To be honest you could say the same about us over the last 10 years. Plus you would have to put on the minus side all the shenanigans at Odsal over the last 4 years.

I think it's more a matter of potential, to be honest.

potentially we have a 'big crowd' to offer, with a half successful team. We've also produced a number of England internationals over the last 10 years, though very few were actually playing for us when they made their international appearances. That said the Burgesses, Brett Ferres, Ryan Atkins and quite a few other, highly regarded, regular SL players - Kopczak, Bateman, Whitehead etc etc, were developed through the Bulls' junior system.

The game has been in fact littered with excellent Bradford products which circumstances meant we couldn't keep, Leon Pryce, Sam Burgess, Tom Burgess, George Burgess, Jamie Peacock, John Bateman, Ryan Atkins, Chris Bridge, Brett Ferres, Elliott Whitehead, it's a long list.

And it is of course the "shenanigans" that have cost us many of these players over the years, we've paid a very heavy price, repeatedly, for shenanigans. Shenanigans have been more than fully paid for. But like a payday loan with 3000% interest it's the gift which keeps on taking.

Quite fitting that we're sponsored by Provident.

Who's our new sponsor that's being announced at the weekend, anyone?

As well as having had good players can we have any kudos for producing good coaches from our good players - e.g. Brian McDermott, Paul Anderson, Jimmy Lowes (sorry, had to sneak that one in)

You forgot the established coach of the international team

No he did not. If you re-read his post you will see that he was talking about developing good coaches out of our good players.

McNamara does not meet this criteria in any way so he was rightfully omitted from the examples provided.

Sure. McNamara was a completely useless player, his record speaks for itself, and having coached England to a great performance and agonizingly unlucky last minute defeat to the World Champions, is clearly useless at that too.

Also, you don't need to have been a "good player" to make it as a coach.

I never said that you had to have been a good player in order to make a good coach so I would appreciate it if you did not make the suggestion that I did. I also never questioned his ability as a player.

As a coach though he led us from being World Champions to a laughing stock, won us nothing and has managed to lead England to a terrific third place finish in a tournament that only three teams have any chance of winning, AT HOME, to a team that were then utterly mullered in the final.

Yeah. Terrific.

With respect, I made no such suggestion. I simply made a valid observation.


With respect, you plainly did:

He does not make in any way because he is not a good coach.

As you well know.

Fancy you being pedantic FA.

If you can't actually write what you mean to say, it's not my fault. It isn't pedantic to be able to count to 2. The 2 criteria were "good player" as well as "good coach" and you clearly said he didn't meet the criteria.

Maurice Bamford anyone ??

Are you actually that arrogant to think that you can still try to convince people that McNamara was anything but a failure?

Anyway, I will leave it there and hopefully this can now get back on topic.

EDITED - PUMPERS

Apart from the "you deserve everything, you got etc." brigade. The posts are fairly sensible! However what we have missed here is the strategic situation that applied to all the middle 8 clubs, and of course the top eight in SL, Halifax for example stated they weren't interested in getting into SL this year, accordingly they stated the extra £250k would be used to grow their playing base, should they finish above Leigh, which they did. The strategy from the Bulls could have been, we can't be knocked off the 2nd spot and it is important we don't suffer any more injuries for the £m game. The same applied to Wakefield who had the benefit of playing the day after us, so knew what they had or hadn't to do. The SL teams who were out of the top 4 and didn't have a chance of gaining a semi final spot, also gave up the ghost where results didn't matter.
So all in all 10 clubs in the two tiers didn't have anything to play for in the Super and Middle 8s.
And with the so called £m game? Wakefield had home advantage against a weakened Champ side who had the impossible task of playing a team who had played at a more intense level all season. P&R was never going to happen was it? At least Halifax-Leigh and Sheffield perhaps realised it before causing themselves too much additional grief.

I very much doubt you will leave it there, as you have no interest in topics, you just come out with ad hominem and co insults, with your regular straw men thrown in. But that is what you enjoy. For my part I will just continue to stick to the subjects.

On McNamara I am neither trying nor wish to "convince" anyone of anything. I just advance my opinion, and where relevant, back it up with facts. Such as McNamara was made, and remains, the England/GB coach, and a good fist he has made of it so far too. Which is presumably why he remains in post. I'm not "trying" to tell you this. It is true. It really annoys you, and that makes it better.



Oh, and you are trying to deflect attention from your faux pas, in accidentally suggesting McNamara was also not a good player. He was. Very good.

Or indeed the inverse where utterly superb players turn into dreadful coaches. Gary Schofield being a wonderful player, but a god-awful coach, terrible pundit and all round gob of epic proportions. Ellery Hanley a staggering athlete but appeared to combine the strange qualities of incredible arrogance and below average IQ post-retirement.

I'm sure there are many others.

TBF Maurice Bamford did have quite the best moustache

The skillset is different from playing to coaching and lots of top players don't make the grade as coach.

Compare, Neil Fox, incomparable as a player but gave up coaching almost before his career got started; Peter Fox, very average as a player, but achieved just about every honour in the game as a coach.

If Peter Fox had been the coach for the MPG then we would have won.

Ah, yes, but he'd have brought back Johnny Wolford at stand off and Jackie [the hand-off Austin on the wing.....no matter how old they are now,.... how could we have lost with those two in the side?

And Ian Van Bellen off the bench in place of Lauaki

Come to think of it, might have been a better option!

Selwyn in place of Luaki is a no brainer!

It's funny really, when he first joined Northern he was a big pudding but Foxy got him to use his weight and he became a real wrecking ball. I'm trying to think of someone else who might be persuaded to try the same tactics....

That was Foxy's great strength (and he wasn't short of them) - convincing.. ahem... veteran players that in fact they were approaching the peak of their careers, and watching them prove him right.

Players like Woolford, Nigel Stephenson, Neil Fox, Ian van Bellen, Jimmy Thompson and the rest, inspired by the one and only Peter Fox, would have murdered Wakefield in a game like the MPG. And regularly did, when Wakey were a decent side.