When we've also gone from being in the top 4 salary spenders to the bottom 4

Inconvenient fact that should have no bearings on our results - at least in some quarters

But this did not happen immediately when McNamara took over, if you believe statements coming out of the club from Hood about spending up to the full cap.

This means if Bradford do finish in the play-offs this year it shows that McNamara is improving as a coach due to his ability to get a cheaper team to perform to a higher standard than a more expensively assembled one. If this does prove to be the case you have to question the wisdom of handing McNamara the reins so early in his career when a more experienced coach would have probably achieved more with the same resources.

Actually think you'll find it happened before macca took over. From the team that won the 2005 GF we'd lost leon pryce,robbie paul,jamie peacock and lee radford from memory (and rob parker and reardon who didnt make GF squad) plus morley. And then immediately after macca took over we lost fielden. So there had been pretty significant belt tightening before macca took over despite any comments from hood about us spending full cap. Plus players who left were academy products and likely to be on cheaper deals than some of players we brought in to replace them ie newton,mckenna,bai etc.

You're a Rhino's fan. You should be living up to the stereotype and wear a baseball cap and grunt a lot.

Stop talking sense. You're spoiling it for everyone

If we are in the bottom four spenders in Super League then the decision to pay an alledged £250000 a year to Orford is utter folly

firstly its exactly that an alleged 250k. Secondly even if it is that much its arguable that one high wage earning marquee player in a key position (providing they perform and dont just take a wage ala h
Harris) is a lot more valuable to the club than 2-3 journeymen whom you'd be amongst the first to criticise us signing.

First priority for club has to be to get the attendances heading back upwards. A marquee signing like Orford is one way to get interest in club back and start to attract back the floating supporters. An improved on pitch performance is another method which we're seeing this year. And we're starting to see the benefits with attendances starting to rise back up slowly. Which in turn will allow us to spend more on the cap.

I am not remotely convinced that we are spending the 4th least amount on players/cap. If I was take a pot shot I would say that we are outspending the likes of....

Quins
Wakefield
Catalans
Castleford
Hull KR
Salford
and possibly Huddersfield.

However, I am sure that the facts can be supplied to us by WB so that we can end all this speculation.

How a team with the likes of Menzies, Orford, Kearney, LeStrange, Lynch, Scruton, Hall and Langley can be spending so little is puzzling.

I'd be a little surprised if were as low as 4th from lowest salary cap spend tbh. The figure I've heard (allegedly from a board member) is that we have 200k of cap space free.
I'd tend to agree we're spending more than salford,cas,wakey and quins. we may be spending more than cats and hull kr now but probably werent at beginning of season given that they've lost mogg and cooke from their wages bills respectively. Also catalans have a couple of big names on long term injury so you tend to forget them - greenshields springs to mind.
Doubt we're spending more than hudds especially after their signing of brough, which you've got remember they had to let kirmond go to wakey on loan as a makeweight to get the cap space needed, so I'd imagine they are spending near as dammit full cap now.

Its all speculation at end of day though as we dont know the details of any of the players wages and are only guessing. for example in our case, outside the players you mentioned, we've got a fair few home produced ones on their first senior deals which tend to be cheaper. Plus we've got kearney,reardon and sculthorpe all on their 1st deals back from serious injuries, and hence gambles, which will reduce the amount they can demand in wages.

I had a very interesting chat tonight with someone - not on the Bulls payroll, and well-qualified to give impartial observation - who is extremely well placed to offer informed and objective comment about all this.

Strangely enough, his opinions of the club, its people and its head coach are pretty well precisely the opposite of those held by posters like ME.

But clearly he knows nothing, and his opinions may be safely discounted?

Was it Bulls4Chumps2010?

ME, of course I don’t have the full facts and figures re: total salary spending across SL, I’m only going from information I have read and discussions I’ve had. Frankly I cannot be bothered to enter in to a discussion with someone who is so negative and blinkered.

I just cannot understand how you can ignore all the good things happening at the club (granted much is behind the scenes) and focus solely on first team results. Surely even you can see the Bradford Bulls in the last few years is very different to the Bradford Bulls at SL inception with regard to spending on and off the field?

"Blinkered" is the problem, but if the blinkers are superglued then what can you do?

The money issues we have directly led to the disruption of losing one Sam Burgess from the squad - can you imagine how we might have been with Sam in the team? Despite that we have bought wisely (Menzies, Hall, orford, Kearney, L'Estrange), brought on shrewdly (Whitehead, Donaldson), we are in the Cup, we are 4th in SL, and McNamara was voted SL Coach of the Month for April plus now selected as the national coach as well. Any person whose blinkers were at least capable of adjustment, if not removal, would revise their plainly potty "dud" view, but I won't hold my breath.

Eddie's a lot less 'credit where it's due' on this thread than he has been on others. Gone a bit SackMac fundamentalist.

We'll be spending more than Wakefield (not in february though), Castleford, Salford, Harlequins & Catalans (at a push).

Why not in February.

Start of the season. Since then Tronc, Newton & Brough have gone. All 3 would have been near the Wakefield top earners.

So you are simply dressing up opinion and presenting them as fact then?

And given subsequent conversations and points perhaps your "facts" carry not very much weight?

Ah! The nameless "expert". TBH Adey, if you cannot actually name this "expert" then this point really means nothing. After all, anyone could claim that they had spoken to someone in the know and make something up in order to suit their own argument, without said "expert" being implicated in something that they may or may not have said.

I think you could safely add Crusaders and Hull KR into that list too. However, even if your list was 100% then we would be the 6th lowest spenders rather than this fabled 4th.

However, we can speculate away, just so long as we are not presenting opinion as facts.

I have no intention of disclosing more particulars of a private conversation on an open forum. And certainly no intention of disclosing to YOU since I do not trust you to respect confidence.

But I HAVE told several people, who asked and who I trust, in PM. And some others will likely know anyway, since they will have seen me in conversation. It's anyway no big deal or mystery.

And if you want to call me a liar, that is entirely your own affair. I doubt you'll find many who know me who would form that view.

At no point did I call you a liar so stop making things up or else you may make yourself look like one.

The simple fact is that when 99.9% of people on here make claims about the club in any way and claim to have heard from a reliable person then they are asked to name a source before anyone actually gives them any credibility. I do not see why anyone should be any different.

Quite simply, it is easy to say anything you like and claim that it is insider knowledge if you do not reveal the source of the information. Especially if it suits the argument you are trying to make.

However, in regards to my views on the club, its people and the coach, I will make it quite clear that the only people I have ever had issues with are Hood and McNamara, the Cameron and Clegg of RL. Still, they will soon be getting surgically removed from each other so that is a blessing.

Eddie, your implication was perfectly clear. You would not have said what you did otherwise.

I've just had a perfectly reasonable PM request from one of Macca and Hood's biggest critics on here, asking who and what. And I told him. Its no big deal. Because he just simply asked, rather than posting a pompous, patronising and prejudging lecture.

You could have done the same - on the forum or in private. Maybe a few weeks ago you would have; I don't know. But you seem to have suffered some form of relapse of late, sadly.

That shows you up. Everyone will have their own opinion, naturally, but there are some from whom one would give such a statement more credence, and some less. You are effectively as good as calling Adey a liar, but his track record makes you look stupid. Yes, "anyone" could claim anything, but not all posters are equal in the credibility stakes. If you are saying that a respected and plainly honourable poster is to be lumped in with and believed or disbelieved just the same as any random shiithead troll, just because they don't name names to respect a confidence, then you are more stupid than I thought. Personally, I reckon you don't doubt Adey did have the conversation, but can't bring yourself to admit it.

FFS Eddie, it was me who Adey spoke to.