If players can't do the fundamentals i.e. hold on to the ball, complete sets, then surely this is coaching. If not the only implication can be that the players are not trying or in some cases not good enough for professional RL. However, the players are better than what they've been showing. This to me means they have given up and aren't focused.

How can a coach teach senior players how to catch the ball?

Shouldn't senior players already be able to catch the ball ? If so why aren't they ?

A proffesional RL player should not need to be coached how to catch the ball



One of our players, IMO, is not good enough for professional RL, others are not good enough for Super League.

Crap, nothing else to be said. Steve Mac should be ashamed of the team he has left compared to what he was left.

I don't know why, I wish I do (and bet LSH wishes he knew). But I can't see how anyone could blame the coach for a player's inability to catch.

This Team was picked and moulded into what they are today by Macca and his Coaching Staff, one of which was LSH. He is displaying the same bad habits that Macca did. Poor Team selection and rotation, players playing out of position. Nothing will change before next seaon and maybe further along than that, bad habits are hard to shake off. Potter has his work cut out and for me letting LSH go should have been on his list of priorities. A whole new backroom staff along with whover he signs for next season. We are that poor!...

Edit: Nothing to see here

Thanx, not that it would make much difference!

Steve has played in the forwards in almost all games this season and Brett has played about 80/20 in the halves and full back. Thing is we have several half decent second row/loose forwards (injury periods excepted) but have lacked the sort of Skill, in particular the ability to give a decent pass to his winger, that Menzies brings in the centre. In short, the squad was thin from the start, with little strength in the threequarters and particularly at halfback.

The halves have been the main part of the problem all season. Mainly due to not having enough of them; Kearney was signed to play stand off, though as you rightly say he is better at full back. When Orford got injured it left us without a single, experienced (open age) half back, so Kearney or L'Estrange have played scrum half and we've had several players, including forwards, filling in at stand off, L'Estrange, Addy, Sykes and even Menzies in one game. We have been asking young forwards, just coming into the team, to play at stand off, and you aren't going to win much in that situation.

It's hard to believe, but there are actually several good players at the club, and a number of top class young players either on the fringe, or actually breaking through into the side. The trouble is that confidence is shot, nobody trusts anyone else, and much as they try, and they really do try, I won't accuse anyone of lack of effort, but when things go wrong they just fold and miss tackles alarmingly. This is interspersed with periods where they keep a really good line and actually look like they know each other.

All in all, I think we're all ready for this season to end,to see who is really arriving, instead of all the rumours, and look forward to next year.

The team just doesn't have enough good players and pretty much no coach as LSH as made no difference at all. It's pretty awful just to see some of the players we have. The fact some people seem to rate them highly is even worse!

A horrible season and i don't think anyone can say any different.

In ten years this season will be classed as the one that saw the start of a poor Bulls in super league or the lowest point before the re-rise of Bullmania! I hope history leans more towards the latter.

What I find quite astonishing is that some people are only just beginning to realise how far we have fallen It is a fecking disgrace that it has been allowed to go on fro as long as it has, yet people still rush to defend some of the guilty men.

However, yet again I am intrigued at the non appearance of the three stoogies who will no doubt continue to tell us how good things are at the club.

The Bulls are a laughing stock and the sooner Potter can start working with the team the better. McNamara and his merry men - what an utter pile of crap.

For those with a little longer memory rough with smooth. I have seen many worse performances than some of this seasons. It doesn't make it any easier to swallow but how many years have Wigan gone without a pot, how many years did we laugh at the clowns from down the road, a long time since a Hullabaloo of the early Eighties and what about the great teams of long ago Huddersfield, Wakefield,Salford how long have they gone without a trophy ? We have no god given right & as a FAN you take the rough with the smooth.


HTH

Indeed. I'd much rather be seen by all the world as a fan than a stinking vulture.

Answer - it would appear so.

Quite shocked to see and watch that performance from the bulls last night. Mick Potter has a big challenge next season, first priority must be some decent half backs, there didn't seem to be anybody organising the team.

Potter's taken on the job and he's nobody's fool.
Whatever he sees for next season in players, funding, juniors (etc) must be enough to have convinced him to sign up.
He would not have done so otherwise.

Is there anything else we already knew that you wanted to share with us?

And yes, I know your comment was given in good faith - sadly, we started the season with one (excellent) half back - who ran the team early doors and as a result we rose to 4th. Then he got injured, and we were well and truly stuffed. That it coincided with our head coach (good, crap or whatever) losing interest and wanting out for his new job hardly helped.

Which of the three options do you go for ?

The Orford eggs in one basket scenario was always one that could have gone wrong, but i backed it.

I don't think many realised just how much Kearney wasn't a natural stand off and definitely a natural fullback, a position not many thought we needed more cover in.

I always thought that Macca was probably a very good "technical" coach, and a relatively inexperienced but enthusiastic "people" and "flair" coach who seriously needed the "people coach" mentor we could not afford. But I never sought to pass detailed comment on his coaching skills, or how he applied them, for the simple reason that - as I regularly said - there are others far more qualified than me to judge. The area I trusted his judgment on was on signings - as indeed it seemed did the club. As history comes to be written, it starts to become more apparent that lack of money was not quite as crucial a limiting factor as it first seemed?

I backed the Orford scenario too, and I did not realise that Kearney was not a stand off in a million years. But I did not know one way or the other so trusted the club - which meant the coach. In fairness, some on here pointed out about Kearney right from the start - brilliant FB but less effective elsewhere. And in fairness - they have been proved totally and utterly correct, and can hold their heads high on this issue.

Havn't seen much of the Bulls this season, wasn,t expecting such a bad performance in defence from your team made even worse with the french man with the whistle. Looks as though you will be having a transitional season next year which Mick Potter is good at.

Trouble is mate, we've been having a "transitional" season every year for a while now...

I seem to recall quite a few people stating on here that Kearney was a fullback, and had been for the majority of his NRL playing career.

He's not a natural 6, but he has the pace and agility to make a much better go of it than sykes ever could.

I would be reasonably happy for Kearney to fill the stand off position until Southernwood is ready for the first team.

I'm also still holding onto a faint slither of hope that we're after Greenshields to take over at fullback.

Fair points. I'm not gonna argue with it.

I understand with have financial concerns, but still feel we have under performed and made poor signings, when better players of i can only guess equal value were available.

I wonder if the Bulls had any money to go for a more experienced coach when Nobby left.

Underperformed? For sure. Irrefutable argument. Indeed, serious understatement.

Poor signings? The fact that we are yet again restructuring with yet again a high player turnover can only suggest some poor decisions - for whatever reasons.

Money for more experienced coach? The big question, that, and one of the main reasons why I have been going on (and on and on...) about the financial realities.

Things were indeed extremely tight around then (I'm not just guessing there either) , and there seemed to be a lot of destabilising whispers going round - some maybe from much closer to home than should have been - that would surely have put off potential applicants. Also, though, do you remember what Noby said about Macca at his last forum? When Macca had been approached by Hull? I wrote it down someplace, but the gist was that Noby had told Macca it would be very much in his interest to stick with Bradford. At that point I am sure Nobby knew he would be going, so it very much came across to me at the time that he was annointing his chosen (or at least expected) successor. People who say it all went wrong post-Nobby might want to reflect on that? So could we have secured the services of a more experienced coach? I always suspected we would have badly struggled. Some single-agenda know-alls stated of course we could. The thing is, we will now never know.