That was the worst performance I've seen from us ever since we were relegated. In that first half they looked like a bunch of players who had never even trained together before. Addy at hooker doesn't work, and Mathers/Thomas in the halves was also a disaster. The distribution was at a snail's pace and the Dewsbury defence were on the receivers before they even had the ball because of how slow it was.
No attacking structure whatsoever, no opportunity for Clare to push up as the extra man, no early ball to the centres. The only time our wingers touched the ball was when they collected from dummy half for a scoot.

It was just so bad I'm still in slight disbelief at what I was watching. I cynically thought, after the Leigh game, that some of our guys were trying extra hard simply because of the occasion - against Leigh on Sky with all those SL scouts keeping a keen eye on potential signings. They were playing for contracts elsewhere.
Having seen the dross those same players served up today, I'm now convinced that was the case.

Even Marc Green in his programme notes today was speaking about the upcoming middle 8s. So even the chairman is complacent. God knows what happens if we finish outside the top 4 - the central funding will be peanuts by comparison, season ticket sales will no doubt drop off, and Green doesn't have the financial clout to cover it. In other words, we will be completely and utterly screwed.

I bet Rohan Smith is wondering what he's taken on. We're crap and we know we are but more importantly so do the other teams. They know that they have a chance against a limp wristed set of farts.

And for the sake of Jesus H Christ, can we please scour the earth, outer space or the lower reaches of the Pennine League for someone who can play at scrum half.

Bring back Lowes

Do you think Leigh will lend us one of their six scrum halves?

Ferres has probably not even noticed....

I didn't know his middle name began with H ,what is the H for?

Hedley.

Hominum

We very often are crap, to varying degrees, but I really wouldn't mind so much if I didn't know that the players are all capable of playing like they did against Leigh. That's what I find as hard to take as anything.

It's not H it's F.

Me too, speaking as a Leyther!

Why do you have to raise your game whenever you play us?

Although it wasn't great, I think you're forgetting how utterly terrible we were against Sheffield a couple of months back. To give us a bit of credit I thought the defence held up well for the most part considering how much pressure we were under in the first half. It was just our attack was particularly blunt in the first 40, and not much better in the second.

In an era where a full back is essentially a 3rd half back, you lot are effectively playing with 1. James Clare should be the best winger in the competition, he's fast, tall, gangly, his best features suit the wing , not a creative role of full back. Mathers is a full back, not a half, thus a lot of pressure on the young lad, who will be a good player but ain't gonna get you out of the slight rut you are in.

Frustrating. Angry and we have one hell of a battle on our hands now. Still think we'll make 4th. Just! Our completion was a complete disgrace in that first half. Forget having no HBs. We could have had Wally Lewis and Andrew John's in that first half and it wouldnt have made a difference if you drop it on the 1st and 2nd tackle.

Addys missed kick though. It was easy and at 14 -14 we can start thinking about drop goal. Simple kick missed AGAIN! Then we're chasing a try in the last 15 mins.
Yes we played dire but still doesn't excuse that kick which would have given us a chance of nicking something from the game. Kicking duties need to change.

Olbison Haggerty and Pitts all had shockers. I think a rest for all 3 is needed. Lumb and O'Brien need to be the interchange hookers. Addys distribution is just too slow.

Thought bringing Thomas off was a mistake. He looked more threatening than Mathers.

Massive week coming up with Workington Oldham and Batley. Batley could kill our season and we have a lovely timed mid-week fixture just before. lovely!

Is it possible that with the euphoria of Smith arriving and a decent loss last week we were starting to get too giddy about our prospects.
At a time when Smith will be making a list for targets and assessing current players this might be the best thing for us as long as it is one game. Last week possibly papered over the cracks. Today pulled that paper off and showed the full truth of what is really under it. We keep telling ourselves we have good SL quality players but they perform exactly like poor championship players. Something has to change. Either the players up their game or we actually let many of them go and bring in fresh faces and start again in November. Many of us said that the biggest danger for us in staying in the championship for too long as we will come down to their level and end up being an average championship team. Well, it has happened. We now see playing a mid table team as a big game. Our standards are now on the floor. We are still dreaming SL but actually living mid table Championship.
We can't afford to miss out on the top four in financial terms. I am getting pi$$ed of with one decent game followed by a week of nice comments in the paper and then this to bring us all down to earth.
How does a professional RL team expect to play for a season and half without a scrum half? Ferress and Lowes have a lot to answer for.
I hope Smith gives it another few weeks and then walks into Ferress's office with a list of demands that must be achieved for next season. Losing isn't a problem in sport but what we saw today is embarrassing.

There it was Rohan,all you needed to know.Hope your contacts come good,because otherwise you're looking for miracles.

Didn't think it could gt this bad, especially after last week. Can't be bothered looking back to who said Addy was crap but he probably made the best two clean breaks of the game. Was anybody backing up, no, and this is where we miss a good full back, for all Clares good work he's no Mullaney/Withers, perhaps Moss might be the answer, hope so. as everyone alludes, Rohan your job starts now!!

Smith has clearly lost the dressing room. Lets hope the players follow suit.

There was no doubting that Warren Turley was totally inept. He was so easily duped by play acting and stalling tactics that the comparison to a WWE referee is spot on. However he could have sin binned 5 of Dewsbury's team in the second half and we still wouldn't have scored any more.

I was pleased with the defence. Sure there was one soft try, but generally they defended well. But the attack was absolutely awful, and when you can't even score with the Dewsbury lads absolutely out on their feet, it's very worrying.

Man of the match for me was the turf. It caught more Bradford passes than any player did.

I know Rohan has said in his post match that the performance wasn't about the current playing roster, but surely he doesn't believe that? It was clear for all to see we needed organisation and a cool head, something which Mathers apparently couldn't be ar*ed doing this week.

Any neutral who watched that game will tell you how poor Leigh were in the majority of that game. They gifted Bradford so much possession in the 1st half they should have been out of sight. It was a luxury that they probably could not have afforded against any of the teams in the top 5 but as we saw late in the game Leigh had plenty in the tank when needed and to win a game when playing like that is probably the sign of a good team.

On the positive side I thought we defended pretty well, to be fair.......

On the negative side we were just awful in everything else we did. No point blaming the referee - yes he was pretty poor but it certainly wasn't him who cost us the game.

You have no idea how much effort I'm putting in to avoiding describing the actual role of a WWE referee.

Oh I know all about it. It's largely about the communication between the wrestlers, passing messages back and forth and from his earpiece. But the point remains about the oblivious nature of them to rule breaking or shenanigans. The difference being that theirs is deliberate, whereas Mr. Turley just seemed useless.

Not coming on to troll.. Just can't believe how much hate addy gets from some Bulls fans! Every time I watch him in impressed the only 2 players with half a chance of getting in our team are himself and obrian both quality young players! People like mathers and Thomas should be the ones getting the flak! Totally void of any attacking skill. You have got the pack there you just need a good 7 to put along side addy and you will be fine!

Addy gets a lot of stick because things are expected of him that he’s not able to deliver. He’s become the fall guy a bit like Paul Sykes who was asked to fill in where he wasn’t suited. It’s not his fault as much as those whose failings have led to him having to do that job.

That said the missed conversion was awful. I could’ve kicked that.

A thing that struck me was the lack of game awareness or “rugby brain” on display. When you’re lacking a playmaker it’s all the more important to give the stand in some more options and to make sure there’s loads of supporting runners and people giving options to the ball carrier. On the rare occasions we made half breaks yesterday there was no support. Players were all ball watching and not getting involved. It’s not been the first time that’s happened but we now seem unable to create anything outside of a dummy half scoot or a kick to the wing. When was the last try we scored by passing through hands?

Actually, the 'Bash' wasn't the game I was thinking about - it was the one at Odsal where we were 32-6 up with 15 minutes left, and hardly a Bulls' fan left in the ground. They scored 26 points in those last 15 minutes and, if the game had gone on another two minutes, they'd have won! We didn't have anything left in the tank that day.

As for the sign of us being a 'good team', I still can't make up my mind on that one. Perhaps this season we are doing things differently - playing average throughout the season, and then stepping it up in the Qualifiers?!