Squad is out. Both Milton and Bustin are included.

BRADFORD BULLS:

Andrade,
Brown,
Burnett,
Bustin,
Butterworth,
Crossley,
Garside,
Gibson,
Grant,
Halafihi,
Hallas,
Hodgson,
Johnson,
Keyes,
King,
Kirk,
McNally,
Milton,
Minchella,
Peltier,
Pickersgill,
Rickett,
Ryan,
Smith,
Wood.

Hmm, out of them I'd like to see:

McNally
Brown
Gibson
Smith
Grant
Pickersgill
Keyes
Kirk
Hallas
Crossley
Garside
Hodgson
Minchella

Rest on the bench with Peltier, Butterworth, Wood and Johnson acting as the '4' subs in the first 50 minutes.

The rest on the bench. We know what Grant and Ryan can do so give some game time to Brown and Rickett. Milton and Bustin need game time too but coming back from injury so ease them into it.

Well that was an utter farce. Least we know what to expect throughout the year. Going to be zero protection for the players. Absolute free-for-all

Wasn't best of performances from us. Samir Tahraouri's brain explosion certainly benefitted us as i thought Keighley looked slightly on top at that point.

Improvement needed for next week.

Look at the penalty count, how much protection do you want?
I'll admit our discipline was awful today and probably lost us the game all things considered. Hopefully with league points at stake we'll do a better job of keeping our heads.

Obviously didn't stop you wanting to start a fight every set.

With ball in hand, i thought Keighley looked good. No need for the Bull$h1t.

Edited my first post after realising how it came across, pretty much agree with you.

Agreed. As i said, before Tahraouri(spelling?) losing his cool, i thought Keighley looked on top and played some brilliant rugby with ball in hand. 17 v 17 for 80mins at your place and i don't think we're favourites IMO

What a complete show the second half was. Countless stoppages in play, idiotic behaviour, and a referee that completely lost control of the game. Four sendings off in any game is ludicrous, never mind in a pre season friendly. Can anyone clarify what Ethan Ryan did to deserve a red card? I missed that. Also do red card bans in pre season carry over to the regular season? It was so cold I kept looking over at the clock to find another minute had ticked by, expecting that 5 had gone by, as if I'd stepped into a ridiculously cold space time continuum that was being perpetuated by silly plays and stoppages.

Liam Johnson was good value for his two tries. He ran well, busted loads of tackles, think he won the collision every time he went in and made countless metres. Deserved MoM for me.

Also looked like a medical emergency on the way out. Loads of people crowding round a bloke near the exit to Rooley Lane closest to Top House. Had blood coming from his nose and looked like some was doing CPR. Hope he is ok, whoever he is.

Ryan certainly deserved his red card. He ran into a fracas and jumped over a player to chin someone. Not sure what Minchella did but it had all kicked off.

Samir is spitting at the crowd after being sent off was a bit naughty.

Disappointed with our red cards especially as it was a nothing game.

Their number 7 did that to one of our lot at the end of the first half in the altercation that lead to the first sin binning. No such punishment.

Today’s game reminded me of our first game in the Championship away at Leigh. Some really poor discipline from both sides with the final 15 mins becoming a bit of circus.

The Cougars self imploded today. If they’d have kept their discipline they could have snatched it. Samir’s brain fart after his sin bin swayed the game in our favour. Some good break away attacking rugby from Keighley as well.

Good to see Keyes back from injury and doing the full 80 mins. Not sure who will partner him in the halves for the York game? Garside and Peltier impressed me today.

Any news on McNally’s injury?

Filthy and a certain people of a specific region spring to mind.

Minchella got the red for retaliation. Their player smack Minchella and Minchella clocked him one back. That's what kicked off the huge brawl at the end. No complaints about that in my opinion. You get smacked like that you are entitled to crack them back. Ryan's was for leaping over the crowd of players and chinning someone I think.

All in all Keighley dragged us down to their level. We were poor in parts. Got caught out on our right? hand side a few times. Was happy with Keyes, Johnson and Andrade (in his stint). We'll be better for having this test as the lads now know what to expect.

Samir Tahraoui is absolutely disgusting. Hope he gets a very long ban. The fighting I can accept to some extent. The spitting towards fans was just despicable. Complete tool. I mean you get sin binned then start fighting again on the way off. How stupid is he? Showed more aggression in those 5 minutes than he did in a full season for us



York will be a very tough test. But hopefully we'll be better. Also the fella near the exit had a heart attack I think. I hope he's okay but it didn't look good. Feel for his family.

Worth a view on Bulls TV, seems an eventful match

The man who had a heart attack on his way out sadly passed away last night, a friend of mine. Was stood with him at the game, he left the game with a few minutes to go, said his goodbyes to everyone and said see you all at York next week, unbelievable
Was a long time friend of the family

Very sorry to hear that. RIP.

Tragic, RIP and sympathy to friends and family

Very sorry to hear that. RIP

Yes it's terrible, one minute everything's fine, laughing and joking and then a few minutes later that happens

Sad to hear someone died after them game so condolences to his family and friends.

As for the game, it was a disgrace to be honest, if this is division 3 then the game isn't worth a light. The penalty count said everything, imo Keighley just came for a fight, which was disappointing as they actually played quite well at times. I'd have preferred us to have played all starting players (the ones available) as I'm pretty sure JK pretty much knows who they are going to be and then stuck to just using 17, rather than the wholesale use of subs which both sides used. Maybe Kear had a good idea how the game was going to turn out and didn't want to take the risk. I realise the ref was pretty inexperienced and I hope he's learnt from it but I sincerely hope that we have stronger referees for our league encounters if some of our opponents turn out to have an attitude more like renegade pub teams.

* with apologies to pub teams, most of whom take the game quite seriously.

I thought the pattern for the game was set early on when Keyes took an elbow to the head after kicking. It was ignored by the ref. To be fair to him he blew up an awful lot but it didn't seem to stop the ill discipline.

I was disappointed that we got dragged into it at the end with two important players getting sent off. I can understand the frustration but the punishment is worse.

Keighley showed the can play when they're not head hunting. They need to sort their discipline out. I agree it all descended into a pub team brawl by the end.

It seems weird that Keighley wanted to do nothing but fight, weren't they the ones squealing when Sharleston did it to them? Pontificating about how despicable it was?

RIP Sir. Condolences to the chaps friends and family.
Terribly sad news.

When they played rugby they looked quite decent but they gave so many penalties away for headshots and technical offences I think they got frustrated. That then put them off the good stuff and it became a bit tit for tat. I think the weather closing in didn’t help either as that put a halt to both temas spreading the ball so it became a war of attrition .

There were a couple of incidents that should have been dealt with better and I think the young ref will learn a lot from that game. I think if he’d laid the law down early things wouldn’t have got out of hand. Two incidents spring to mind. One where Liam Johnson appeared to tackle one of their players late should have resulted in a yellow card for him and the retaliator who then threw punches. Instead it wasn’t properly dealt with and it led to further incidents as players sought retribution. Then the spear tackle that the ref only blew for on the touch judge’s intervention. That only resulted in a penalty when a yellow card would’ve been more appropriate.

The incident with Samir getting red carded also warmed things up but he only had himself to blame.

Each of these incidents and other head shots and niggle just wound players up and the all in brawl had a bit of inevitability about it. Like I said I was disappointed with Ryan and Minchella for getting red carded. I can understand the frustration but Ryan in particular got sucked in big style. His Kelvin Skerrett style contribution to the last brawl was way OTT and he deserved the red card. That sort of thing is for pub rugby and I was surprised at him as he’s never even been spoken to by a ref before. I hope Minchella avoids a ban as he’s very important to us. In fact I thought our best attacking came when he combined with Keyes.

Sorry to hear about the bloke passing away. Thoughts are with his family.