its clear that most of the opposition teams can knock us out of our game with relative ease. There are exceptions, of course - the Huddersfield game last season was an (inexplicable) game when we totally beat up the opposition, but that was a rare (unique?) event, and most of the time we simply get battered by the other team in the forwards.

Will returning forwards help? Hard to say. The return of Elima will add a degree of bite to the pack, but lets not forget that he was playing in many of our abject performances last season. As for Manu, we simply don't know enough about him yet.

if and when Elima and Nas take the field, we're relying on them staying fit to keep the bite in the pack. We simply don't run hard enough into tackles at the moment.

I think they are absolutely soft. They have been for years at this club, the majority of players that are brought in are soft and the youngsters are soft. I mean, who the hell lets somebody slap then and just toddle back in the line like Whitehead did when Hock slapped him? He's always having a go at Whitehead, he needs to stand up and give him one back.

Indiividually they're not soft and it would be insulting to say they are. But we do have a physically small squad completely lacking in the sort of physique and mongrel we used to posses in abundanc. And it makes a massive difference.

The smallest team I've seen in the SL era was Cas in the year they were relegated (2004?). When we played them they tackled their socks off but couldnt stop us from offloading. I think we won about 60-0

I saw that i would have thought the team would have got involved, see him in wigan all the time struts about like he owns the place.

We need abit of unity any other team would have run in to defend each other

Totally soft. We let other teams get away with everything. I am not condoning foul play, but it would be nice if for once we stood up to the opposition's "bullies" and gave them one back.

But then symptomatic of the whole club really with lots from board down to fans happy to accept humiliating defeats as long as they tried a bit. The players obviously feel the same, not worth getting stuck in, as it doesn't really matter.

No player should take anything illegal like that from another. Does anyone think there was a player on the Manly side who Rob Burrow would not have belted back? Hardly ever does any player take a one on one beating from another player. Everyone rushes in after a couple of seconds. Psychologically you should never take a back ward step. Jamie Peacock is the most unlikely scrapper you would come across, but especially when he is up aginast Aussies he doesn't allow anything, because he knows as captain or pack leader he has to set that example.

They are.

Wish we had a Bailey type in our pack.

Elima will help, but he can't do it on his own.

When was the last time we saw a scrap (on the field) at Odsal? When we were successful it would happen every five games or so.

Maybe an indicator of the type of player we now have?

They are soft. I'm an old man with one lung and I'd be confident of running over Nick Scruton or Bryn Hargreaves.

Fine. If the Bulls players are not soft then that just leaves option 2. They're lazy

I wouldn't call any RL player soft, but your lads do seem to be playing with a lack of fire in their bellies; having watched Potter's post-match interview, I can only suggest that if he speaks to the players at half-time the way he speaks to journo's, they'd be virtually catatonic from boredom - he is the opposite of a motivational speaker!

Anywho, looking forward to your visit on Saturday and hopefully, more of the same; I worry that we might catch you on the bounce-back from a pretty emphatic defeat but at this stage, I'm predicting a Wakey side fresh from a week off to nick the win in a close game.

Depends what you mean by soft. There's no doubting the individual bravery of the players in terms of putting their bodies on the line for a loose ball or a high bomb however collectively there's obviously a problem somewhere. It does seem that when we go more than a few scores behind the side seems to give up. They stop playing as a team and seem resigned to losing, often before the game's a foregone conclusion. There's little belief once you scratch the surface, sure we put in the occasional gritty performance (like at Cas) but it's sandwiched between two half hearted performances.

We used to get tagged as a bit of a soft touch pre Maguire and Wane but with pretty much the same group of players were now known as one of the most aggressive and toughest teams around.

It's up to the coach at the end of the day to instilled that fighting spirit in them. The players need to know that the rest of the 17 have their back should it get niggly. They instilled that in to this Wigan side and turned some players entire reputations around. A prime example was Andy Coley who under Noble looked timid at times and played at half pace. When Maguire came in his whole body language changed and he became a big, aggressive leader who would look after his teamates and back down from nobody.

Potter possibly didn't like the question because it's something he knows he should be fixing but is struggling to do so!

Perhaps Potter needs a hard man as assistant to kick ass. Something tells me Cummins isn't that person.

None of the current coaching staff appear to be able to inspire the players even be consistently average, let alone anything else. That includes all of them.

I think saying the team is soft might be a bit harsh but maybe it's the lack of an enforcer on the pitch that's the issue? As a team we were always known for our big pack (at times overlooking the fact that our backs were quite handy as well) but we also had big personalities in the pack who wouldn't give an inch... the sort of player who the younger players could look up to.

Do we have that sort of player at the moment? Someone who can inspire the team with a powerful burst or a big hit? Someone who can get the fans roaring for blood?

And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is the case for the prosecution.

In fact, its the best pithy summary I've seen.

It correctly identifies the plain fact that, while is some games, the team very clearly shows aggression, steely determination and intent for 40 minutes, (nay, on occasion even the full 80!) they simply cannot do so CONSISTENTLY.

Are the players capable of being inspired? (Whether by the coaching staff, or something else) - obviously yes. Those occasional great performances are irrefutable evidence.

Is our coaching team able to inspire these performances? Seemingly no, since we have had such a catalogue of humiliations for such a prolonged period, that it would be hubris of whale-sized proportion for any one of them to claim "Yes, I can consistently inspire my players to be at or near their best". As well as obviously just plain rubbish.

Could Potter turn our fortunes around with a complete turnaround of the other coaching staff? For example, bringing in a Karl Harrison figure as No. 2 with special responsibility for defensive coaching? I wouldn't rule it out.

Was the secret of Potter's success at Catalans and to a lesser extent Saints maybe due to the fact he had people in post to do those parts of the job he can't? Maybe. Brian Clough was I think as good a manager as football has ever seen - but he was lost (or at the very least, much diminished) without Peter Taylor.

As I don't think paying Mr Potter off at this early stage is a wise use of money, maybe the next thing to try is a shakeup of the other coaches, and try to recreate the mix of abilities that Potter could rely on when successful at his earlier clubs?

It is not to accuse any individual player of being "soft" to say we are soft as a team. Of course they are all hard men, you couldn't get to the top echelon of SL not being a hard man, but in context we are soft, we ARE seen as a soft touch, teams like Wigan and their fans EXPECT to roll us over, and this is just fact, that we all know. And the players know it too, and too often play like they don't even want to make a secret of it.

If we weren't comparatively a soft touch, we wouldn't keep getting fifty put past us, would we?

Defintely soft. I've said it for a bout a year, we just get bullied off the park. We have no aggression. Someone should have belted Hock. Luckily we had Ganson to tell him to stop bullying us. It's pathetic.

But it's mainly down to Potter. If we had Noble back i gurantee Hock would have been belted on Sunday. Either that or he wouldn't have daren't do anything. Yes Noble had Vagana, Fielden, Gartner Peacock etc, but they won't a dirty or a pariculary agressive team. Noble just made sure that other teams wouldn't mess with us. I would hate to be a half back now for the Bulls as if i got taken out, not one of our so called forward would come in and get hold of the player. They'd just stand and watch. If we do anything remotely illegal to Tomkins, Wigan have about 4 or 5 players coming inprotecting him. This is why they are such a good team.

We were playing the challenege cup holders at home in round 3 of the season. If you can't get a bit of fire in your belly for that then don't play rugby league. I'm fed up of only seeing any fight or aggression from the forwards against Leeds. Although having said that Paul Mcshane who is about 2 ft, pushed all our forwards around last year with only Elima standing up.

Pathetic.

Too many SL teams seem to be mentally soft - i.e. they give up the ghost way too easily when they go behind. Its awful watching your side do it - as a number of Leeds sides in the past have. You'd concede a try, visibly see the team wilt and like as not let in another try moments later. IMO it does start with the coach, but too many players seem to lack basic pride in their performance.

Players are too used to only having to be mediocre in order to get a career in SL. Those that are really committed stand out a mile (Peacock, Sinfield etc), neither was blessed with great natural talent yet they achieved loads through dedication. I can think of many others with all the physical attributes but non of the desire and it frustrates the hell out me.

OK Mick, they're not soft. They're as hard of a team as ever walked the earth. So what would you say the problem is, then, though? Why do we keep conceding cricket scores given that we aren't a soft team to play against?

Too many sleepy Sunday games and ''we'll be ok if we get into the top 8 mentality''.

Never agreed with the Grand Final system TBH.

I think the competition is a good idea but the pinnacle should be to win the league IMO.

I just watched the highlights and Wigan looked quite impressive - lots of off the ball movement, dummy runners etc causing havoc. Having said that, it seemed to me that Bradford's defensive line was altogether in disarray at times.

I could be wrong (I've only watched the highlights) but it looked as though they were trying to compress in the middle and slide out wide at the same time, and got caught in no-man's land with the defence stretched out of shape far too easily (also leading to what look like badly missed tackles on the inside as players are desperately moving to cover out wide).

If you compress up the middle you simply have to stop the offload and control the PTB. Otherwise you'll be easily done for numbers. If you're failing to control the PTB you're better off giving up trying to compress at all IMO.

Somebody mentioned Peacock/Sinfield. It seems to me that Bradford really need a couple of players to take responsibility for organising the defence in the way those sorts of players do - including conceding penalties if required to slow everything down/give your side a breather.

I don't think the Bulls are soft, but they could and should do a lot better in defence than that showing.