Sooo without Sammut, Foster and Chev, what do we recon our startgin line up will be:

1. Kearney
2. Kear
3. Blythe
4. Lulia
5. Platt
6. Addy
7. Gale
8. Scruton
9. Heath
10. Sidlow
11. Bateman
12. Olbison
13. Donno

14. Langley
15. Roberts
16. Nas
17. Disko/O'Brien

Purtell will get nod ahead of Platt I'd imagine. Suspect Langley will be in a 2nd row spot with Evans beings 4th prop. Roberts to be 18th man.

Bradford Bulls 19-man squad: James Donaldson, Brett Kearney, Tom Olbison, Adam Sidlow, Luke Gale, Elliot Kear, Nick Scruton, John Bateman, Heath L’Estrange, Michael Platt, Keith Lulia, Adrian Purtell, Adam O’Brien, Manase Manuokafoa, Danny Addy, Jamie Langley, Matt Diskin, Matty Blythe and Ben Evans.

Kearney
Kear
Blythe
Lulia
Purtell
Addy
Gale
Nas
Diskin
Scruton
Bateman
Olbison
Langley

Heath
Donaldson
Sidlow
Evans

Platt and O Brien to miss out imo.

Must win game tomorrow seeing as Hull KR and Saints both picked up 2 points this weekend.

Must win game even if they lost if we lose I fear our season is dead and buried as I don't think we can get anything meaning full from our other games.

I have to agree. If we lose tomorrow it's going to be a real struggle.

Can't believe Hull KR won away in Catalans. That's pretty much ballsed up most predictions now.

We really needed Rovers to lose against every team they played who are above them in the table.
I think them beating Catalans tonight is probably the end of our playoff hopes.

It certainly will be if we don't win tomorrow

We HAVE to beat Widnes now, or its basically season over

Probably if we loose against Widnes we might be out of the top 8 but that's not a certainty.

Hull FC have the easiest run in with only 2 games against top 4 teams -Huddersfield and Wigan with 2 games agianst top 8 contenders Hull Kr & Bradford

Hiull KR have 2 top 4 teams to play in Wigan & Wolves + games v Saints & Hull FC contending for the top 8.

The Bulls play Wolves, Wigan and Huddersfield out of the top 4 then top 8 contenders Hull and Catalans.

Catalalns are drawn into the fight for a top 8 spot after their recent loss. they play Huddersfield, Wigan, Leeds, Wolves out of the top 4 and Saints and Bradford for competition for the top 8.

It's not going to be the games, it will be the psychological factor of another loss, I realy dont think we could recover from it confidence will wane and it will be like 2010 where we lost 12 or so games on the trot.

Finishing 9 is nothing to be sniffed at considering everything of last year and the fact we are on half the cash of everyone else and that they have divided up the money themselves, would would be nice to get into the 8 and have a decent go at it. Either way if we do get into the 8 we will most likely play wigan.

And it lose bob not loose

If we finished 8th we'd play the 5th placed team in the play offs, I doubt that will be Wigan.

Isnt there club call this year?

Not in week 1.

Realistically now I can't see us making the 8 after Hull KRs result yesterday,one result won't end our season but looking at each others fixtures that really wasn't on their list of possible wins.They still have maybe 4 probable wins,which would be too much for us

Today is must win. Our home games are going to be key, especially Hull & Catalans.

I think predictions go out of the window towards be end of be season (who would have thought we would have gone to Wigan and beat them last year)

We have to take each game as it comes.

Agreed.

A win keeps our play off hopes alive.

A loss and I feel we won't have enough time to make up the ground.

COYB

18-10 at HT a vastly improved display from bulls, some dodgy tacking still lurking around.

Dodgy call from hicks saying Brown was dragged to touch he was tackled by Kearney who in the process of tackling took him over the line if anything it was a push, but he fell with the tackle out of touch don't know how he came to that decision or a drag.

Some work still to do attacking play seems to he kicking up a gear we have paniced once or twice in thir 20 but a massive improvement from what we saw last, just have to shore up defense abit but looking promising.

28-32 dire 2nd half just like we are used to platts try was the only highlight

Anyone else got deja vu? Remember as we plunged into the abyss with Mr M in charge and only began to climb out when Potter took over? Second half losses and lousy defence have to be down to the coach...

As soon as we went behind I knew the game was gone. Zero confidence in the Bulls squad at the minute.

Poor.

Why did we lose?

Well, the first point is that nobody in the bulls squad seemed to have noticed that there was a howling gale down the pitch from the Rolley end. Widnes regularly killed us with it all second half long.

The second point is what passes for our goal-line "defence", especially (but by no measn exclusively) in the area formerly known as Walker. You know that your defence is shiitt when you get a third of a century put past you at home by a team like Widnes, but the depressing thing is that, as so many times in recent seasons, you just KNOW that once the opposition is in our 20, they WILL score, and you just KNOW that they will basically WALK in, unchallenged.

Finally you just know that a couple of times at least the Bulls will be in pole position attacking the opponents' line, when they will gift long range scores. Those two pathetic attempts at last-play kicks would be risible by a 9 year old, but then to see Paddy have time to take the ball with nobody near him, get into gear, and stroll unchallenged for a hundred yards was really taking the mick.

Desperate times. Don't ask me how to fix it, there was probably much fine play to be admired by the Bulls but it counts for absolutely nothing when they lace it with so many pieces of dross. But if there was a place to start, it would be in trying to work out why our goal line defence looks like we have 3 men defending a line a mile long. Nothing new at all, sadly, but absolutely shocking nonetheless.

As I keep saying,guile at halfback and pace somewhere in the team FFS.

Widnes had Brown commanding the middle from half back and was different class and the speed of Hanbury from full-back.Widnes have pace and guile,something the BULLS need if they are gonna compete.Many players in that team are just not good enough.They have to stop kidding themselves.
Widnes are not a bad side though,far from it.

Let's see who they get rid of and who they bring in for next season.

Jeez,the sages on here can't even blame Elliot for thisicon_smile.gif

Glad I didn't go,season over before end of June

Christ. That has to be THE worst game of the season. With respect to Widnes, we should not lose a game like that from 18-4 up. Pathetic.
Wtf was Gale doing on those "kicks" to the corner. And I'm sorry, Paddy is no speedster is he, yet not one of our cart horses could catch him. Absolutely dire.

Still at least the season is over now, and I can stop giving a sh11t, and maybe enjoy watching some decent rugby from whichever team is next up to beat us.