Thought Nero and Reardon offered nothing in attack again tbh.

I think you need some concerns after another loss. Not exactly panic button time, but tonight was more disappointing than last week. However Wire then Hull away was a bit of a f**king $hitter.

To be honest, Nero does worry me. He doesn't seem to offer a great deal in attack so far.

Reardon and Halley DEFINITELY need to be swapped around. Reardon isn't a winger, and Halley doesn't look that great at FB.

Still some good signs, as people have said, the attitude and effort of the players can't be faulted, but the lack of clinical finishing is worrying and needs to be addressed.

Two tough away fixtures in a row, i'm not worried yet. There's not that many teams who will beat these two at home and we stayed with in 2 scores of Hull, who imo had great defence throughout the game. No glaringly obvious changes for me, obviously Orford back in, but I think we will win Quins no worries then an excellent battle between us and the Whinos with both trying to regain top form.

I wasn't too fussed today, I got in to the ground for nothing. If I'd have paid then I'd have been a little more vocal

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Thanks to Steve McNamara's wife and mother in law for the free tickets before the game

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If we don't HAMMER quins i'll be let down after pretty straight forward two losses. Not many teams will beat them, but our aims are higher than most teams. I don't think we have personnel to make changes in areas we are suffering anyway ( pretty much in the back area ).

Hmmmm.... Given Macca's record against Rhinos, it won't suprise many i'm expecting a solid win for the rhinos..

Anyone else already looking forward to the Leeds match?


If we beat Quins and they lose to the Pies, it would be the first time in a few years we'd go into a game v Leeds above them in the table.


Obviously the above comment will translate to the Whinos that its our cup final though.

I'd rather we didn't hammer them tbh. I want us to win it, don't get me wrong, but a tough encounter with us winning by 2-3 tries would set us up nicely for the test v Leeds. If we tonk them by 50 we may be over-confident ahead of the clash at headingley.





Regarding Sculthorpe, if his injury has got worse, are we going to offload him? There's no room for sentiment in sport and the spare cash could be put to good use if a three-quarter became available.

I don't think any side will be over confident going to Headingley. It's just a case of not being the side that faces them when they click. Past few years they have had us by the balls though at headingley.

And Headingley is pretty much my biggest league game every season. From Leeds and pretty much every rugby fan i know is a Rhino. Strangely i only know a handful of Bulls fans.

Ditto!

I can't wait, and what I did take from tonights game (I may be wrong) is that our team has something about them this year, a bit more character perhaps? It was just the desperation in the final minute or so that they didn't want to be left tryless.

I'm backing us to be up for it at Headingley and put in our best performance so far.

This is a good Bulls team.. Not great but a lot better than fans of other clubs think. Just think it lacks a lot in the backs and think that will be our downfall over the year.. already think it's be conveyed over some of the games.

No concerns over effort or desire. My thoughts on Macca are just he isn't good enough, but i'll support him till he leaves this great club.

I think we are a decent three-quarter away from challenging the top 4. Our halves are excellent, our pack may lack a bit of heart but it is still up there with the best. It's just the back line that lets us down a bit, although you can't fault the effort from Halley, Sykes or Sheriffe. Platt played well tonight, but I did think both Nero 7 Reardon improved. It'll be interesting to see who gets picked next week. It wouldn't surprise me to see Platt on the bench as Quins don't have the biggest pack.

I wasn't overly impressed with either team tonight. Thought you should have posted more points in the first half when you were on top. The second half IMO was a reverse of the first with Hull on top as the tempo increased a little. The difference was that we put points on the board when we were on top - you didn't in the first half.
You tired a lot in the second half and some big hits on key players took their toll as you faded. Miffed that you scored at the end, but a bloke near me won £60 for having the right score so at least he went home happy!!

Its early in the season yet and reading both Hull and Bradford boards there appear to be a lot of fans who want rid of their coach - personally I think its too early to get rid in either case and both sets of fans should make a judgement later in the season. If, come July/August both are languishing in the bottom half of the table and out of the cup then they may have a point, but at the moment some teams are still inding their feet. Every team will have a barren spell - it looks really competetive this year. Have a good season and hope those that travelled all got home safely.

Not overly dissapointed.
Thought the try on HT turned the game (our heads seemed to go dowm). Not to blame one decision from the ref, but he missed a knock on in the play before that scrum.

Likely top 6 come October:

Wigan, Warrington, St.Helens, Hudds, Hull, Leeds???

5 of those we've played in our opening 7 games

I'm looking for 2 wins from the next 3, giving us 5/10. Then lets see where some momentum can take us.

I don't think 17 wins from our 27 games is beyond us and I reckon that will get us in the top 5.

What most people didn't know was that Orford was the worst case, but half the squad have been down with a bug this week and it is no wonder we weren't at our peak. Thought the try on the stroke of half time was a killer, but in the circumstances, and losuy conditions, we went OK. The reason we didn;t score wasn't at least that we didn't create any chances -we had quite a few.

Thought the young lads went especially well, and that is encouraging. But we do need Orford, especially going to places llike Hull, who have bought well. Fitzgibbon in particular was very good.

No need for suicides just yet.

May be need of a stopwatch though - according to mine, there was some mystery time added to the first half. Maybe it was just a case of playing on until they scored? Or was there a time warp?

No time was added at all. When the went out there as 30seconds left by the time hull formed the scrum in was down to 9 then ref called time off.

Cannot agree with that statement unfortunately. I think we have a decent pack but I think the last two games have shown that we don't have the size to match teams like Hull and Wire in an arm wrestle. In both games we struggled to win the collision and make yards. We probably could do with improvement in the backs but in my opinion that isn't the reason we have struggled in the last two matches.

Come on,be fair,after the last two seasons we are entitled to a bit of enthusiasm.

What? Playing two teams who we finished above last season?

Strange.

The fact is that so far we have played potentially 5 of the top six sides in the tournament and have been pretty comprehensively beaten in four of them and only an amazing fightback in the second half stopped that from becoming five out of five.

If we had not beaten Wigan then there would be plenty on here scratching their heads in disbelief at the results we are producing this season.

The fact is,this Hull team is completely different to the one last season,and every day I thank the gods of rugby.


If we had last seasons team,you would have beaten us,I am sure.
A team that comes back against Wigan can`t be all that bad,can it.Have faith.

I think the reason most people are remaining patient is because we can see the improvement and there has been no lack of desire from the lads.

We probably don't have the personnel to win anything this year but I've seen enough to suggest we should win more than we lose once the summer comes. I really hope we concentrate our efforts into the CC this year, because it is probably our best chance of success.

I wonder if the Harlequins game would be a good time to rest someone like Menzies and give George Burgess a bit of a game? I've thought Menzies has looked a little out of sorts in the last couple of matches and perhaps a week off would bring him back fresh for the Leeds trip. We can shift Hall to 2nd row which I think is possibly his better position.

It wasn't the worst defeat, certainly no disgrace. But there was a certain inevitability in the 2nd half when it seemed that Hull were happy to coast. They were well on top in the forwards and seemed happy to play safe rather than try to rack up the points. Leaving the ground quite a few Hull fans seemed to be commenting on how comfortable it had been, winning without having to play well.

Not grounds for suicide but no reason to expect more than mid table.

I'm pretty sure McNamara will be off at the end of the year so the coaching is less of an issue to me at the moment. Performance wise we are playing better than last year and with the players at our disposal we're not far off our rightful position in the table (6th or 7th).

Fact is while the 1st choice pack is ok and the halfbacks pretty good we lack anything special in the backline and we have no impact off the bench. That's a recipe for mediocrity. I happen to think that mediocrity is an improvement on last year! One things for sure there is plenty of effort for the most part. If players were playing like they couldn't be ar5ed I'd be more worried and so far only the Saints match was an example of not being up to it in that dept.

I'm quite looking forward to the next three games which are all very winnable.

Without Orford and seemingly with a nasty bug sweeping around the squad I'm not sure what we can sensibly deduce about the merits or otherwise of last nights performance.

I'd say last night can't be used by the sacka-the-macka camp as evidence. I'm probably in that camp myself but theres enough mitigating circumstances to defer the hand wringing another week.

The other difference Orford might have made is the coaching.

What we saw last night was pure Mcnamara, undiluted by orford. It was dull. As has been said before, hull were not that impressive and a bit more composure near their line (and a tansey sinbinning early doors) would have got us into a winning position. I have had the feeling this season that our better performances have started with Mcnamara's plan which has then been adjusted/improved upon by orford once he has actually seen what the opposition are doing.

What did Tansey do to warrant a sin binning?