No more trouble than many of the experienced players have landed us in today though, Adey.

Rest Lynch for one of the Burgess lads or Crossley, they are in the squad for a reason, use them I say, what's the point having them if you arn't going to use them when one of your players are playing injured.

We arn't using to many at once, look at Saints and Leeds and Wigan, what do they do when their senior players are injured? Blood a youngster right?

It doesn't do them any harm and does them a lot of good playing alonside senior players and against senior players.

Anyhow, if we lost with a few academy players in then I'm sure people would be more leniant to the loss.

Whitehead, Addy, Donno or Wardle haven't let anybody down in general, so there's no reason to fear giving anybody else a shot.

I think Whitehead needs a rest now aswell, so whats wrong with giving our other highly rated backrower Olbison the chance to stake his claim?

What a load of utter shiite.
Was going to rant at length, but, like the vast majority of our players today, I can't be d.

My thoughts are that we are blooding the wrong players some times. Perhaps today we should have played Addy or Wardle and Burgess. Or Southernwood and Burgess...We have three Props in the U20's who could rotate each week, see if any stands out and that way give Lynch a rest. I imagine we will be without Scruton next week so who will cover for him? Lynch starting and on the bench maybe? He's injured and still playing and I might be wrong but injuries don't usually get better by playing through them do they?

Well, it might be an "excuse", or else it may have some truth in it. Have you considered that?

You are being harsh, actually, becaue you just said "Just how long do you use this reason/excuse, seriously?". How short is your memory? Or was I watching some other team that played bloody marvellous against bot Leeds and Wire? Yes it's a bad loss, and no I am not happy (nor should anyone be) at watching us perform at that level (whatever the reasons), but "Just how long" could only be valid after a string of crap performances (such as occurred at times last year). Not after 80 minutes?

The team was lacking energy throughout, (the incredible Menzies, tbf, excepted) but (as one who several times last year criticised the team for not trying) today I did not see it as lack of effort. If I had, I would say so. We were just not good at all today.

And the fact is we will never know just exactly who is carrying injuries to what extent, as for obvious reasons, no club is fully frank on that score, but - just like Orford last week - you can often plainly see who isn't 100%. The decision as to whether they play, or a young 'un goes in, is not easy but I wouldn't think being on the wrong side of a 50 point tonking would do much good for any teenager making a debut.



It is indeed. The curious question would be why, in the same post, you berate people for, as you see, it, making reams of 'excuses', yet specifically ask for this week's 'excuses'. What would you have said the other week when Wire put 60 past Huddersfield? It's a shame you aren't in charge there, as they wouldn't have had a chance to come and beat us today, you'd have had team and coach lined up and shot. Yet Warrington were lucky to squeak a narrow win against us.

I would say that each game, one team usually wins and the other loses. Occasionally, one gets a pasting, like we did today. I find it quite normal for fans to discuss the reasons, as they see them, for the result, and it would be strange if they didn't. It is a bit tiresome for you to imply that all such discussion should be banned, as it is all just 'excuses'. But as we are discussing specifically the Bulls v Hudds game of 06 June 2010 in this thread, I am afraid that you will have to live with the fact that people can validly search for, analyse and discuss the reasons behind the loss, yet not be in any way making 'excuses'. It [imight[/i just be what they actually [ithink[/i, and for you to globally label all past and present discussion as just 'excuses' is just the usual drama queen arrogance on your part. But you contribute nothing to the discussion.

In my opinion, the last two games are the key to today's performance, and the list of injuries, both to personnel in the squad who played regardless, and vital personnel out of the squad namely Orford, Kearney and Langley, could be described as the lock.

Huddersfield, at the same time, found some of their best form and took full advantage and credit to them for flogging us whenever the chance arose.

Obviously a very poor result and a number of players looked tired and not interested. I could moan all day but would rather look at the some positives, or one positive as that's all I can find! The youngsters played well today, Kopchak had his best game for us and him and Addy worked well in defence together. Wardle looks to have good pace which is something we miss, he showed this a couple of times, once on the rare occasion we were attacking and he showed good speed with the break on the wing, the second time being when he tracked back to put the ball dead.

For me today the let down was our uninterested backs, the pack on the whole played with heart and effort, they battled to get us in decent positions to be completely let down by the backs time after time.

I suspect Lynch is still playing because it's not making his injury worse and he really needs surgery to fix the problem. We saw today what happens when our forwards are well beaten and losing Lynch's experience for any length of time would weaken us.
Would those advocating putting Crossley or a Burgess in give more lenience to that sort of display or would it just be another excuse?

My point of view is that Lynch needs to be fixed as long as it's not season ending and I'd like to see one of the U20 forwards getting a go as soon as Langley is back. I will accept that they will make mistakes and occasionally get beaten in exchange for the gains medium (a fit Andy Lynch) and long term (more forwards with first team experience).

Today was shocking and nobody was deserving of a MOM award.

Apart from 4 or 5 performances our squad did not look up for it from the hooter. Our mental toughness of recent weeks deserted us and we lacked leadership & ideas on the pitch. On the day the better team won too easily and I fear the manner of the defeat does not bode well for the second half of the campaign.

I disagree with those who slagged off our forward play, with them handling the threat of Crabtree/Mason etc) and felt it was our backs that could not match the Huddersfield backs for inventiveness and we therefore struggled to break the Huddersfield defence throughout the 80 minutes.

The sooner our new boss is announced and the players can start to play for their futures, the better.

As someone who has now and again called for Macca to go, I thought i'd stick my two penneth in. This wasn't a loss like the one to Wire last year where we looked hopeless and hapless, this came about because we've played two big games back to back, have lost key players - Orford, Kearney, Langley and have a fairly limited squad anyway, particularly in terms of impact from the bench. Glen Hall got a kick in the face early on and looked to be in a lot of pain, Lynch is obviously playing with an injury and without Orford we lack any direction in attack. Sykes is ok as a 6 with a creative scrum half but otherwise he sticks almost religiously with to the same plays irrespective of what is in front of him, which is a gift to any defense worth its salt.

Added to that Hudds gameplan was spot on, they kicked early behind the wingers throughout the first quarter and had a good kick chase, forcing our forwards to do more yards and backing themselves to keep us penned in with their larger pack. It worked a treat. Once we caved the points were rattled up easily. Childs didn't help us but he wasn't the issue today. Could we have responded to this gameplan and gone wide earlier or scooted more from dummy half, probably, but that needed someone like Orford who can read the game and play what's in front of them, Sykes can't do that, L'estrange tried but without the organisation and with the forwards struggling that was always going to be a big ask.

I have no issue with the effort displayed, I thought Lynch, Scruton, Beaver (of course), Whitehead, Platt, Koppy and Worrincey, all put in big efforts, but were largely beaten by Hudds combinations at 1/6/7/9 and by their pack running hard and a decent gameplan that picked out our weaknesses.

TBH, I think lots of us knew today would be a massive ask without Orford and so it proved, I don't think it's the end of the season (or the world) and I don't know how Macca could have done much about it, the effort was there, but the extra resources (in bodies) and creativity weren't, but that's down to injuries not poor coaching. Hudds have a good squad and played well today.

We need some extra impact at prop and the sooner that's remedied the better, I haven't seen much of the Burgii but wonder if they are still too far away from full SL level debuts?

One way to find out would be to play one of them!!!!!

I did not really expect us to win today after the last 2 matches, however, the size of the defeat is a shock, I watched a team who looked tired after 10 minutes and lacked co-ordination for most of the match. You can not blame Mcaca for the attitude of the team on the pitch they just lost interest after the first 2 tries, we hear the team trying to get more fans into the ground to support them, after this performance they will have undone a lot of good work.

And as someone who now and again has not always seen eye to eye with you over the coach situation, I'm happy to say that post strikes me as spot on, other than I think some of the players looked like they had given it up in their heads before they came out on the park. And that manifested itself in them looking tired and not putting in the effort.

The club are still saying the Burgii are a way of SL level. Others who watch them will be better-qualified than me to comment on that.

Hopefully this is the kick up the backside the team needs to get motoring towards the end of the season and not a demoralising defeat that sees the team's heads drop and begin a run of lacklustre performances.

Unless we have a demoralised Team on the road weakened with the loss of Scruton and Crusaders take advantage. This is then followed by another embarrassing defeat at home by an on form Warrington! We are then back to fighting for a play off place.

It's pretty obvious that we are now paying the price of a paper-thin squad. We took a calculated risk by offloading a lot of deadwood at the end of last season (something widely advocated on this forum IIRC) and pumping our playing budget into two or three high profile signings. Unfortunately injuries have only made things worse as well - being without three of most experienced players today didn't help...

I've just been watching Quins vs Crusaders and Eddie mentioned that Quins had now used 31 players this season (the 31st came on for a debut today). I checked on the Bulls website and we have used just 22, of which two would seem to have been used somewhat reluctantly as a last resort due to injuries (Wardle and Addy).

With Donaldson now out for the season and three key players out with injury, the team is more or less picking itself at the moment. There simply isnt anyone to bring in with first team experience - which is presumably driving the talk about loan signings.

Without wishing to make this a Macca bashing post, I think we are now reaping the results of an over cautious approach to blooding people from our Academy over the past 12-18 months. For example we have seen about two minutes of Olbison, and Crossley has never even been on the bench. Hyde never got a chance. Now he's more or less had to blood Wardle and Addy - which he seemed reluctant to do. My impression is that teams like Saints and Leeds seem much more willing to give young players a shot - not over playing them, but bringing them along gradually, rotating them as necessary - and as a result they seem to have 18 and 19 year olds with much more game time than our lads.

The result is that Lynch is clearly playing through an injury. It is surely only a matter of time before he breaks down and will need an operation. Then what will we do? There are probably others playing with knocks etc.

The worry is that there's no way I can see things improving anytime soon, unless we can get a couple of experienced people on loan - and who is there out there to get?

Absolutely agree. I said at the start of the year that we lacked a forward who could punch holes into the defence or make an impact from the bench. However there wasn't anyone we could have signed back then of a high enough quality and I doubt that situation has changed.

I understand fans are desperate to address the lack of 'punch' from our Props but I can also understand the coaching staff protecting the twins. If they are going to 'make it' then I think they should be picked when they're ready, not just thrown in because the 1st team are struggling. Pity the loan signing fell through, pretty much any SL standard Prop would be welcome right now, especially a 'big un'.

I got to wondering whether we should have asked that very big, and very very good, singer at half time whether he had any boots with him...

I remarked before the game that Mr Anderson looked like he could still do a job for us. Even at jogging pace he looked pretty fearsome! Those days seem like a lifetime ago now..

1998 I think it was...I was in the changing rooms at Cedar Court same time as Big Paul and Warren Jowett were getting changed after a swim. Both of them were both huge (no wisecracks, guys!) and very solid. All muscle. I said to Paul "who the hell in their right mind would want to tackle you guys?" Paul's answer - too many, unfortunately! (both were recovering from ruptured ACLs at the time).

There's nothing wrong with lads chatting and mucking around in the changing rooms together I can't see what there is to make a wisecrack about.

Mac in agrees with ME shock!!!

As I said

Statement of fact, could be viewed (and is by me) as one reason, but specifically not an excuse.

As I said

As I said, that Warrington match and what we put into it is a key factor. Not an excuse, but one reason.

Coming as it does from someone who is independent, and knows a bit, are we allowed at least to [iread [/ithat? (Even if we are not allowed to utter it lest it be viewed as an 'excuse')?

TBH i think Dave Halley needs to be dropped, can't remember the last time he broke the first line of defence, and his support play isn't good enough for a full back. Reardon has to be moved to full back for the next game and have Sheriffe and Wardle on each wing. We need to rotate the squad and atleast 1 of the Burgess brothers has to be brought in to take some of the work from the forwards. Lynch is obviously carrying an injury and should be rested before our big home games coming up. For me i'd use the Crusaders game to adjust the squad, try Addy from scrum half is Orford isn't fit, use Reardon at full back, and add another forward maybe Crossley or either Burgess. Another thing thats on my mind, don't know if its just me or is Glenn Hall very unfit? Seems to last 15 minutes then he's on his knee's on the touchline coming off knackered.

He seems to be lacking some fitness, hardly does anything and is blowing from his backside after 10 mins.

I suspect Hall was sick, and if that was the case he shouldn't have played!

Why do you suspect that? Or did you mean to write s h i t instead of sick?

Reardon to FB, lucky not to have been binned today