Jamal didn't play at the weekend.

by coincidence I watched his youtube u16s highlights yesterday, he was involved in some great tries. things change with age, but his potential is massive, hooker or half back.

He played in the first game after his loan began, but not the second.

Typical that Butterworth's chance comes when he's away on loan (Flanagan out for 6-8 weeks). I wonder if we can persuade Batley to let him come back early?

Looked good in the Dewsbury game. Scored one and set one up. Really hope he gets some game time when he comes back.

Don't think it's up to them. Loan rules state it must be for a minimum of 4 weeks / 30 days / 1 month (I forget the exact timeframe, but it's one of those). I don't think clubs can just tear that rule up, otherwise everyone would just ignore it in order to get someone in short term when they were needed.

Isn't that what loans are for?

It stops big clubs exploiting the loan market, using a sort of open dual reg system. Without that rule, you could have a Super League team with a big squad having it's first choice 17 playing, then 5 of their next best playing for Fax, the next 5 playing for Fev, the next 5 at Bradford etc etc., then the week after 2 of them could be back playing for the parent club whilst the loanees and the two they've dropped all go off to different clubs than they were at the week before. It would be anarchy.

It can be daft enough as it is with some players turning out for 4 or 5 different clubs in a season, but without that minimum loan period, they could turn out for 30 clubs.

It's not far off that at the moment. I'm sure that Oledzki played for us, Leeds and Fev and Murray played for us, Fax and Rochdale last season, he may even have played for Salford too.

I take your point anyway.

Oledski was loaned to us for a month at a time and Fev are DR with Leeds his parent club. It's exactly how HC outlined it. Loans are min 1 m and can be with anyone, DR is with your partner club and is week by week

Well one week of his minimum loan has already happened, and since we don't have a game this week, then it doesn't matter - and the second week ticks off...

Two more games for us to manage - and after all, we do have Hallas and Halafihi - then he come back match-fit and battle-hardened for action!

I'm more bothered about the injury to Bustin. Any word on how long he'll be out?

OK, I like Bustin - but looking at the squad list, we currently have 8 other props

8 Liam Kirk
10 Steven Crossley
17 Ross Peltier
19 Mikey Wood
28 James Davies
30 Jamal Goodhall
31 Oliver Wilson
34 Jordan Andrade

Should be fine

So long as everyone is fit for 22nd July.

June 17th at Whitehaven won't be a cake walk...

That was my point on the other thread. If Davies, Goodhall, Wilson & Andrade turn out for the reserves midweek, Wilson won’t be able to play for the 19’s that week and none of the 4 of them can turn out for the first team.

I think we may be having a discussion with our DR partners soon about props. They have 7 first team props, but only 1 team for them to play in, and I vaguely remember the initial announcement mentioned getting access to our reserves

Quote ="Highlander"That was my point on the other thread. If Davies, Goodhall, Wilson & Andrade turn out for the reserves midweek, Wilson won’t be able to play for the 19’s that week and none of the 4 of them can turn out for the first team. I think we may be having a discussion with our DR partners soon about props. They have 7 first team props, but only 1 team for them to play in, and I vaguely remember the initial announcement mentioned getting access to our reserves'" I think you're misunderstanding the point of having a reserve team. Surely it is to prepare players for first team action, not simply for its own sake? I couldn't care less if the Reserve team have to play a weakened team, maybe by bringing in some props from Dudley Hill or West Bowling. Who cares if the Reserves lose a match or two? So long as the First Team is supplied with fit, ready players from our squad. Also the Reserves don't play every week, far from it. We don't have a reserves game now until July 5th, and the next one after that is July 28th. See www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/article/ ... announced-

Quote ="Highlander"That was my point on the other thread. If Davies, Goodhall, Wilson & Andrade turn out for the reserves midweek, Wilson won’t be able to play for the 19’s that week and none of the 4 of them can turn out for the first team. I think we may be having a discussion with our DR partners soon about props. They have 7 first team props, but only 1 team for them to play in, and I vaguely remember the initial announcement mentioned getting access to our reserves'" I think you're misunderstanding the point of having a reserve team. Surely it is to prepare players for first team action, not simply for its own sake? I couldn't care less if the Reserve team have to play a weakened team, maybe by bringing in some props from Dudley Hill or West Bowling. Who cares if the Reserves lose a match or two? So long as the First Team is supplied with fit, ready players from our squad. Also the Reserves don't play every week, far from it. We don't have a reserves game now until July 5th, and the next one after that is July 28th. See www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/article/ ... announced-

100% agreed. No easy games in Cumbria, they will play it like their cup final and IMO this run of playing the "weaker" teams has IMO seen one or two bad habits creeping in. Can't afford make the same number of handling errors e .g.Skolars, Newcastle & Hemel and certainly no sin-bins for talking back to the ref.

I agree. Haven have already beaten York so it's clear they're a decent outfit but I hope we've learnt from our last trip to Cumbria.

Good point about us picking up bad habits against the weaker teams. We'll be in for a shock when we play a better side.

I too think we'll see some incomers in upcoming weeks.

It's weird, this 'learning lessons' business.

I'm sure that even I knew, and I'm talking about when JK was still a nipper, that 'Cumbrians teams always play well at home', as well, of course, as being notoriously slack away from home - with the 'long journey' invariably being to blame..... These are all long known traits/truisms/sayings or whatever you want to call them, but for some strange reason the 'lesson' has to be relearnt every season.
Why?

Kids learning it for the first time.

Well yeah fair enough, but I thought that was why we always have the odd 'senior player or two' (aka, a little past their sell-by-date) in the side? If one or two, (no names, no pack drill) aren't there to pass on their collected wisdom to the young guns, then what is the point of them being there?, we may as well bring in the youngsters and let them learn on the hop whilst making use of their undoubted speed and enthusiasm, and, then at least, we would have an actual, real excuse for not knowing about the Cumbrians strange ways and that the Bulls are likely to be a target, etc, ad infinitum.

Quote ="paulwalker71"I think you're misunderstanding the point of having a reserve team. Surely it is to prepare players for first team action, not simply for its own sake? I couldn't care less if the Reserve team have to play a weakened team, maybe by bringing in some props from Dudley Hill or West Bowling. Who cares if the Reserves lose a match or two? So long as the First Team is supplied with fit, ready players from our squad. Also the Reserves don't play every week, far from it. We don't have a reserves game now until July 5th, and the next one after that is July 28th. See www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/article/ ... announced-'" Props are scarce in the amateur game too

Quote ="paulwalker71"I think you're misunderstanding the point of having a reserve team. Surely it is to prepare players for first team action, not simply for its own sake? I couldn't care less if the Reserve team have to play a weakened team, maybe by bringing in some props from Dudley Hill or West Bowling. Who cares if the Reserves lose a match or two? So long as the First Team is supplied with fit, ready players from our squad. Also the Reserves don't play every week, far from it. We don't have a reserves game now until July 5th, and the next one after that is July 28th. See www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/article/ ... announced-'" Props are scarce in the amateur game too

Seems like Reiss has accepted a 1 match ban for foul and abusive language to a match official.

[urlhttp://www.rugby-league.com/article/52580/disciplinary-tonights-cases[/url

My interview Reiss Butterworth from last week: https://soundcloud.com/user-129831624/r ... n-his-loan

My interview Reiss Butterworth from last week: https://soundcloud.com/user-129831624/r ... n-his-loan