welcome to league 1...We showed you who's boss

Isn't it annoying when you have 42 years to come up with the perfect zinger, then forget to watch the game but decide to post it anyway.

yes I had it on autopost set for today. I've only been waiting 36 years to be fair.

Id say good luck for the season but you prob don't need it.

Anyway sod off

600 Easter eggs donated today. Thanks very much

I make that 599 from keighley fans and 1 from bradford. Quick maths.

Ah, Keighley maths. From a fan, who despite the actual score thought Keighley had won.

Hang on, we lost?

Great performance from the Bulls today. Clinical and very disciplined against a testing Cougars outfit. We obviously learnt our lesson from the friendly a few weeks ago and didn't get sucked into the grubby tactics. I always thought that if we made sure we kept our composure when Keighley started to rough us up we'd kill them off later in the game. Their tactics were to draw us into a scrap, we ignored their attempts and ran out comfortable winners. Job well done. Another good defensive showing as well which is also tremendous to see! I thought Minchella, Pickersgill, Flanagan and Keyes played exceptionally well. Flanagan looked very dangerous and caused a lot of damage during his spell on the pitch. He looks like a great addition to the squad and was my MOTM, closely followed by Keyes. Chisholm looks a bit rusty but that's to be expected after his lengthy lay off. When the dry weather arrives I expect he'll run the show and really kick on. My heart sank for a second when he went down in the second half as his knee appeared to buckle in the mud. Thank the lord he's OK. Overall, a solid performance from 1-17. Bring on Hunslet in the cup next week. Finally, a special mention goes to Ross Peltier, the pantomime villain: https://twitter.com/Cougarmania/status/ ... 3613831173

Great performance from the Bulls today. Clinical and very disciplined against a testing Cougars outfit. We obviously learnt our lesson from the friendly a few weeks ago and didn't get sucked into the grubby tactics. I always thought that if we made sure we kept our composure when Keighley started to rough us up we'd kill them off later in the game. Their tactics were to draw us into a scrap, we ignored their attempts and ran out comfortable winners. Job well done. Another good defensive showing as well which is also tremendous to see! I thought Minchella, Pickersgill, Flanagan and Keyes played exceptionally well. Flanagan looked very dangerous and caused a lot of damage during his spell on the pitch. He looks like a great addition to the squad and was my MOTM, closely followed by Keyes. Chisholm looks a bit rusty but that's to be expected after his lengthy lay off. When the dry weather arrives I expect he'll run the show and really kick on. My heart sank for a second when he went down in the second half as his knee appeared to buckle in the mud. Thank the lord he's OK. Overall, a solid performance from 1-17. Bring on Hunslet in the cup next week. Finally, a special mention goes to Ross Peltier, the pantomime villain: https://twitter.com/Cougarmania/status/ ... 3613831173

Agreed dddooommm.

I thought we were exceptional today and looked very well coached. We appear to be getting rid of our soft underbelly that has hampered us for years. Don't think we're going to be bullied by anyone like we were last year. Flanagan certainly gave some verbals. Thought he went very well.

Keyes was my man of the match. Great to see him taking the line on. Chisholm looked rusty but to be expected m again great to see him standing up for honself after been taken out late off the ball.

The team look to have real pride in the shirt. You can be the most talented player in world, but sometimes it's just about digging deep for the club. I think we have this in adundance this year with the main of the Squad either HG, or Bradford fans/boys.

Last point, last year in a crucial game against Swinton, Johnny Campbell was harshly (IMO) red carded for going above the horizontal. That decision all but confirmed us for relelgation. Today, Minchella suffered a shocking spear tackle, and the Keighley player only got a yellow. It was a lot worse the Campbells red. Referees get some unfair criticism, but on spear tackles they should be consistent and it's frustrating as a fan it can depend on what mood the referee is in.

Yes well coached I agree. The spear was a red. Wasn't malicious I don't think but regardless. Otherwise old Billy Pearce didn't have a bad one. Wasn't a particularly bad tempered game considering, think we didn't really show up which is a bit gutting. But certainly a well deserved thrashing, definitely more up for it than us.

Interesting point raised. Initially I thought it was a bad spear tackle that could have warranted a red card. I'd like to see a replay of it to see if the it was as bad as it looked from the stands. Fortunately Elliot was straight back to his feet and avoided any potential injury, which is the most important aspect.

Perhaps the RFL will be taking a better look at it this week?

It looked a bad tackle but I’m glad now in hindsight that he wasn’t shown the red card as it would have taken the gloss off what was a great team performance.

I expected a much closer contest if I’m honest, I suspect there will be some very unhappy Cougar fans this evening.

When Elliot got spear tackled my first thought as a dad was hope he is ok, he then got up and walked away which was very pleasing. He dropped me off at the pub before the game and my last words were "do not get sent off", which he didn't, which was nice

His first words in the morning
“Thats another 2 quid dad please”

Ha, probably. My first words in the morning at 7.00 o clock will be "are you awake" he works at same place I work. To which I will probably get" I'm aching all over" to which I reply, tough, get out of bed and get to work

When Chisholm came on, how did they play him/pickers/keys/mcnally together?

The tackle was a bad one, I think the only reason he didn't get a red was because of how early in the game it was. I know that shouldn't be a factor in the ref's decision but it probably was.

Hard to tell from the proper sport stream but I think Pickersgill came off for Chisholm just before half time and then came back on in place of McNally towards the end of the game.

Keyes, Flanagan and Garside were all excellent today I thought. Bustin also proved a handful.

Chisholm came on for Pickersgill. Then later in the match. McNally came off and Pickersgill came off the bench to fullback.

Unfortunately couldn't get the match report here because of torrential rain, but looking forward to the Match on youknowwhat later on in the week.. it really is a godsend for us... Bradford Bulls TV....Thank you very much.. Maybe Elliot's dad will need two jobs soon...

Hopefully the Bulls TV version of the match is far better than the quality offered by Proper Sports that had poor video and audio ( although saying that there were some decent silent bits

)

Someone didn't want to get out of bed this morning for work and it wasn't me

Not surprising. He did the full 80 minutes. Did Garside do the same? That's going to be the next decision for Kear. Once he feels Chisholm is up to speed, I'm afraid that Pickersgill will be dropped to fit an extra 2nd row man on the bench.
The bench allowed for prop rotation, the rotation between Hallas, Milton & Flanagan and then the rotation of the halves & FB - but eventually the 2nd row men will need rotation as well.
The 2nd half, both the 2nd row men were beginning to look fatigued.

Must admit, as much as I appreciate the option being there, I found it difficult to watch at times yesterday. The picture was incredibly pixelated on the TV I was watching it on (I don't have a tablet, just a computer connected to the main Television) and froze quite a bit if in full screen. If I knocked it down to not be fullscreen, it was still quite poor quality video.

I'm not knocking it as it's a free service and I'm not expecting HD quality, but there were times I didn't really know what was happening and considered sacking it.

We were talking yesterday about it being a shame that Pickersgill will probably be dropped. but then we thought could we still have him on the bench with three forwards and go with and possibly expect the new hooker to do 80 mins or rotated with one of the forwards.
I think Pickersgill is very promising and will be a shame if he drops out of the team. We do now have 3 decent halves plus young Milnes who could also be very decent in a couple of years. There are clearly going to be quite a few games where we can rest our first choice players and give the fringe lads a go.

The Bulls TV version is always going to be better quality as they've had two to three days to get the match off the cameras, compress it and sync it correctly, and upload it using far more data than is probably practical during the live match.

One thing that I imagine is frustrating to people is that Proper Sports are also advertising the Bulls matches as on demand after the event, which is true, but it's simply an archive of the broadcast as was so if there is poor transmission that cuts out at 3pm Sunday, there still will be when you are watching with your Coco Pops on Monday morning.

As an educated guess, so much of this will be reliant on the set ups at the away grounds and some will be better than others, hence I don't think they have guaranteed every away game will be streamed live, more of a "best efforts" sort of thing depending on the state of the ground, internet connections etc. We haven't had a "live" broadcast from Odsal yet just one cup game on delay, and I wonder if the team have done so much testing there over the winter that things might be a bit more consistent as things are more familiar.

Personally I could make out everything that was happening for the vast majority of the time, and there have been times where I've been at a game live and been at one end of the ground not knowing what was happening at the other, so those unfortunate moments where that happened yesterday were no big deal to me. It's a work in progress and I'm glad I got to see the game whereas otherwise I wouldn't have.