With hindsight I think Potter came up with the better game plan. He must have noticed Cas' 2 full length tries last week from broken play so kept it obsessively tight in the middle. Cas got sucked into the same thing, or just give the ball to Chase & wait for him to do something. Cas couldn't control Bulls round the ruck but not once do I remember them setting up & whipping the ball out wide to expose Ah Van or Ainscough. Sticking with Ferres as left centre was also an error, as a centre he's a decent second row.

Nice to see a couple of ex-Dons boys Royston and Briggs get a shot at SL. In Shad's case it's about time and Briggs is certainly a young lad with a big future if he can stay injury-free, just hope it's not simply 5 minutes of fame.

Well, this weeks working week has started all the brighter after this weekends results. Working in Leeds has become a real pain over the last few years seeing the Rhinos shirts all around the town centre and the smug faces that accompany them.

There appears to be a little light at the end of the dark tunnel - and if you were where I was on Friday evening, the time is twenty five to the hour (you'll know what I mean).

In regards to the actual performance yesterday, I felt we kept the ball tighter then we have in other games with the wingers not getting a real opportunity to run with the ball other than when returning kicks or scooting from dummy half in our own twenty. Ah Van made some particularly good drives and had be thinking he has similar attributes and style to a certain Tevita Vaikona. His appearance probably helps this comparison!

Platt was immense towards the end with some great yards and tough defence when we needed it most. If he continues in this vein Macca will have to consider him to at least join the England training squad.

Kearney was everywhere, as appears to be the norm now. He can't be expected to do this all season though so I feel Briggs does have to come back into the line up to help with field kicking and general attacking options.

Sykes stuck 2 fingers up to everyone who has slated him yesterday with his defensive performance (then had to take them back down again after his pass into touch when Ah Van was partly to blame), especially when it looked from we were that he should have just gone for the line himself. A great effort from the lad though considering he will know he's this years scapegoat for many of the keyboard warriors.

Herbert took a bit of a bang to the head, his kicking wasn't great, but his pass to Whitehead in the build up to Scruton's first try was a beauty.

Scruton had his best game of the season without doubt. A few great hits and two tries to boot. His second try was particularly important as it did give us the cushion we needed.

Whitehead seemed to rein the mistakes in (still one or two in there) but a steadier performance which is needed at present.

L'Estrange was very lively and caused Cas loads of problems.

Great to have some atmosphere in the ground at the end too. It's felt like a lifetime since the whole terrace stayed until every player left the field to applaud them off. I wonder what Andy Lynch will say about the fans this week

Well done. You won the game by making more yards up the middle. Simple as.

Just one question though, how small are your in goal areas?! There isn't a chance to put in an attacking kick close to the line because the margin for error is so small. I used to love Bradford with the raised corners and the trys scored from the little kick through. Looks like those days are gone. It was all a bit boring at times.

Er, we still have the same depth goal areas and the same raised corners that we have had for years. The area is a decent size, it's ludicrous to suggest they're "small".

You want small goal areas, make us move to VP, where the in goal area is, from memory, 4.7 inches

The raised corners are miles away now though. Before, the corner flag looked like it was on top of a mole hill. I think the regs state the in goal area is 6 - 11 meters. That is a huge range so it is possible that your in goal is just over half the size of some others. I haven't been to Bradford for a couple of years but it looked completely different to me.

Echo everyone's comments really. Fantastic day out and felt that the atmosphere was great (it seemed to pick up in our area after Fozzard took out Kearney with a late, dirty shot.

It is good to see our lads play some expansive rugby also, although at times they tried to be expansive when they needed to just up the jumper and gain field position. All in all very pleased and have to give credit to Sykes (I like many others have been critical of him as of late), the effort was there from him yesterday and defence was solid. Still think we have a bit of a way to go before the team reaches its fool potential but there are positive signs there. Big game at Saints this Friday and hope they keep progressing rather than regressing - COYB!

IIRC the last time we did some work on the pitch dimensions, c.2009, the plan was to extend the playing area to make it the full 100m which it now is, and I would guess that this meant the in goal ended up about 6 metres, which certainly rings a bell.

Odsal must be one of the largest playing surfaces in the League? Although it could be due to the fact that the spectators are miles away from the pitch. This does raise the argument of the Father Ted "close, far away" perspective.

Sounds about right. The long pitch encourages the arm wrestle in the middle of the pitch which is complimentary to Bradfords style of play. It looks huge compared to the pitch at Cas.

Any team with a small pack will struggle to make the yards at Bradford. You should turn a few sides over at home this season for this reason alone.

Taqken from the RFL Official Guide 2011

Club.................. Length (m) Width (m) In Goal Area (m)
Bradford Bulls..........97.2........65..............6
Castleford Tigers......92..........68..............8
Catalans Dragons....100..........68..............8
Crusaders RL .........TBC........TBC..........TBC
Harlequins RL..........100..........67..............6
Huddersfield Giants....98..........68..............6
Hull FC...................100..........68..............6
Hull Kingston Rovers.100..........68..............8
Leeds Rhinos...........100..........68..............5.6
St Helens.................97..........69..............6
Salford City Reds......100.........66..............6
Wakefield Wildcats....100.........68..............7
Warrington Wolves....100.........68..............7
Wigan Warriors.........105.........68..............6

Surprisingly, still one of the smallest...

Slightly bigger playing area than Cas. Cas have exceptionally large in-goal areas. We are in the majority band.

Interesting stats Adey. Thanks

We are clearly very much on the average for the in-game area, which shows that the Cas fan complaining about our in-goal area is off the mark.

And I was surprised to see that our pitch is so small. It doesn't look that way when your sitting in the main stand.....

Most of the summaries on here so far are pretty accurate so I won't repeat them. Players of the game for me were L'Estrange, Scruton, Kearney and Sykes.


It was nice for me going back to work today where I sit next to a Cas fan. He was at the game yesterday and it was interesting to hear the viewpoint of someone on the other side.

His main concerns were how slow Cas were round the ruck and how easily we seemed to make metres up the middle. he thought we looked eager to play the ball quickly following the tackle and Cas couldn't cope with it. He thought defensively we were immense and couldn't understand why we conceded so many at Hudds last week. I was quick to point out that we didn't defend at all like that last week!

Whilst I highlighted that I didn't think our kicking game was great yesterday, he felt Castlefords was also pretty poor. He couldn't understand sometimes why they didn't get the ball out wide more. On some occasions it looked like they could have got over given our lack of numbers but instead they took it up the middle into a brick wall.

He felt that a lot of articles he has read didn't sum the game up correctly as they all give the impression that we clung on for victory. I suppose we did in a way but he felt we were in control for most of the game and Cas looked devoid of ideas of how to break us down.

All in all he feels we are looking like we'll be a good side. Should we keep improving, and as we get more of our players back from injury, we should start pushing the top teams further in matches.


I find the opinions of other fans a good way of gauging how things are going because after the last couple of years I am reluctant to get too excited/optimistic too easily. It does look however on the basis of the first few matches that we have a lot of reasons to be excited and optimistic.

Yes we've won 3 and lost 3, a distinctly average record.

However the three we lost were against teams you would expect to be in the top 4 which for a team with 11 new players, a new coach and a bad start to the year in terms of injuries is understandable.

The 3 we won are against teams that you would expect to beat if you wanted to finish in positions 5 - 8. We've shown a lot more exciting and varied attacking play and the effort in defence showed the characteristics required if you are to win in big matches.

Progressing nicely I'd say.

Nice one, Adey.

Didn't know Cas played on a mini-pitch. I suppose the ground being so tight is deceptive. I don't know why they wouldn't reduce the in-goals to 6m, which would mean they could have a 96m pitch. IIRC the length at VP was also 92m. Plus there is NO room at any point around the pitch, it is really, really tight to the walls and, frankly, a bit dodgy for rugby.

Also with regard to us being 97.2, not 100, I also now remember that we were still a touch short, the reason being that they couldn't go back any further without the corners becoming too elevated, and this is the reason why the "30" line at each end is dashed, and not solid - the "missing" yardage is deducted from between the 20 and the 40, and the gaps either side of the dashed line are therefore something like 9.3m long, instead of the regulation 10m.

=#4080FFNote to self, remember this next time a ref on the 30 looks to be taking us back more than the ten.

If 6m is the minimum then you do have very small in goal areas


So Leeds are breaking the rules by having an in goal of 5.6m??? Throw them out of the league!!!!

The Cas pitch is tiny. That's why I like it. End to end stuff. Like someone said earlier the old father Ted, small, far away logic might apply to Bradford although the away fans at Hull KR are about 3 miles away from the pitch but it looks smaller than Bradford. Also your pitch is bloody narrow looking at those stats, again that suits you driving up the middle. Fair play, measure the pitch out to your advantage.

Which made me see why Saints have their pitch 69m wide.

Hopefully we'll repeat the defensive effort of the Cas match, we'll need to as Saints will be on a high after beating Leeds.

Good picture of Scruton going over for his second from the guardian:



Extremely sorry to see he hasn't got rid of that rats tail effort on the back of his head. Proof that you can be a top class sportsman but have no style whatsoever.

oh god that made me laugh

Cheers for those mate

tut tut look at leeds trying to take any advantage they can

[url=http://bradfordbulls.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/defence-is-the-tonicDefence wins it for Bulls[/url

It's only wide to the West, IIRC

Couple of points. I'd always assumed the new grounds like the Galpharm, JJb and Widnes (I assume that's the Saints) were exactly 100m and I'm surprised they're not. Especially at Wigan, since the ruling is 100m or as near as possible to 100m, surely that means that 100m is the maximum? The relevant note on the rules says - [iFor adult games the dimensions should be as near maximum as possible to the dimensions stipulated.[/i

If you're at 95m you can reasonably argue that you've tried to get as near as possible, but surely not if you're 105m? That must be deliberately going over.

As someone else has already mentioned the Leeds in-goal size is also a bit strange. Again the rule - as near the maximum as possible - can't really be equated to less than the minimum? If there is a problem with length then they could easily cut a couple of metres from the playing area (which would be legal), so it's not exactly to the letter of the laws.

The poster who suggested the corners weren't as high as they once were is correct. They certainly haven't gone down recently but going back a few years (still a good while after the speedway finished) they were much higher than they are now. Incidentally, wasn't there a problem with the foundations of the stand which prevented the Odsal pitch being lengthened? I'm sure I can remember Peter Hood saying this at a fans forum.

Errm, that's more than two points, now I can't count

I remember that comment too and it was also reason why pitch cant be flattened anymore in corners than it is now Iirc.

It is not possible, without major work, to extend the grassed area to the full 100m as the old speedway track slopes towards the terracing at the corners and to make it longer would cause the slope to be more defined. The club there for cannot just level off the track as they would have to do it all the way round and, like Stuart Duffy said to me a few seasons back, the start of the perimeter fence is higher than the pitch so to extend it at either end would mean digging down and what is left of the track would create a rather ugly wall.

97.2m is as good as it's going to get I'm afraid.