No, he has to get to the MPG. Unless by some minor miracle we end up in it playing against another side in total disarray, then we all now know we have no chance of winning it. So you can't sack a coach for that. And anyway, they didn't sack him this year, when we could and should have won it, so why would they next year if we get easily controlled by a superior quality SL team?

Having thought a lot about the permutations this year, I'm convinced that the best chance of promotion from this division isn't the MPG, it is somehow making the 3rd spot. It's not a lot easier than the MPG but if the combination of fixtures and critically other results goes our way, there would be a way to sneak in via the 3rd place door. Essentially what you need is one of the SL teams to have a mare throughout the playoffs.

It makes you wonder why we didn't turn up against Wakefield in the first meeting in the Middle 8s. Would that have given us third place if we'd also bothered to try against Halifax and beat all Championship opposition plus two SL teams?

Our best chance of rising is maybe that one of the SL clubs goes through the same kind of financial problems which laid us low. I wouldn't wish that on any club though, but it must remain a medium [at least possibility, the way things are and maybe even a bigger possibility if the clubs start overreaching themselves with their 'marquee' signings.

I fully expect the coaching situation will be decided well before we get to the play off's in August.
If you were in charge would you leave such a big decision to a few games in September?
I would decide after Easter if Jimmy is the man for a third season. If so, then give him an extension. If not - which I suspect most fans will now say is their preferred option - then start looking in May or around then so the new man can start planning.

I will say now that I expect to hear calls for Brian Smith to be offered the job when Jimmy completes his contract. I will be very surprised to see Jimmy offered a new contract early in the season. If he isn't, then Green is waiting to see how they go but he can't wait too long. Jimmy needs to know early or the new man does or we are playing catch up for a third year.

Imagine this situation. In June we offer Smith a job for 2017 and he accepts. Wakey then end up in the play off's again. What will their chairman do as his coach will be coaching against his new club in vital games. Would Smith really want to stop the Bulls getting promotion as it would hurt his chances of SL. It would be hilarious reading the posts on the Wakey site questioning Smiths loyalty. This is just a thought - but a possibility!

Not quite sure how you accommodate your ethos under a different salary cap..Quality costs money usually at the cost of quantity.

different levels of player dependent on the playing level of the club. Finances would mirror that.

We operate on sound business principles whereby the owner will invest more on the basis that the investment pays for itself. In SL, the salary costs and player ability would rise, as would the income, via crowds, TV money and competition disbursements. The club hasn't always done so but nowadays operates in a cloth cutting and businesslike manner.

Still not sure how you fit that in under the current cap.Your saying possibly 10-15 fringe players to cover injuries or rotate.That will get you to the 8's again but then what?

to something like 30. This isn't just about cap but finances in general - remember, unless things have changed, it's only the top 25 who count under the cap anyway, so ten our last years' squad wouldn't have counted, though they would have to be paid, of course so it impacts on club's bottom line.

As for the eights, with clubs on different levels of cap it's many miles from a fair competition, which is exactly what the RFL always wanted imo.

The RFL must surely be sweating a bit now on the Bulls situation though. I mean, it worked out kinda OK for one season in the Championship - we spiced that up, it restored a feelgood factor and we made the MPG and thus the Super 8 format, an arguable success. But the RFL now know what's wrong with the Super 8s format, and that in reality it is not a genuine chance of promotion barring accidents. And they will be watching very warily what happens at Bradford as they can't afford to have a properly run Bulls out of SL for long, because there is no long-term or even medium-term future for the Bulls as we know them in the Championship.

I think you're over emphasising our importance to the game. Yes, it would probably be better for SL if we'd replaced Wakefield. It certainly wouldn't have harmed the average crowd numbers. But I really believe that the RFL already KNOWS that the current format is not genuine promotion and relegation as the format is designed to ensure the status quo, while giving the illusion of P&R

It wouldn't matter if we were posting 20k crowds, we have no God-given right to be in Super League. We may consider ourselves a loss to the competition but I'm not sure there are many who really miss us from the top flight. New rivalries emerge or are renewed such as Leeds v Castleford now being the big derby game for those two clubs. Ten years since we won owt, memories fade and the competition moves on.

I think this 'illusion of P & R' argument only holds water if we'd demonstrated that with 3x the salary spend of most other clubs and a bedrock of SL and NRL experience, we were the exceptional team in the Championship. Had we done so and then put up gallant efforts in defeat to SL clubs and narrowly failed in MPG then I think you could make this claim.

In fact we didn't. We were lamentably inconsistent, interspersing 8 or 9 good efforts with performances which ranged between uninspiring and pathetic. And yet, remarkably we came within a score and 5 minutes of getting promoted. Leigh, Bradford and Sheffield all beat SL teams during the season. If anything the evidence suggests not only was promotion possible but that we were pushing on an open door and still failed. Neither position instils an ounce of optimism for 2016.

I agree with others who say Wakefield cannot possibly be as bad again but then that depends on their finances and just what hole Smith made in next year's budget to keep 17 on the field and what season tickets they sell.

Whilst I'm fully on board with the "Illusion of P&R" argument, I do agree that what happens at the end of next year may depend, to some extent, on what budget Wakefield will be running with. As you say it may be blown by the cost their 'new team' they brought in at the back end of the last season and they remain well below the normal standard associated with top level clubs, and the obvious target of any club attempting to go into SL. They do retain the advantage of playing at a higher level for the full season though, and this is a big advantage which shouldn't be underestimated.

There's a higher central funding budget for SL clubs this year. I think for the first time ever the salary cap going out (up to £1.8m) and the sky money coming in (£1.8m) match. So central funding can now completely cover maximum playing staff budget. Tickets, merchandise, sponsorship just needs to cover everything else.

Hardly. You are joking, right? The Bulls were, and remain, the ONLY club capable of generating the tidal wave that was Bullmania. There is no replacement club who could even dream of attracting 20,000+ crowds for fixtures against Leeds, or averaging 15k home crowds. So far as potential, for crowds, marketing, etc goes, we are unique, and of the Championship clubs, there is none who are within coo-ee. Can you imagine, for example, if Sheffield had been promoted?

How can our potential be over-emphasized? Especially in a league that really has no more than a couple of other clubs of real substance (as we once were) and NONE who can aspire to anything approaching.

And that is before you take into account that we rent our ground from the RFL. If we go down the pan completely,then it will cost them (and ironically all the clubs that stole from us) plenty.

When was the last time we pulled in those sorts of figures?

The Bulls have been in terminal decline for the best part of 10 years. The fact that we've managed to bottom out is no indication that we'll get back the previous level of success any time soon. The positives are that we have the core of a young team who could do great things over the next 5/6 years as well as a chairman/owner who's at least got business sense to get the off-field stuff into better shape and at least try to be honest with the fans.

The negatives, the team is still missing an actually on field leader to take up the captaincy and direct the team forward and is being coached by a man who, when the chips are down, throws a tantrum.

Yes, there's potential there for the club to grow back to where it was. But you could say that about half a dozen other clubs. Bradford is not as important as you'd like to wish

But as a club that has bottomed out we are drawing more in the Championship than Wakefield and Salford are in SL. I would also think we are now more financially stable than both of those. Having said that, however lopsided the field, P&R was decided on the actual pitch which is as it should be.

2011 (19k+) and 2012 (20k+).

2012 was a particular type of "let's get everyone out and try save the club" occasion. 2011 wasn't.

When Huddersfield finished top in 2013 the only equivalent home fixture where we didn't pull more speccies than them was Wigan. Heads were well and truly down by then and it was one of our worst seasons in terms of the narrative of the club, and few at that time thought we could sink lower. We out drew them in many fixtures last year, and have had larger crowds then them on a couple of occasions this year.

Weren't those also the years of £60 season tickets? Those of us who were on the terraces fully remember the announcements of 10k + crowds when if you actually counted bodies in the stadium, it would have been a lot less. Which is why that cheap season ticket idea failed, the club clearly thought that all those people would turn up every week and spend the money they saved on cheap tickets on things like shirts, food and drink. But as the actual crowds remained at low levels, that extra income never materialised.

It is stupid to say we have been in terminal decline, given the worst we have been is runners up in Championship with the best crowds in the division. There are a lot of teams who would like to be equally terminally declined. Our undisputed decline has, if anything only served to underline the potential, given the crowds - paying full SL whack with no discounts - that we have been able to maintain in 2015.


Which clubs? Name them! No club, ever, has been where we were in SL so good luck with that.


What are you on about? I am not "wishing" in any shape or form. It's nothing to do with what I wish". I am making observations as I see it, and they seem pretty much factual to me. Given the money a successful Bulls is worth to the game, I'd say that our health is probably THE most important issue for the RFL today. The halcyon days of 20K crowds and Bullmania in front of the adoring Sky cameras are something I suspect the RFL would like back. But, I suppose I could be wrong. Maybe Wakefield will suit them just as well.

They were. I'm well aware of the story, "those of us who were on the terraces" includes me. But these are the Leeds games we're talking about. They really were big crowds. The only ST holders who weren't there were the ones desperate to reserve their spot for the Wakefield and Salford teams of those years whilst preferring to eschew the Leeds game.

Smallest listed attendance in 2011 was 12k, so assume that's roughly how many ST holders there were. The difference between that figure and the announced attendance is roughly the same as last year's SL average crowd. It would be easy to say they were all Leeds fans too, but they don't go to the similarly distant Huddersfield to see a better game in those numbers.

By all means explain it away, but there really aren't many teams capable of doing that. Crowds are massively down, crowds can be massively up when the situation demands it. Both sides of this story are correct, it is one side saying the other is nonsense that I have issue with.

You can't live in the past!
It is depressing seeing where we are at, at present.

We need investment to get out of this hole.

You would have thought we may have had maybe a quality signing by now to try and push the season ticket sales along.

We need a scrum half, a couple of bad ass props and possibly a strong 2nd hooker to get near promotion next year.

It makes me sick using Leigh as an example but stupid Derek is putting his money where his mouth is with regards to 2016.

We can have the good times back and make a big return on investment but the capital has to be put in, in the first place.

Leigh are playing a very dangerous game with their current model, so I wouldn't use them as a viable comparison.
Not running a reserves side and hinging your promotional hopes on players you might not even be able to fit under the cap are not exactly the sort of decisions I would want my club to be making.

People tend to forget we've already signed another half for next year in Thomas. All articles re him have named him as a half despite his best position seeming to be fullback. I think we'll struggle to find a scrum half who's a genuine improvement on the players already at the club and who we can accommodate under the cap. I feel we can take it as a given that there wont be rush for anyone to take sjelka of our hands. Think we'll see a couple of props coming in (Clarke from Donny seems likely and maybe matt ryan as a prop/2nd row if we can free a quota spot). Cant really see another hooker inbound given we released Conroy. Suspect Halafihi will get more gametime off the bench next year, albeit it was bizarre he didn't get the bench spot in MPG ahead of Baille.

I wonder if we fail to find a scrum half if we'll look at a) slimming Addy down in off season to play there or b) move Mullaney there permanently with Thomas/Clare taking over at FB.

10 years ago, Bradford won it's last Grand Final. Since then, the club has gone backwards at an alarming rate. Year on year, we've finished further and futher down the league ladder. Crowds have fallen at the same rate, despite some artifical inflation at certain points. I remember when the cheap season tickets were first announced and a bit of information came out of the club that there had never been more than around 4k season tickets sold every year, even during the glory years. So, rather than it being the case that our current fan base shows potential, it in fact shows the hardcore of Bradford support that has been there through most of SL. As for how long those fans will stay and continue to pay SL prices for Championship rugby is hard to guess.

You keep talking about a sucessful Bulls, but that is not even on the horizon. Even if we'd won the MPG and were planning for a season in SL, there's very little chance that the current side would not find itself in the middle 8's next year and if they survived for a 2nd SL season they'd probably be still in that middle 8 group for a number of seasons as there is a gap between each of the groups of 8 that will take some major miracle working to overcome.

The trouble is, we're between a rock and a hard place. The double bust of recent years has left a lot of floating fans soured on the sport and the club and a lot of the remaining fans are unwilling to shell out on a season ticket for, what is in a lot of eyes, a 23 round pre-season.