If you look at the stats on Super League, the Bulls have the worst amount of meters made of any super league side so far this year. Actually nearly half of Wigan have done.

Hardly an argument for a good pack.

Excepted you have played one less game though.

You need a Plan B.

As it was Wigan who overran us, it's hardly rocket science that their stats after so few other games are much better than ours.

Your point that we've played 25% less games than the other teams does make the rest of your post, well, pointless.

Not really. Because if you assume you will make the same average you have made currently and add this on, you will still be only 9th in the meters gained department. Again hardly a reflection of the forwards laying a good platform.

edit.... sorry that should have said 12th. Harlequins would go up to 9th.

Whats your excuse this time?

Excuse? What has any of this got to do with "excuses"?

The position we are in at the moment is not great. But that has little to do with the pack. But anyway, my knowledge of how the pack is playing is based on watching it play, and you trying to "disprove" this by weirdly trying to draw some overstretched "conclusions" from some random statistic is actually endearingly bonkers. Thanks for giving me a chuckle.

Well said mate

Perhaps excuse was the wrong word. But the stats would show that your view on the pack is incorrect.

The opening posters questions appear to be backed up with stats. My own comments on page one of the other thread, which were written two months ago, before the season started, appear spot on.

There is no doubt tha on paper its fine. In reality it is far from that.

Stats, or indeed paper, should not be confused with reality, and the evidence of your own eyes.

This particular stat, far from "showing that my view of the pack is incorrect", is a team stat, not a pack stat, and shows [unothing[/u, at all, specifically on the pack.

The Bradford backs are awful.

Nero and Sykes in the centres? Deary me.

You'll notice that I deliberately didn't include Newton in my list of forwards that have been playing well this year for us.





Fully agree. The last 10 to 15 minutes of the game, we actually played fairly well. Sadly, the first 65 to 70 minutes, it was like a bloody circus at times.





Then you haven't seen Nero play this year. He's improved massively for mine and was our best player yesterday (and was rightly voted as our man of the match). The only match he hasn't looked decent in was the Wigan one. Can't argue with Sykes though.

He is very very average. The bulls have probably the worst centre pairing in SL IMO, perhaps with the exception of Celtic. I genuinely believe that.

Have you actually watched Nero play once this season? I have to agree with Sykes though, appalling.

Then you genuinely haven't seen Nero play this year. In yesterday's game, our first two tries were entirely scored because of excellent work from Nero. He also looked good in the KR and Giants games.

Last year, he was average, I agree. This year, he's been our best back by a country mile.

Fair enough, only seen him once this year, at Wigan. Remain to be convinced he's anything other than average though, maybe he'll prove me wrong this year.

And without wanting to sound like a tool, being the best back amongst the Bulls backs isn't that big a shout - in fact average would give him a great chance.

I very nearly put that at the end of my own post and it's correct, it doesn't take much at the moment.

I was a fan of Nero when he played at Huddersfield and was happy with the signing, but after last year I was all for him buggering off back. With the exception of that Wigan game though, if he continues playing like he has been, I've got no problem at all with him being our first choice.

It all begs the question just what is our "coaching team" coaching, players have come to the club and gone backwards seem Macca needs to coach our few good players down to the level of the others, in the games i have watched the team are dissinterested, unfit and clueless, with a coaching team that has all the credentials of ............ IMO Maccas lack of experience coupled with the p1ss poor coaching team is showing on the pitch...but lets not forget "we are building something big"...a big pile of steaming ..unfortunately this will result in fans going elsewhere and maccas unhelpful commetns together with Hoods blatent disregard for the fans will simply result in the demise of the club.

Can you see Matt James getting back into the team? I noticed that he wasnt in the 17 on Sunday. We'd love him back... oh & Koppy too please

Absolutely spot on, Nero has been back to the Nero of old, and Hull was his best game for us yet.

Not unless we have an injury.

To be honest, James has never quite established himself enough to get in ahead of Burgess, Lynch, Scruton or Kopczak. Unless one of those goes down injured, I can't see James getting back in the team.

I would expect he'll be back at Fax within a week or two, and hopefully it'll do him the good that it did Kopczak.

Agree with all that. James prob needs a long spell at Fax before we can decide if he's up to it. Koppy has shown promise since he came back off loan, he's a mile away from being the finished article but worth sticking with.

I didn't think you were all that bad tbh. Your pack held their own which no other side has really done against us yet and in fact for about 15 minutes after we had gone 12-0 up you were dominant. The difference between the two sides was when the ball went wide.

Jeffries was a terrible signing for you imo and Deacon looked very avarage too. Nero is cracking player on his day but he is a back rower, not a centre. You just don't have those players who can make things happen. It was a tight game and but for a few magic moments from Manu and Thorman you could have probably won.

That was Les Dawson-esque timing.

Except its actually two games less - they have played 50% more games than us. But hey, why let the facts get in the way again, eh?

Not sure how anyone can say Scruton has been good. He drops most balls that come to him. He was even looking the wrong way when one came to him yesterday.

I'm just hoping that it's a case of lots of new players needing to gel and players getting used to playing out of position, ie 13 2nd rowers (or almost that many) and changing position about 5 times in each match. But I'm not too confident with that hope right now, my bigger hope is that we scrape 8th somehow and use the spare cap to buy a new team for the playoffs.

Because some of us have watched him





. . . and some of us clearly haven't