Bulls 'cup final' next week

At least the Team won't have any more "Golfing" days to disrupt their training! though that isn't the excuse they can put forward it was a flat low energy performance which makes one look at the Coaching Staff a bit closer and ask what WTF are they doing??

The only positive from today was the crowd of 14,414

That picture looks strangley like the bulls going for a tap after finding touch from a penalty!!! You did well to capture that picture, unless of course it was in the last 5 mins when he tried to even up the count

That said i wont blame the ref for todays perfomance.

Bentham gave us two penalties inside the first eight minutes. We didn't get our third penalty till the 66th minute by which time he had given Hull FC eight in a row (one which was Ah Van out on the full).

Interesting to know that we went 58 minutes with $$$$ all.

How does the attendance today compare with previous games?

It took MP 25 mins and two tries to realise that our right side of defense was a weak link, and to bring on Platt and swap Whitehead over to shore that side up. Pretty much demonstrating the game plan was awry from the off. Having Platt on the bench seemed very odd, given the pack we were facing and the fact that Addy was there for Diskin and he can play 80 mins if needed. Herbert did some ok stuff, but still can't execute the short flat pass more than 50% of the time, added to that Jeffries did his familiar act of going missing and that left no-one except Matt Diskin trying to offer any leadership in the last 20mins when the game was still within our grasp. That last 20 was very revealing, nobody directing play, no depth, pat a cake down the line and individual effort without structure or organisation, we quickly became poor, flat and uninspired, a sad way of dropping out of contention really.

Im orry but for too long we have got used to players who do a couple of good things a game, for a halfback a 40/20 and 3 good attacking kicks is not good enough, Herbert cannot kick for position, too many times he kicked it to the FB or Winger, or dead in goal. He needs to turn the defenders around. Also 2 good passes a game is not good enough, he does that flatball too many times, there was 3 times where if he gave it to the back man we would have had a 3 on 2 overlap.

Ah Van had an absolute shocker however is not a Centre, put him back on the Wing, he's a lot better there, Crookes is a Centre not a Winger, Royston did well today considering this is his 3rd positon of the year, put Whitehead in the pack where he belongs, and move Platt to Centre.

I'm not judging Addy yet as I believe he will do well at Hooker. Burgess needs more gametime, Langley was crap today. Elima and Sibbit did ok.

Big mentions to Kopczak and Lynch who played really well.

Why are we playing panic rugby?? FFS we don't need to panic. And have the Bulls ever thought to tackle the LEGS????

Hull looked like they wanted the points more for me, we allowed them to play the ball quicker and we didn't look interested in that deprtment for me. Potter needs to pick a consistent team and where possible stick with it..Sibbits a poor squad player, Ah van had a shocker, Lynch doesn't have the old dependability about him and neither does Langley. Recruitment for next season will dictate what our ambitions are...

We missed Heath.

Couldn't agree more

Royston was announced at centre, and then immediately went out onto the wing. That right hand side was an obvious weak link for us - and no wonder with a Full Back/Centre on the Wing, and a second rower in the Centre. The defence for that third try for especially woeful.

The obvious backline today would have been Ah Van, Platt, Royston, Crookes

Was Rayner injured today? If not where was he? Because nobody can tell me that we wouldn't have been stronger with Ah Van, Platt, Royston, Rayner as our backline today, rather than the mish-mash we had

No Raynor was simply not selected unless he had a minor injury in the warm up. And obvious back line should have been Ah Van, Platt, Crookes, Raynor with Royston at FB and Kearney at 6.

For the last 2 or 3 weeks we manage to be consistently putting out a 3/4 line with not one player playing in what can best be described as his best position

Without repeating the previous posts, the longer the season goes on the more Potter is looking rather clueless...Constant team changes, playing players out of position, not dropping under-performers, the whole Kyle Briggs farce and clear inability to motivate the team.

why are we standing still and so flat when receiving the ball, why aren't our players crashing on to it. 10 yards from the line and 2/3 passes wide to ah van crashing on to the ball and he would be over the line.. whether he had the ball in his hands may be a different matter however...

Thats not far from where i sit!

Because we pass the ball so slowly if we stood any deeper we would actually lose ground on every play as the defence moves up quicker than the ball reaches the outside backs. Hence we appear to have zero structure to our attack. The nearer Jeffries is to the middle the less effective he is and Herbert's stock in trade catch and pass is at walking pace allowing defenders to easily slide across covering both him as ball carrier and the passing options. Hence Hull's 3/4s getting off their line and nailing our 'out the back' runner time and again. This isn't helped by the backline being different every week but it is essentially a speed of thought/movement problem in the key pivot position.

Hope potter has worked that one out too!

Funniest post on here. We weren't great, but if it wasn't for 3 individual mistakes by us you'd have been nilled!

Cant most conceded points be put be down to individual mistakes?

After all if one of our 13 players had decided to tackle your man or ground the ball in front of your chasers you would have been nilled!!!!!

lets not forget two disallowed tries fro lyne and westerman!

for 37 minutes in the first half we was in complete control, we should have had the game wrapped up easily, no offence bulls fans, plus a gift of a try from lauaki only kept the bulls within touching distance

Don't be so dumb, if it wasn't for our individual mistakes, you would not have scored.

But they were not tries, so how can you have an issue with them?
If we hadn't dropped the ball, then we would have won comfortably...

It's all if and maybes, two poor sides, you were less poor and fully deserved your win. End of really.

We lost game the in the forwards IMO. That's why the ball was slow to come out of the PTB and slow to get to the halves and as a result slow to get to the backs.

Too often we didn't seem to have a gorward hitting the ball at pace, Lynch was the only one to do it consistently. When Koppy did it he made ground, Sibbit did it a few times but the rest seemed to be taking it stood still. In contrast the likes of O'Meley, Fitzgibbon, Manu and Westerman really took the ball up at pace and hey presto they got a quick PTB and got on top of us. It's not rocket science.

IMO Langley can't have been fully fit given his below par performance, he looked off the pace from his first touch where he knocked on. Scruton is well short of match fitness and Elima was well short of the form he showed the previous week.

In the backs it was obvious where the threat was coming from. Yeaman scored a hat load this season and Manu breaks tackles for fun. Was I the only one to wonder why Ah Van moved to fullback when Kearney went off and Royston stayed on the wing? Very odd. I think we can deduce that Ah Van is a winger and that's it really. IMO he should be let go at the end of the season.

Not sure what the preparation was like or who played with knocks this week but the side looked short of enthusiasm compared with Hull. Admittedly on paper they have a better side but we can play a lot better than we did yesterday and have shown it against better sides that Hull. Hull struck me as a side that could and should be better than they are and I can see why they're languishing in 8th.

As for us. I'm afraid it'll take a miracle for us to make the 8, we simply lack the quality.