Do you think the weight of expectancy is causing the ever present error count?

Very tight game. 18-18 with 10 mins to go.

Workington using every dirty trick in the book today. Some real house tactics from Leon's men.

We're making real hard work of this. Its uncomfortable watching.

York won 48-6

This isn't going to shift many season tickets for next year is it? Especially if we have to meet Workington Town in the bloody playoffs too. Can you see us getting THAT monkey off our backs?


Not sure I'll be paying £250+ for third division rugby next season either.

I was thinking the same thing. It now looks quite likely that the Bulls will be in the Playoffs rather than going up automatically. If they're in the playoffs, they'll likely have to get through Workington, who have won both games between the two this year.

Promotion is certainly NOT nailed on right now. And they want people to stump up that sort of money for a season ticket. Good luck.

Totally clueless

Yep. Leon must be proud coaching that lot.

But still, it works. And yet again we have no answer because we get sucked into it rather then just playing effing rugby.

What was Flanagan sin binned for btw?

It feels like we've lost a final. That was the 1 game we had to give 110% to win and we bottled it.

We were simply not good enough today. We've been off the pace for weeks and it's caught up with us. Outmatched in every department. JK has a job on his hands if we have to go against Workington again in the play off games.

I cannot see York slipping up now that they have a 2 point buffer. Hopefully Leon will do us a favour and beat them in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, looks like another season in League 1. Think I might got the pub.

If that’s the epitome of league 1 rugby - thugs who want a fight every ptb and officials who don’t want to do anything about it - then I think I’m out anyway:

Listen guys, we can blame the referee all we like - and he [iwas [/iuseless...

BUT....

The truth is we haven't been very good for most of the season. I've been bagged on here for criticising us when we've won easily against teams in this league, but I really believe that we are nowhere close to being as good a team as some seem to think - and definitely nowhere near being good enough for the Championship. If we do go up, we will need a wholesale clear out of this squad.

Workington came today with a great game plan, and executed it perfectly. They fully deserved their win. We were poor. Very poor. Lack of game management, with poor half backs and truly woeful last play options. And our defence was soft - Workington might well have scored more than they did with a little more steadiness.

Top spot has gone now, we are in the Play Offs. That means either a semi or a final against Workington. Can we beat them when the pressure is on? I am not confident of that.

Poor in every department today. If the players were playing to Kear's instructions then he got it wrong today. Our attack was far too flat, no running onto the ball. The 3 halfback idea failed miserably. We don't have the ability to number up and slide when defending from 10-20 metres out and concede some really soft tries. Peltier should have been playing rather than Kirk or Wood, he was fit because he was 18th man. Our centres and wingers are far better than Workington's but didn't get a running chance all game. Ogodo must be wondering why he has come to Bradford. Leon's tactics worked, (like trying to sneak a player off after committing a foul before the ref could speak to him) weather you agree with them or not they got the result and you have to win ugly in this league, like it or not. The referee was pathetic all game. No bottle, putting things on report instead of taking action. I think Leon knew he was soft. Unfortunately if any of their players get banned it will probably for the York game in a couple of weeks. You couldn't make it up.

Shocking game and a ref with no guts we were very poor i only hope the team realise the damage they have inflicted on the club and the rest of us loyal supporters.

Players don't worry too much because they just move on to the next contract. Only us poor suckers get left with the debris.

Absolute boll0cxs today. The players, Kears tactics, the referee. Hang your heads in shame. As another poster said, we bottled it yet again. We've just cannot stand up and be counted when it counts.

Kears tactics have caught up with him. We've seen the weakness of having such a light weight bench and have got away with it because the teams have been rubbish. The team today wasn't a Coventry or North Wales and we got found out. As i said earlier, the decision to have a scrum half, winger and a light weight prop was a shambles. Zero impact.


The referee wasn't the reason we lost but he was an absolute disgrace. How many thuggish shots do we should the players have to put up with. Blatent ignoring of the rules when Workington performed a professional foul. He wasn't the reason we lost. That's because Kear went with a crap bench and team have a soft underbelly.

1St place is gone now. York won't lose another game.

I agree totally Paul. I wrote what I thought was a considered observation a couple of weeks ago after the Crusaders game and got called garbage:

woolly07 wrote:
130 points is what I meant a week ago when I said I felt that "at this time" York seem to be more fluent than us. We are still struggling for large parts of the game and not wiping the floor with teams. Luckily, we do have two so called easy ones near the end but how many on here think we can do a 130-0 score in those games.
I can still see us finishing second which would be disappointing and leave us with a couple of very nervy games playing knockout rugby. Hopefully it will still work out fine and there is nothing to worry about.
I can't even think about being in the knockouts and then having a mare of a game....surely not. Us Bulls fans have been through far too much to have that served to us.


RagingBull
Who even posts this garbage.

Oh dear!

Another big game where we've been left wanting. Thought we got some rotten luck in the freak ball hitting the ref and then no sin bin from that professional foul in front of the posts. We panic far too much for a team of our supposed quality - maybe it is the weight of expectation

Yeah and some more rotten luck where the Bulls player got punched in the face, and Workington got the penalty. Shocking luck that.

Think you hit the nail on the head with the term supposed quality. We do not have a cohesive side in the slightest. We have a maverick probably highly paid half back who is killing us. Chisholm was like a headless chicken at times today and did nothing bar the interception. He needs dropping! And the longer it goes on the longer he will think he’s untouchable. A few kicks to a try scoring freak like Ethan have masked a lot of his guff this year

I think Kear's selections let us down today more than anything. I get the goodwill gesture with Peltier becoming a father earlier in the week but he was there running around as the 18th man so why not play him?
Workington have a big set of forwards, JK must have known this, so to go into this match with only two forwards on the bench left me scratching my head a bit. Why play Pownall on the bench? Was it part of the agreement that he has to play each week? It makes no sense to me. Why not play an actual second rower like Liam Johnson instead of moving Oakes there? Playing in the pack has now resulted in an injury to Oakes, nice work Kear.
Lilley at hooker is also a disaster. Worky just ran at him - and over him - every time they had the ball, he just isn't big enough to be tackling the forwards.
Wood, Kirk and Hallas just aren't good enough. Kirk does not run his weight at all, and makes no attempt to keep his feet after collision.
Even our attacking structure was poor today, just look at the tries we scored. Both Minchella's and Garside's are just driving at the line with absolutely no skills. Where are our set plays, how come we can never create an overlap or put a runner through a gap?

Somebody has just told me one of our fans attempted to confront the referee at the end of the game. Idiot.

P155 p00 w@nk sh17 b@57@rd flipping b0ll0ck5!

I can see York losing to Workington at deferent park but even then we have to consider the play offs are our most likely route now.

I think kear needs to decide on which 2 half backs he wants and drop one. The three half backs doesn’t work. Also I think Flanagan should be captain. The only street wise one out of the lot of them. We were bullied today. It was all on with that ref. He ultimately was the difference between the teams but we have the class on paper for that not to matter. Not good enough.

I've not seen a game for quite a while, but out of interest, who is captain when Lee Smith isn't playing?