I would agree Karl Harrison back as assistant coach may well put some fire in their bellies. In 05 when Nobby was losing the team and several games over the Harris affair it was the assistant who was able to take the pressure off and fire them up to go through and win the title against the odds. Maybe if Macca remembers where he came from he might be able to steady the ship.

I think your being a little unfair towards Macca your doing it tough at the mintue with injurys confidence is low, what you need is stick together and get through you will come good again

Macca inherited BN team and has been somewhat restricted in his recruiment due to the obscene money BN sent Iystens way until that money is freed up from your cap which has meant you have had to bring in players you wouldn't normally have signed imo aswell as losing the likes of Fielden,Peacock,Volcano your most attacking weapon which really hurts you and a great experience at the back in Withers

It's funny.. I also remember the Brain Noble out threads and how one dimensional we supposedly were when he coached us. I also believe he left the club in a pretty poor state despite the obvious success he brought to the club. Signing's such as Iestyn Harris etc? Noble is quite obviously he is a quality coach.. but I also remember a lot of people constantly questioning his abilities. The armchair coach is always right..

If in a few months time we do need to look for a new coach.. trying to bring back past glories by bringing Noble back won't work in my opinion.

But for the time being.. can 'so called supporters' not give the coach a reasonable time period to sort things out? Does the coach not deserve a decent time period to work with the squad he has assembled? There are obviously problems with our game (stating the obvious) however the squad is good enough to resolve these issues. For the time being we need to stay patient and see how the season pans out. As I have maintained all year.. if by round 16 or so we still look lost.. then let's look at our options for 09.

Bradford have never been a club to make rash judgements on coaches.. let's not start now.. it hasn't worked for Wigan and it won't work for us either.

I want Brian Noble or Ian Millward as our next coach.

in the past few seasons top players have been replaced by poorer ones culminating in this season. threads on here suggested this before the season begun.
being honest how many of your players would get into the line up at leeds or saints? burgess def, can't think of many more and that speaks volumes.

We were talking about this last night and IMO, I think that McNamara gets a bit of unfair stick.

Personally, I think that Noble got out of Odsal at the right time because generally speaking, I think you current problems would have happened anyway. McNarama has just been left 'holding the baby' in many respects.

Look at what Noble has done at Wigan - not an awful lot and when you look at the Bradford and Wigan squads, they are pretty similar in terms of strength and quality.

Many of your players from Bradford's period of dominance have moved on / retired, the salary cap has seem much of the talent pool spread around the league and on top of that, the like of Leeds (and to a extent St Helens) have massively improved. I can certainly remember us being on the back of similar hidings against your lot not that long ago - and in much bigger games.

You can't defend some of the abject plays that your side put in last night, both in terms of attack and defence. Injuries aside, that team you had last night is not a "42-point" team but at the same time, I doubt that you'd have left Headingley with two points last night with Wayne Bennett in charge, let along Nobby.

Rubbish if Nobby was still here we would have thrashed Leeds. We certainly never got embarrassed like that when Nobby coached us. In fact.. we never lost a game at Headingly when Nobby coached us!! What has McNamara done with the fantastic group of players that Nobby left us with? Blah blah blah



We're still to find out if McNamara has the quality right now to lead us out of this poor perform.. however a few on here seem to either have selective or very poor memories.

Indeed.

We should accept that this was "going to happen anyway" and accept that nothing can be done about it, and put up with the constant ineptness on show from McNamara's teams. It is wrong to want to see any signs of improvement, or anything positive that could give us confidence that our coach may be the man to improve the club in the future.

We should also quickly forget that the inept squad that Noble left for McNamara in 2006 showed more guts, passion, determination and ability in his penultimate game in charge, this very same Easter Thursday, fixture than McNamara's sides have in all the games they have played under his charge.

I'm not suggesting that at all and I'm not suggesting that Steve Mc is/isn't the right man for the job. I'm merely questioning the inferrance that someone such as Noble would have stopped the current rot that you guys seem to be in. I don't think that that's the case, as shown by what Noble has (or hasn't) done at Wigan.

It wasn't that long ago that we at Headingley were calling for the head of Tony Smith. We'd lost five on the spin, had been dumped out of the play-offs by a pretty poor Warrington side and even at times last year, were looking a million miles away from the team of 2004. The rest of course, is history. These rots happen and it takes a bit of hard work to get out of it, something that I'm sure a side as good as Bradford have. It might take a new approach to get it out, but that doesn't mean that a change of manager necesseraly.

The side you have now is nowhere near the side you had a few years ago and it might be a good while before you get there again. It's not necesseraly anybodies "fault", just the nature of sport. It's very rare for one team to dominate for a considerable period of time, unless you have the finances of a top four Premier League football club.

Its not Steve M's fault,

Its all Michael Platt.

So we'll ignore the performances that came from the same set of players McNamara had as Noble in the very season he left then? Standards in defence, intensity of play etc seemed to drop off alarmingly almost as soon as Noble left, hence me using the Easter win at Headingley that year as a comparison. Within weeks Leeds trashed us 30-0 on our own patch.

That squad wasn't brilliant by any means, but at least under Noble they were coached with a gameplan where the strengths they did have could come to the fore and turn in respectable displays.

Of course I agree he has done nothing at all with Wigan, after all they a still a disorganised rabble with no belief marooned at the bottom of the table, just like they were when he took over, it isn't as if he led a much maligned squad to within 80 minutes of a Grand Final appearance in his first full year in charge, or even took them on a good run within months of taking over which comfortably kept them in Superleague.

I see they are doing appallingly again this season.


But we're not a good side anymore, and Tony Smith had proven more than capable in 2004 to be allowed time, McNamara has proved nothing, although his mates say nice things about him, so he must be a good coach.


Who claimed anything otherwise?

Losing is one thing, and something I am more than able to accept as a sports fan, losing in the manner we all too often lose in is not acceptable.

Do you mean Tony Rae?

Perhaps you mean Chris Rea. His song "Road to Hell" may come in handy.


After 2 off seasons surley Steve Mac can nolonger be 'in transition'.

i think most of you guys are being a bit harsh on SM, and this is a knee jerk reaction to last nights result. Last week Leeds beat Quins by a bigger margin, and they were arguably the form team in the competition.
When a team gets beat as convincingly as you guys did last night, the losing team is always going to look poor and make loads of errors because they are playing desperate catch up rugby. when is the last time you saw a team get totally thrashed, and you thought the losing side played well. Last week you convincingly beat Wire, who were running hot. Leeds would have thrashed any team in superleague, and prob any team in the world, they are running that hot at the mo.
you are still a very good team and will hit form at some point, just as Leeds will go off the boil at some point of the season. Just dont hit form against Hull FC please.

I love the fact that these fans of other teams who don't have to watch the same cr*p week in, week out and haven't for the last two seasons are coming on commenting on our reaction to one solitary game

I think a few on here are struggling with the fact that we aren't the side we once were. I don't think anyone should 'accept' mediocrity however in sport there is almost always a natural cycle of success. The debate seems to centre around whether we have the staff to get us progressing again in the right direction. However there is no such thing as a quick fix.. for now we need to remain patient.

mate, i wouldnt call last weeks victory crap. you might not be the best team in superleague at the mo, but your still a very good team

I wouldn't say it's been crap week in week out. This season alone I had a great time watching the game in France.. and the Wire game left me feeling pretty content and thought we had done a good job against a Wire side with plenty of quality players.

I also enjoyed the game at Leeds last year when we thrashed them in Les's last game. There is plenty more.. hardly week in week out. Perhaps you ought to go watch Cas..

Oh well, we beat the ever inconsistent Warrington, whoopy do, all is well whatever went before and comes after.

You're right, we're not the best team in the league, I don't expect us to be - we're certainly not a very good one though.

but as many bulls fans say ''no matter what we'll still be at OT come the end of the season''

Yep, that was great - and in the 18 games we have played since then we have racked up 7 wins, superb stuff.

Silly errors and poor play has been a feature of this teams play over the last couple of seasons, usually displaying itself in the important games against the bigger teams, now it is spreading to be week in, week out.

Personally I don't take much enjoyment in watching that, Cas may not be too good a team but I doubt they are play as much dumb rugby as we do, and they probably have a little steel and determination to boot.

Before comparing the relative attributes of Noble and McNamara one should compare the players they'ver had at their disposal.

Many of the likes of Pryce, Fielden, Peacock, Vainikolo, Withers, Anderson, Vaikona, Lowes and the Paul brothers were never really replaced with players of a similar ability. As such any side would suffer without such talent. In 2001 Noble took over a stable winning side with settled backroom staff and relative financial security (no Harris case).

McNamara took over a side that was breaking up and had to cope with the loss of experienced assistent coaches and divide in the boardroom. The financial implications of Odsal and the Harris case was also hanging over him and the academy was producing less talent than in previous years.

You've got to bear all this in mind as it puts things into perspective. While we may have reservations about McNamara one must recognise he hasn't had the same tools to work with as Noble.

One interesting point that I think is worth considering is the sheer scale of the player departures since 2004/5. A lot of big names and big earners have gone. Despite assurances from the club I'm beginning to doubt whether we are spending the full cap on playing staff. Is this year's squad really on the same as the 2005 team? (I realise we broke the cap that year but not by much).

If so then there are some very mediocre players on big money and some pretty large ones dropped in terms of recruitment. If not then it would explain the fall from grace.

I'm sure this Bradford side will go considerably better on the dryer, faster tracks in summer. Their results will probably improve appreciably on the firmer pitches.

They're not gonna be anything like good enough to seriously challenge for honours, though (there's nowt like stating the blindingly obvious, I know !!).

Supporters of a slightly older vintage may have noticed the remarkable similarities that exist between Steve Mac's reign at Odsal, and that of Barry Seabourne, 20 or so years ago.

That all ended in tears, too...

It is slightly unfair to put McNamara's record up for scrutiny against Brian Noble's - however standing on its own it is hardly anything to write home about.

Too much of what is wrong with our game surrounds the basic elements of Rugby League, and a clear lack of discipline, leadership and structure - these are things that good coaches have to be able to instil in teams at all levels, from junior to state of origin.

I think (not that we would) bring back Nobby would be the worst decision for the club. Him and Caisley have landed us in pretty much most of the shocker situation we are in now.

Nobby spent most of the money we had on players for 'his' 1st team squad no matter how much they cost...ie Harris. He didn't consider investing and recruiting in decent youngsters when the older guys moved on. Now i think thats why we are in the trouble we are in.

Thats not Steves fault, he has brought in players who he can under the budget we have. The days of going to get 'whoever you want and we'll find the money' are long gone. Steve doesn't have that so he can only go for what we can afford.

Nobby was never interested in going out to find new talent for the under 21's or 18's. He wasn't prepared to invest in the decent kids that were out there back then. Steve is interested in bringing in kids hence why he's taking time out to go get them.

Nobby caused the problems with the Harris and maybe others. Steve just happens to be the one that has to sort it out. If it wasn't him it would have to be someone else............wouldn't chance anything. Yes we could bring in Harrison or Millward .....who's going to pay them what they want???????? we don't have the money.

i have faith in Steve to bring us back up with the team he has, its not going to be easy.

As for the backroom staff, they work there backsides off and its not there fault they have been left with some kids that were signed under nobby etc when they were never going to make it. Its going to take time to find some kids that have what it takes to make it through.

We let some of the youngsters go (Atkins, Bridge) because nobby didn't want them or he didn't have the money....funny how he found the money for Harris!