Massively important win after a tough week with late withdrawals to boot. Showed real
Composure to come up with points. Hopefully a few bodies back for an equally important game next week.

As has been said a good 2 points earned without being spectacular. Trying too hard at times consequently balls going to ground, but with at least 5 players absent who you would consider starting players it's a good win. Moss was excellent, on a couple of their breaks he was the last line of defence and nailed the ball carrier. My man of the match was Clough, how hard and direct does he run for a man who some might say is a little lacking in stature.

I agree that's one we'd have lost a couple of months ago. But the one priority Smith has is to win by any means necessary, and the team - however badly they play - have clearly bought into that. In fact, watching the 2nd half, I found myself pretty confident that we would find a way to win. It was a strange experience.

Not much point in analysing the performance, given the circumstances and the disruption, I'll just very much settle for the 3 wins in a week.

John Kear appears to be seething with Joe Cobb in the post-match press conference which has just been uploaded to Bulls TV. He thinks that the Pitts try was grounded in goal and shouldn't have been given. From my position it looked like the Batley man simply spilt the ball as he was going to ground.

Mick Gledhill has since confirmed on Twitter that the ball was grounded, after looking repeatedly at replays. So a slice of luck for us there by the sounds of it but these things even out over the season. We only have to go back to our last game against Batley where there were several dubious decisions that directly affected the result.

It sounds like Cobb is up to his usual tricks - how this man is an official is beyond me. I have before hypothesized that he was only fast tracked to Super League because he came through the RFL's cadets system, and in order for them to call the scheme a success they would have to have a young official in charge of a Super League game within X amount of years. Of course, I have no evidence of this, but the RFL can't seriously think he is competent, which begs the question is there another reason why he rose to Super League so quickly.

Cobb is competent enough and is improving. There is no way the ball had been grounded for our try, I was sat on top of the incident in the Coral and had a fine view of it, but even if replays showed the decision was incorrect, it's hardly a question of "seething", FFS, it was one instant, we pay refs to judge the instant, he did, and Kear should suck it up and shut the fsck up.

If we did for once have a bit of luck with decision, were still approx 50 behind, so if life is fair we should get an unbroken run of several seasons more of em.

It took about five viewings and frame by frame viewing but Brambani does ground the ball in-goal before spilling forward into the path of Jay Pitts.

Had the game today had in-goal officials and that try would almost certainly have been wiped out.

Lady luck shining down on the Bradford Bulls.

The issue with Cobb is his reputation. Most clubs, regardless of league, Super League or Champsionship, have all shared the same view that he's massively out of his depth. I'll never forget his performance against Leigh in round 1 last season.

Makes a change from what she usually does to us, I suppose

I could've sworn that we grounded the ball in our goal area in the lead up to Batleys last try?

I said when I was at the ground that it would have been disallowed if we had a big screeen etc.
But yeah, I think we're due some good luck tbh.

I also thought Clare was offside for our first!

Thought we started out well enough, but when there was that whole bungle leading up to Batley's first try we totally forgot how to play. Not pretty but I'll take it. Hope Batley make the top 4 (unless it's at our expense of course!).

Completely agree regarding Clough. For much of the game I thought their pack was dominant giving Brambani plenty of time and space to direct play. The only forward to consistently run hard at their defence was Clough ... and he was just as aggressive in defence.
Impressed with both recent signings. I hope we can extend Charnock's loan and sign him when out of contract.

You could spend all evening looking back on decisions, Cobb certainly got some wrong that went against us during the match that may well have resulted in points for. I thought it was a bit of an odd call to go for 2 points when we were leading by 2 in that 2nd half. I took that as a bit of a lack of confidence as it didn't really improve our position, in fact it ended up handing control back to Batley who then went on to score. We'd have been better served playing some sets out and trying to earn a repeat. Having some patience and really applying pressure through repeat sets is an area we need to massively improve on. We still seem to be in this mindset of overplaying and looking for miracle balls or taking options that just aren't on.

Pleased with the result though, a loss today would of left us with a huge amount of pressure on us in these final few matches. We now have a small amount of breathing space but still will plenty to do. We can now afford a slip up at Leigh as long as we continue to pick it points against the teams below.

What tosh, if it took 5 viewings, I'll take the 4 viewings which apparently didn't show any such thing.

Plus, ref blunders are one thing, but a marginal decision that needs 5 viewings is, at best, highly debatable and nobody can say the ref was wrong.

referee makes bad calls in every game, you just hope they even out - over a season, if not actually over a game.

I definitely think this was one game we would have lost a month or so back so to get the win was brilliant, imo.

John Kear not a big fan.

[urlhttps://audioboom.com/boos/4720497-john-kear-on-batley-bulldogs-17-16-loss-to-bradford-bulls/embed/v4?image_option=full&link_color=%2355ACEE&source=twitter_card&utm_campaign=detailpage&utm_content=card&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter[/url

Boo hoo John Kear!!! Now you know how it feels to be on the end of a result which isn't fair!!!

Yes, I would agree that the ball was grounded, but I won't forget the way you celebrated your draw earlier in the season off some equally very poor decisions and a blatantly missed kick at goal in the final moments.

We didn't deserve the 2pts but I'll give credit to those that stuck at it and take them all day long!!!

By all accounts, Batley's last try wasn't a try either. Chev seemed pretty certain and he was closer than anyone. Even if Batley's try was legitimate, as bullinenemyland said, Batley benefited from two awful calls at their place (the non-penalty that was awarded, and then the kick missing)

Anyway there were still 12 mins left and Batley would have had at least a point had Keegan Hirst not tried conning the ref by letting go of the ball in front of the sticks to earn a penalty. Well done to Cobb as i honestly thought he was going to be fooled and award the penalty to cost us the game.

Can somebody put up the video of the incident so we can all watch it 5 times and decide that after 5 viewings we think the ball was grounded, so we can then all agree that the referee who has to make an instant decision based on one live viewing, is a useless cretin and we can all be pig sick and spewing for Batley?

Honestly, I do really like John Kear, and make allowances for being emotional, but listening to that, he's a grown man FFS and it is cringeworthy, he sounds like a 4 year old who had his lollipop pinched.

I think he definitely SHOULD be fined for his despicable comment that the officials had a "a desired outcome" and reffed to that. He just slipped it in, but that is a vile slur, and the RFL should call him in to explain himself. Saying it was a bad call is one thing, but implying he made calls in support of a "desired outcome" is frankly unacceptable, and beneath a man like Kear.

Well yeah FA, I think the idea that Joe Cobb is a secret Bulls' fan will bring quite a few guffaws from around Odsal!

I'm sure he'll improve as time goes by, but he's still very raw as a referee and whether he's at that point in his career where he should be refereeing these sort of games is an interesting call, imo. Overall, I'd say we both got some spurious decisions, but then you can often say that about even the best of officials....

Im glad we ware playing you this week, which means we shouldn't get Cobb as the ref on Sunday. Never been a fan of his, games don't have any flow when his refs.. Anyway I hope you lose on Sunday. Up the blue and white

Whats the video going around showing a kick to the corner and what looks like a Batley try? Is that from yesterday? Looks like a Bradford player tries to ground the ball but misses it, I guess that is given as a drop out?

Was the grounding that people are complaining about the player who originally collected the ball? If so, everyone seems to be forgetting (or not knowing) the rule. The ball has to be intentionally grounded. Being ankle tapped or clipped, then falling to the ground is not intentional grounding in any sense of the word. He's trying to run the ball out.

If he had leaned down to ground the ball, fair enough. But him being clipped and falling is the very definition of unintentional, therefore it doesn't matter in the slightest if he grounded it or not, it's still play on.