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.