Thanks for the motivation. Been meaning to do this for a while.



The top ten most winningest sides of the [iwinter era[/i.

League games only, no play offs or cup competitions of any kind.

No Super League included at all, lest anyone think that unfairly skews the results our way. No lower divisions included at all, so time outside the top flight is thrown away as irrelevant. Bradford, who spent TWO seasons outside the top flight (one in the early sixties and one in the early seventies) are the team in that top five to have that happen to them the most.

I got the data from the Wikipedia season summary pages.

(And I had to write a program to do it. They got most of it from a bloke called Jim Smith who ran a website called The RL Vault in the nineties, and he got it from me after I tore up my 1995 Rothman's Yearbook as a young(er) 'un to scan the data and OCR it - there's a moral about backups in there somewhere).

Forgot to mention, I sorted it by number of games played. There were large numbers of seasons where clubs arranged their own fixtures (!) and could play a very different number of times within the same season. But whichever way you look at it, the phrase "Big 4" existed for a reason.

Surprising stats. I wouldn't have put us 3rd. Maybe in the top 8.

In raw number of wins we're actually second behind Wigan, at least in that data.

Another reason I didn't sort it by wins though is [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1901%E2%80%9302_Northern_Rugby_Football_Union_season1901-02[/url. The top teams of the previous year had a brief strop about the YSL and LSL competitions and were in a separate league of their own.

Wigan, Leeds and Saints were all in their respective LSL and YSL leagues whilst Bradford were in the breakaway comp. There's no results data for those comps though, nor is there anything but the number of points in their final tables. All three did well though and with Wigan and Saints having at least twenty wins each and Saints getting around fifteen.

That does put Leeds ahead of us for those winter years and Wigan further ahead. But not Saints.

I remember doing this twenty years or so ago though and I knew we were up there.

Dewsbury away & where do we go from here - Bulls to win by 48 - 0 following a scintillating display of attacking rugby backed up by a tough & aggressive defence. Then unbeaten for the remaining games of the season.

I’ll have a pint of what you’re having!

Croft Original

And on Monday Jimmy is given a new 5 year contract due to the magnificent turn around in the teams fortunes.

Two pints of what he has been drinking works wonders.

But as has been said in many debates the club cannot sustain a future at Odsal with crowds of 2K. Our gates in this league must be the largest and it is doubtful we are breaking even.

Love you man

Don't blame you. I'd do me too.

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... gs_around/

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... gs_around/

So predictable, you can almost set your watch by it. Still, at least he isn't particularly having a go at the fans this time.

Quite a U-Turn in the space of a week.

To recap: the highly paid expert engaged to make sure we bought the best players we could, on the eve of a game at part-time Dewsbury, who it is known have hardly got 17 fit players and will be missing a host of their better players, believes that his crack squad of SL weres'n'wannabees are nevertheless "underdogs". Against Dewsbury part-time reserves and juniors.

Nice work, Steve.

You really couldn't write it. Ferres should just be kept away from media. Maybe then he'd have time to step his efforts to find a half a further notch

Steve Ferres. The most pointless thing at Odsal since Mr S Duffy esquire.

Dear Steve

You signed Uaisele.

You sent him on a 1 month loan to Dewsbury, so he's still our man. This is what he thinks of the Bulls:



What do you make of that?

Why did you sign him, and does it worry you that he sees the mighty Dewsbury as a far better bet than us, so much so that he is prepared to publicly announce it while under contract and being paid handsomely by you?

It suggests to me that Etu is looking, fairly realistically, to his future.

To be fair, I remember him with Sheffield a couple of years back and he was regarded as one of the best finishers in the division. He's only shown glimpses of that at Odsal it has to be said, though a chance to get a settled run for a few games might have helped, but it was difficult/impossible to be fair to everyone with such a large, some might say bloated, squad of players, all wanting their chance. I think that last fact is far more relevant to mistakes made by the club, than anything Uaisele has said, to be honest.

If SF truly believes he's assembled a full time squad over 18 months or so that goes to Dewsbury (17 fit players) as underdogs then thats a damning assessment on the squad he's produced and Lowes is coaching . We might well actually be underdogs on the form and performances both teams have shown recently but we really shouldn't be at this stage of our attempt to get back into SL.

Its also an interesting turn of phrase from Russ about no new signings this week, implication of a signing in process maybe?? or am I just clutching at straws?

Being out of the cup so early could do us some good. Just get through this game, don't need to be convincing just get the win. Then we have a bit of a break before our next match which hopefully might give us chance to get Sidlow, Kavanagh and Williams back from injury.
Who knows, there might also be time during that break to find a scrum half, even if it's only a loan deal.

"Underdogs" Not really a confidence booster, can't believe I'm reading a damage limitation statement from the mighty Bulls.

Or if we lose again, time to interview and have a new coach in place.

I think the last time we were 'mighty' was back in 2005




Yeah, or that too!

TBH I wondered if Ferres had been misquoted. If not it's a bizarre statement and something critics will rightly leap upon.

Underdogs at Dewsbury! We've come a long way in the past few years!