Well, our injuries will be Gardner (up to six weeks) and Soliola (2 to 3 weeks). James Graham has been passed fit as his sternum injury was bruising. No other 'real' injuries registered (presumably 'just knocks').

We will have a total of three young players in our first team for you: Eastmond, Wheeler (on the wing) and Dean (centre). No other changes anticipated, unfortunately. I was hoping Pryce would be dropped ...

You'll still give us a drubbing. No doubt about it.

At one time I thought Leon would have made a cracking loose forward - he would need another 5-6kg of muscle (lots of gym work) but if he kept 95% of his pace with the extra bulk...

So it will probably be

Wellens
Meli
Gidley
Dean
Wheeler
Pryce
Eastmond
Graham
KC
Fozzard
Wilkin
Puletua
Flannery

Moore
Faasavalu
Clough
Roby

VS

Halley
Sheriffe
Sykes
Nero
Reardon
Kearney
Orford
Lynch
L'Estrange
Scruton
Langley
Hall
Menzies

Godwin
Kopzcak
Donaldson
Whitehead/Worrincy/Olbison


I still think it will be a pretty even and tough game for both sides. Hopefully our half-backs will give us the edge (if they have gelled more this week

) as Pryce played like he couldn't care less last week and Eastmond is fairly inexperienced and more of an individual player atm.

Ewwenorfolk - I think you've got Saints' line up pretty much spot on.

If your halfback pairing gel - with each other and the rest of the team - and they adapt to how we do things over here then I can see Bradford being more competitive this season than last. It all depends upon how long that process takes IMO. You had plenty of field position against Hudds but lacked the direction to make it count.

We lack direction, period. Pryce should be moved - to wing or centre or fullback (or out!) because Eastmond I think would make a much better stand off than Pryce and also I am just not convinced Kyle is an organiser so my thoughts are that someone else should play at 7. Either that or we follow the Whinos model and have an organising 13. But our problems run deeper than yours so even without your halfback pairing gelling this weekend, I can still see another drubbing coming for us.

Remember, we haven't scored more than 20 points in a match since June, win or lose.

That is worrying I suppose, although the cricket scores do die down when it gets nearer the play-offs.

I hope we do give you a drubbing

, we just haven't got a brilliant record against Saints and even if you have underlying problems in the squad, i'd still be cautious over a Saints team who've just been beat at home.

June is near the playoffs? I suppose it's nearer than February anyway!




Well ... you beat us at KR last season and since then everyone has beaten us who has previously had issues, bar Warrington. I mean, Hull KR even beat us at KR and they hadn't beaten us there in, what, 50 years? Whatever. Mr Potter is busy breaking all these great little records that used to have the fans all feeling pleased with themselves. We now walk around with tears dripping down our cheeks. Bless.



Anyway. Update on injury: Chris Dean is apparently injured from his match with Widnes (he's on one of those dual contract thingies) and out of action for a couple of weeks so now I have no idea who will take which spot. I can only guess that Wheeler will do the centre work while Lomax will cover for Gardner's wing. I'd certainly like that arrangement as they worked well together last year and it adds a bit of pace to one side of our backline. The other contains Meli, so just keep firing high balls at him and you should score a bucketful.

I hope that pace doesn't exploit us too much, although Pryce doesn't look to be playing with the fire in his belly to get the ball out to his centres, just run it in instead.

Is James Graham a cert to play though, because I'm sure there will be plenty of shoulders aimed at his bruising, as I don't think there'll be many Bulls players feeling sorry for him.

Who is this Pryce guy? Didn't know he played for us ...


Hell yeah. It took three visits from the physio during the match to get him off that pitch and in the end he was ordered off it. We could see he was in pain but unless he's dead, he doesn't go off without a fight.

I meant the pace from Wheeler and Lomax, and I meant that Pryce just looks like he's turning up for his pay packet.

Oh yeah, I know what you meant. I was just being whatever.

Wheeler and Lomax are good little players. How good remains to be seen. But I actually saw Lomax take a guy on the outside when he played on the wing last season - and he scored from it too. This came as Deep Shock to Saints fans on the terraces because it was 2006 when we last saw that happen!

From what i've seen Wheeler is absolute quality, and Lomax has pace to burn compared to most players.

Would you rather field inexperienced halves (Wheeler & Eastmond) than let Pryce turn up and play 6?

Yes.

We don't have a thing to lose. We won nothing last year so the only thing we can miss out on this year is the playoffs and if our standard and style of play continues as it has now since June, we'll be lucky to make the playoffs this season. So I'd say go for broke. In fact, I'd be tempted to follow Leeds' model and have an organising 13 so that both Wheeler and Eastmond could do their thing without the burden of having to organise players around the park. But that's just me.

I mean, if you had a few young players with real potential at Bradford and one of them was being held back by a well paid man who either doesn't know what to do or can't be bothered doing it, and your season was looking like a non-starter, wouldn't you be tempted to throw caution to the wind and let your young guys get some serious game time in to show us what they can do?

You mean like with Michael Worrincy vs Olbison/Whitehead?

Hell, why not?



Saints have been fortunate in that the youth system has thrown up a handful of talented players over the last couple of years. Another one has been promoted from the youth system this year. Just one though as overall they were not as good last season as the previous season. We seem to produce halfbacks but they can adapt to other positions, which is useful. Lomax, Wheeler and Eastmond are all halfbacks, as is the new guy we've just promoted.

It could be years until we see another talented young player coming through the ranks. For some reason, that's the way it seems to work. It's a damn shame not to integrate them while the chance is here, especially when the likes of Pryce are taking up valuable playing space on the pitch but doing precious little until we happen to score a try. It's amazing how he comes to life then!

We'll do you a swap for a second rower?

We've got Danny Addy coming through in the halves, but currently AFAIK we haven't got oo much coming through in the halves. Plenty at every position in the pack, plus a couple of centres aswell.

If you've got a prop then we're on! Do you have any spare props around?


Good news on the centres. The British game needs native centres. For some reason Saints are good at producing halfbacks. So if you need one when your present contingent are returning down under, let us know. I'm sure we'll have a spare one tucked away somewhere.

The good thing about halfbacks is they can play a number of positions equally well.

We'll have another Paul Deacon type one who would be ready to take over from Orford in 3 years.



We've got Straugheir and Crookes coming through in the centres, then Crossley, George and Tom Burgess & Tom Lilycrop coming through in the props. Out of those i'd most like to spare Crossley to swap for a halfback, although he is 19/20 now so not a proper youngster, but still young for a prop.

Bradford produce their own quality halfbacks. We don't need anybody's help.

I'll think you'll find we can handle losing games as long as it looks like our team were trying to win. The booing is for the lack of effort and coordination not the fact we lost.

No probs. Our new guy will be ready to go by then!


Hey, 19/20 sounds good to me. He should be ready just in time to replace Graham who will have turned into a quivvering wreck by then.



Seriously, though, it's good that you have some talent coming through. I'm looking forward to finding out whether the Burgess skills run through the whole family!

Don't be daft. We're just having some banter.

I think it would be cool if clubs specialised in developing players in different positions so that we could then all trade in sound talent, meaning less need for imports, and furnish the England team with enough quality to kill off the Aussies at last!

The RFL will pay you for that scheme



And Bulls4 champs, who apart from Danny Addy do we have who could be pusing for a first team place in the next 2-3 years?

Sounds familiar

I see Graham's been passed fit, which is a damn shame in regards to our chances on Sunday. If he wouldn't have been playing Saints lose their impact prop in Fa'asavalu and arguably their best player in Graham himself.

Well we've just had 2 S/O's promted to the first team this year from the academy, Joe Wardle and Danny Addy.
Like I said Bulls always produce their own quality HB's.