Purtells struggled last couple of weeks. I could see him being on big money too. I'd keep Blythe ahead of him. OK, he's had some brain farts but he runs hard and keeps his legs pumping.

I think Purtell standing out as a better player is probably down to the drop in form of those around him.

As for next year, I'd also look at Danny Bridge, I liked him when he was on loan - meat and drink kind of player who could tackle.

It will all come down to money. If we have a quiet chat with player and agent about still paying a good wage next year - as long as it stays private - we may just hang onto some of them. I am not surprised at Gaskell. Stay here and be first choice or move to keep the bench warm. That may go for a few of this squad. Would Olbason, Donno and Addey get a starting place in any of the top 6 SL clubs. They would be bench players in that first year. We thought Kaufusi was very good but he sits in the stand. Why not offer them a similar contract to now with a release clause if we don't get back up say within two seasons. We need to spend the full cap (legally) next year and choose a hand full of players who we really want - such as Kearney, Manu, Fakir etc. and they get paid separately for opening supermarkets by one of our sponsors which isn't part of the cap. We will have the money. About £900k payment + parachute payment spread over say two years means we will have enough to keep the squad we have as long as that last few £K disappear off the accounts. The other clubs do it.

I would also take Sammut back. The top clubs have never been interested in him due to his inconsistent nature and not really running the team like a conventional half. He will always interest the bottom clubs who need a spark.

Still waiting for the assistant to be named. I will be bitterly disappointed if we don't get one as Jimmy does need good support. Either a tough ex forward or a back who will sort out our poor defence is required asap.

Don't know where people are getting these figures from. Central distribution next year is 500-600k. Then there's a one off 250k parachute payment. Everyone seems to think the combined total is the parachute payment and we then get central money on top. Central funding plus parachute payment will cover bulk off the 900k salary cap, assuming green makes parachute payment available to fund squad and doesn't have other uses for it in mind.

One advantage we will have next year is club trained rule coming in which means only first 40k of any of our academy products wages will count towards salary cap. Provided money's there to fund it, means we've some scope to exceed the 900k cap legally, and we've probably got a much higher number of ex academy lads floating around than majority of clubs.

Burgii...?

updated for TnA article today, Olbison, would like to stay as spent 6 years here, "playing it by ear for now"

Olbison reminds me of Worrincy. Runs outstanding attacking lines. But is lacking in a lot of other areas. His defence his very poor for a second rower (he missed 9 tackles on Sunday!!) has no off-load game and rarely breaks a tackle and can give soft penalties away.

Does make me laugh declaring he would like to stay. Realistically, would any SL club want him? I think he will do well in the championship.

We'll apparently Leeds are sniffing round olbison and Roberts. Maybe they see something your missing.

Scruton has signed a 2 year extension at Wakey. Good bit of business for them, I think a lot of people assumed he would be off at the end of the season.
Also rules out any possibility of us re-signing him, obviously.

With us certs for the drop there was no chance of getting Scruton.

Olbison is a championship level player. He's a good lad and a really conscientious trainer. Roberts has his whole career in front of him and has barely played 1st team yet. Neither are SL class though Roberts has it in him. If Leeds want Olbison then let them have him.

It was one bad day at the office tackle wise for him. his tackles made to missed ratio for the season is 10%. Last season it was about 15% so a big improvement from him in a worse team. But on the attacking side, he is second tryscorer, second for clean breaks, 7th for tackle busts. Agree about few offloads, but the other side of that is a low number of errors. No team has 17 complete players. I can see plenty of reasons to keep him for SL2.

The reason is that they had to assemble a squad at the very last minute, a mistake they aren't making again judging from their activity. Given the fact that the only luck we get these days is bad luck, you can forgive me for fretting that we could sleep walk into making the same mistake ourselves.

The only slight reassurance I have over our 2015 recruitment (and it is only slight) is that Marc openly acknowledges the issue in the program notes.
We've not heard a peep out of Steve Ferres recently, hopefully he's been hard at work and the club are just waiting for the right time to unleash good news (normally around the same time as some bad!).

Updated for Adam Henry TnA article today. Cue debate. interesting point in TnA article, that he was to be a squad player to be developed rather than first choice, but has played more due to injuries etc etc. Again like Olbison attacking stats far superior to defence, if he can improve next year as much as Olbison did this year then he should be therebouts in the missed tackle ratio for a wide player.
What I would like to see is Donaldson or equivalents ie defensive back rower/centres showing some commitment, otherwise its going to 50 - 45 type scores next season hopefully in our favour.

I think Henry would be excellent in the championship. I think he would rip some championship clubs to pieces with his size. Defensively he is very poor but hopefully that's something he can work on.

On Donno, I would be surprised if he stayed. Can see a fair few SL clubs wanting to sign him.

Here you go. Excuse any mistypes/ spelling errors as had to type it in rather than scanning. If any of mods feel it breaches AUP doing this then please remove post. Can't see it being an issue with programme notes but you never know.



If you were expecting in depth answers then I guess you'll be disappointed. IMO his answers amount to little more than sound bites which don't really answer anything.

thanks Mat, especially for typing it in! as you say most of the meat (such as it is) is in the bit that was on the website, interesting that he puts the youth of tomorrow first before the team of today and that so far does seem to be the balance, so its wait for the announcements in a few weeks. Also shows his resolve that the business is profitable.

My main worry at the moment is that a lot of players are saying "Yes, I'd like to stay at Bradford even if we went down" but there doesn't seem to have been much movement on the re-signing front.

Given other clubs, including London, have been announcing signings already, I'm concerned that we're going to get left behind as it's not going to be like previous seasons when a SL club has dropped down and been able to kick back and steam roll the Championship clubs and come back up easily. There's a lot of sharks in those waters now and the Bulls look to be bleeding heavily

I'm strangely reassured by the absence of a fans forums, 'in the know fans', and club insiders using the forum to spread wilful rubbish.

Lowes and Robbie are good blokes who wouldn't be involved if they didn't think Green was doing right by the club. Other than that, we'll all just have to wait and see what happens.

On Donno, I can't see a SL club wanting him as his go forward is poor. Having said that, just about all the forwards went backwards under Cummins. One mistake Green has made is not sacking FC sooner.

And as if right on cue, Steve Ferres breaks his silence for a reassuring article.
Is someone from the club reading these forums? Or is it just Ross from the t&a?
The timing is uncanny.

[urlhttp://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/11334132.Ferres_assures_Bradford_Bulls_fans__Signings_are_on_their_way/[/url

Good aricle that, some honesty and a realistic view on next season. 4000 fans as a base is probably about right, (makes a change from hoping for 10k!)but with a winning side and lots of "new" local derbies I think we could easily achieve 5000, which considering the club will actually be getting more central funds next year than we've had should see the club well able to rebuild within our means.

Leigh are well ahead of us at the moment for next season I think, but looking accross the other teams we'll likely be competeing against I dont see any reason (provided we keep a decent number of our current squad jimmy wants and add some appropriate quality) we cant get into the top 4 which is the first target to reach the middle 8. How many of the other championship clubs are even going to be full time next year? Us, Leigh, Halifax (?) London, Fev probably not now that idiot has bailed out with his fictional cash.

Now its a reality Im getting strangly excited by the change, new teams to play, probably more wins than this year, and a target we can realistically aim for whilst rebuilding with a club legend in charge of the team....sounds better than another season of admins and thumpings!!

agreed DM, exciting - thats why I set up the topic. Very realistic too, him and Green have noses that could have drilled out the Hadron Collider tunnels in a day. Interesting to note he doesnt mention the home grown player £40k cap, as plenty of posters have said thats a good place to start to help pay for quality non hg players within the total spend that the 4000 fan income base allows. One downside of this regime, the obsession about Odsal, but I guess thats longer term news from the hard noses.

Obsession with Odsal? Do you mean not considering alternatives such as VP? If so I suspect its just that for all the downsides Odsal is the cheapest place for the Bulls to play in the short to medium term. We could benefit quite significantly from the new home grown player rules in time, but I suspect its not too much of an influence for next seasons squad.

I would have thought that, at the start of this season, our highest earners would have been (roughly in order)

Carvell
Kearney
Scruton
Purtell
Ferguson
Gale
Diskin
Sammutt

We shed three before the season really got started. We know Gale is leaving, and the Aussie guys could well depart (who could blame them?). I hope we'll use the 'SL contacts become null and void' to get rid of Ferguson, and Diskin will probably either retire or join the coaching staff.

I think there are two conclusions to make from that list. Firstly, we aren't going to be significantly worse off talent-wise next year from losing most of that lot, and secondly, we can free up a large chunk of money from shedding those guys.

I'd be happy to see us shedding ALL of those remaining from that list, frankly, and investing the money saved in making sure that home grown talent such as Donaldson, Addy, Olbison and O'Brien are tied into contracts. I certainly hope that those guys will give us 12 months - I feel they owe us that much! Fair enough, if we don't come back up after the first year, then release clauses to enable them to sign for SL clubs would be reasonable, but I'd like to think they'll stick around and try to get us back up.

announcement(s) start in a few days time rather than weeks. Presumably current players that have agreed new contracts will feature heavily to start with before new players.