5,828 attendance

3000 Wigan maybe? So less than 3000 Bulls fans? Very disappointing but understandable I guess.

Around 2k-2.5k Wigan I'd guess.

As great as the effort was, we still lost. Luckily(?) it was in the cup which we were unlikely to win anyway and we can't lose any further ground in the table because of it.

I've mentioned in the past that we needed a little bit of needle to get us going. The Raynor sending off (only saw it on the ground and the big screen from quite a distance) I won't comment on, other than I was very surprised they let him walk off considering how long he appeared motionless on the floor. One may have expected that they would have carried him off if they had been as concerned as they appeared to be.......

Effort was great, felt as though I'd gone back in time to the early nineties with the 6k crowd, backs against the wall, playing champions Wigan on a blustery day. In that way, I thoroughly loved it!

A few areas cost us the game (other than the effect of the sending off). Wigan managed to retain the ball from kick-offs a lot better than we did. Why didn't we go for a few 40/20's? We also threw more than a few passes to ground in promising positions. A few times we lost the ball late in the tackle count under little pressure, but that is very pernickity of me.

I felt that the guys have done quite a lot of soul searching this week and the general attitude was much better. Did anyone else note the lack of quotes about Nandos Tuesday???? I think that they understand how frustrated we've been over the last few weeks and have closed ranks a little until they pick up a few wins, and maybe we have now hit rock bottom and are slowly moving back up off the floor?

Numbers wise we're probably due Herbert and Addy back in the next week or so, leaving only the long term Kearney, Scruton and Walker (?). The lack of the cup run should lessen the risk of further injuries and give one or two a weeks rest when carrying a knock or two.

Great efforts from Elima and Whitehead, trying to shore up the left hand side with no real pace to help them.

Platt was superb in the second half - man possessed.

Briggs had his best game for the Bulls (that I've seen).

Royston looks as though he's been working with Briggs and Jeffries in training - watch the tries come in the coming weeks!

As a neutral I just want to say that your match with Wigan was a belting watch. I was hoping that Bradford would win but you were just not quite there once Raynor had been sent off. Did a terrific job though with 12 men. You would just be finding your mojo now that another game against Saints is within sight!

Anyway, tough luck on the loss. You looked the better side in the second half but those quick two tries while you were trying to adjust to 12 men hurt you I think.

I wonder where Bradford have been keeping that performance?

Pretty much all I wanted to say has been said.

Briggs - quality, we need his long kicking game. (the one he put on show today, not the non existant one at Salford)

Platt - like Badger says, a man posessed.

Whitehead - got through a mountain of work, covered 2 positions basically and kept popping up in the pack for work too.

Langley - god we've missed him. Runs the ball in harder than our props, tackles everything and on top of that he's a leader. Please stay fit!

Royston - can't see why he hasn't been in SL for longer. Not suggesting he's world class, but doesn't make many errors and his positional play is excellent.

Overall very proud with 1-17 and pleased with the performance. (gutted about result though)

We need to kick on from this and fight our way into 8th come the end of the season!

That question with considerably more swearing is my current facebook status!

See you in a few weeks, which of your players are in the Exiles game?





Agreed, this is why for me the decision is more who plays with him BJ or Herbert than anything else. If he keeps performing like today I can accept his defensive weakness in exchange for us having a kicking game again.

Atm, it's definitely Jeffries. They're not setting the world alight, but our 6 & 7 are actually linking up!

Some really good signs in that performance starting with the defence, and the Pies made the most of Raynor off so with a full complement even the outwide defence should be much much better. For me the highlight was Roystons try, one for the Fantasy Footballers. Platt, (who should have been dumped by Bradford years ago) went on a run got tackled but released so he gets going again for another 10 metres. Briggs, (who is under 20's/championship level standard only) puts in a beautiful kick and Royston, (who is only championship material and will never make a SL player) runs in, TRY!

If thats what the rules say then Raynor should be off. The commentators made a lot about if you go for the head of a player as he is scoring a try it is an automatic red card. I seem to remember Elima (a move or so after a head high tackle on him) being given a right hander to the face when he was lying on the floor with the ball down. so that should have been a red card. One rule for the bulls, another for the rest...

The other improvement was the attacking play seems to be coming together a lot better, Jeffries and Briggs got a lot more going and there seemed to be real intent to take it to Wigan. Its not going to be quite so easy for Mick as players come back to just slot them in, hopefully there will be three half backs fighting for the two places instead of one fighting for two as weve had for many weeks. So on to Salford and moving up SL to the playoffs

Very occasionally you're right.

I'm in two minds about it. Jeffries has played well which certainly puts him in the box seat but I keep wondering if Herbert would also have shown up well behind a strong pack today.

I think its unfair to judge Herbert on performances when we've been getting destroyed up front. He's shown some skills and if he comes good with the kicking duties sitting with Briggs then potentially we have a longer term partnership than Jeffries/Briggs given his age. But then BJ HAS been playing well... nice to have this problem though!

Anybody how much deeper the attack was as opposed to usual today?

All the best ones!



But the advantage to a terrible injury crisis is that our u20s have been bloodied in the dark arts of Superleague.

Yup and much more movement going on. Everybody seemed to be working hard to provide an option. Only once when Kopczak went through did I think support was lacking. Much better passing but still alot of dropped ball. We let Wigan off the hook plenty of times in the first half with silly errors.

Its only one game and I'm trying not to get too excited about it but it was such a big improvement it does through up the question of why today and not last week or the week before etc, etc? Can't just be Langers!

Just a bit! It was like someone had got hold of a copy of "Rugby League for Dummies" and passed it, and the DVDs of recent games, round the squad - or maybe the coaching staff? - during the week.

DILLIGAF and those Lockyear videos???

Thats funny Addey, you spring chicken!!! We can remember the only professional side in rugby league winning a few, so they should have done, but since everybody went professional, well just how many grand finals ( the real test of a team in an all profession era) have the pies got to in consecutive years?

They got to one in 2001 but it was two years before they could face going through the trauma of another one.

Right hand side attack with Jeffries & Platt looked great today. WIgan did seem to concentrate on that side in attack though.

agree with a lot of points raised in previous posts. easily best performance since season opener at cardiff. We've finally remembered how to defend and played as a team instead of a group of individuals. briggs really added something in terms of his kicking game.

one thing that stands out reading this thread is what poor winners some wigan fans are.

Its probably because, dispite all the attempts at distraction with the Raynor sending off threads, they know that they scored less points against us than Halifax and that even with us down to 12 men for 50 mins. None of the Wigan players looked that happy in the interviews either.

Err wrong

Much more teamwork and resilience on display wasn't there? The Bulls side that went to Salford would've shipped 60+ especially after the sending off. If we could play with that intensity and cohesion every week from now on we have a chance of sneaking into the 8.

Like Mick and Jockabull I noticed how better organised the backline was in attack. Standing deeper seemed to give playmakers more time to put in accurate passes and the runners more time to time their runs and catch. It's not rocket science. For the first time this season we executed some moves more than once without dropping the ball.

We had (Scruton apart) our most experienced pack out there today and it showed. Elima and Langley really stiffened things up. It just shows how much difference they make and how it souds good to have 3 Bulls youngsters in the back row they're not ready yet.

A lot now depends on how the side react. There's been a lot of talk about that recently so they need to take some momentum into next week's game. If we lapse back into the old ways yesterday won't mean diddly squat!

The halves were superb to be fair, but we should credit the forwards, for giving them space to operate in. If only we'd had our share of dominating the ruck in previous games we wouldn't be third bottom now.