Whether Mcnamara leaving is a good thing or bad thing IMO depends entirely on his replacement.

If he does (as seems pretty likely) take up the England job I'd like to wish him all the best as I admire and respect his efforts at Bradford both as player and coach. I hope his legacy is a successful Bulls squad full of home grown players in the near future.

I wonder if the wassocks that verbally abused him on his way down to the touchline last year are happy this time next year.

I'd imagine they'll be too busy dishing out abuse to whoever the new coach is. About 3 losses before the honeymoon periods over and the abuse starts I reckon

I agree with the above I just hope something is announced in the next week or two one way or the other. We don't want the speculation to cause any distractions or unrest in what looks from the outside to be a very solid group of players and coaching staff.

I'd still be surprised to see Macca give up club coaching at this stage of his career. He is close to T Smith and I am sure he will have seen the reasons why Smith missed day to day coaching so much. I would have thought success at club level would be the priority for McNamara at this stage. It will be interesting to see how this story develops.

If macca does go mid season then, would the Bulls be entitled to some compensation from the rfl?
Fans seem to be slpit on weather or not they would want macca to stay or not, he's not had the best couple of years on the pitch, albeit through difficult circumstances, although recent results seem to be improving. He has though made a significant improvment in junior development & attracting top juniors to sign for the bulls.
Alot depends on his possible replacement, if it was either a Lowes, McDermott, or a Sharp then many fans would see this as a backward step, me incuded, but if we were able to secure the services of a high quality aussie coach then i think fans would see this as progression. However i would want the club to ensure, as much as possible, that an overseas coach would stay for a minimum of three seasons. Quite a few antipodean coaches come to SL as a way of either getting into or back to the NRL, we need a future coach to commit to the Bulls for more than a season or two.

More chance of Ian Millward taking over than a top class ausie coach

Rather Millward than McDermott, Lowes or McRae.

Why? I don't rate him as a coach. Yes, Saints were successful under him, but I think that has more to do with the players in the Saint's side rather than any real input from the coach.

When he went to Wigan he nearly relegated the club and his reign included a 70-0 defeat to Leeds and a 75-0 defeat to Saints. Hardly glowing recommendations. Neither is a Played 12 Won 3 record at Wigan or his Played 14 Won 2 record at North Queensland.

McNamara has his faults and in the past I have called for his head. But my complaints about his coaching have been to do with the way the team some times look clueless as to what they were doing and his seeming inability to change tactics on the fly which has meant I've never really had faith that he was the right man for the job due in the main to his lack of experience.

However, I do see that he has been coach during what has been a very dark period for the club. The financial status must have been a millstone in regards maintaining a successful side combined with the previous administrations short-sighted approach to signings meaning a heavy dismantling of the team and the forced replacing of players with those of a lesser quality.

If he is leaving for the England job, I think a large part of what the RFL want from him is exactly what he's done at Bradford ie the rejuvenation of our youth set up. There was a job advertised on the RFL website for a development officer and part of the remit for that was to develop 30 world class players going towards the next World Cup. I think the RFL have been looking at the RFU's World Cup win in 2003 and the long road that was laid down in terms of getting a team in place to win that.

I think our next coach needs to be a complete new comer to Bradford.

If he does get the gig I wonder if he will take Basil Richards with him & pass on the colouring pad & crayons?

I've not heard that in years.

On Macca; I suppose it depends on where he wants his career to go.

He is just starting to see the hard work of the last 3 years start to bear a little fruit, so there must be an element of wanting to see the club come full circle and become successful again.

When you hear him talk publically or privately, he talks about "the organisation" being successful, rather than "the team". To be this shows that all areas of the club are being considered day to day, this is key to turning things around.

I'd be disappointed to see him go, as I've fought his corner from the start and still believe he's the man to return us to a trophy winning "organisation" again

I've changed my mind on McNamara more times than Keith Senior has logged into his eBay account, but I am now well and truly in the Macca please stay party. The players clearly want to play for him now, and he has handled so much pressure he is finally showing he could be a great coach at the top level. Because of all the work he's done behind the scenes & with youth, plus with financial constraints that none of McGuire, Brown, Smith, Potter, McLennan, Agar have, I think he is a good enough coach.


I'm with Wigan Bull, McNamara is the right man to get our club back to the top. He's been building the club up for 4 years, it would be a shame for his hard work to go to someone else.


Give him another contract Mr Hood, he deserves it imo.

Read Conor Murphy's latest piece in the T&A.

He sort of implies that the opportunity for that may now have passed.

I did say to some people before, be careful what you wish for.

I sincerely hope not.



Macca stay, please.

Don't leave us to Jowitt, Calland, McDermott or Lowes.

He's probably weighed up the pro's and con's and would rather leave the Club 'millstone' that has been the Bulls for a relatively less demanding role,although carrying a fair amount of responsibility in itself, where coaching can be his prime concern.After all he did not live locally and could not be impervious to his constant battle to win over the Odsal faithful.

Edited for accuracy - hope you don't mind?

Think i've only blown off about Mac once in his time at the club as head coach and that was against Saints at odsal this year, for a few years it seems i've been fighting a loseing battle against the sack mcnanmara brigade, funny now it looks like he's off, them self same people have completely changed thier mind and now want him to stay, funny that!

Thats the match, saints at home this season, when i lost my faith in Macca & ever since then the team has gone on to turn things around that i now believe we should give him a two year deal. Weather thats a case of better the devil you know or seeing some of the names of the possible replacments i'm not sure.

Is that the Odsal faithful who were never going back to watch the Bulls while McNamara was in charge?

[urlhttp://www.thefreedictionary.com/faithful[/url

Andy Wilson states that SM will be England boss as a matter of fact in today's Guardian.

I have not changed my mind. Not in the slightest.

Now I thought you said he needed to win five out of the next seven after Saints. Iirc, he won four and drew another. Is that draw too much to cope with?

Except that coaching will be far from his major concern. There are very few international games and the majority of his time will be spent, if I understand the job description correctly, as 'overseeing junior development'; that sounds very much an administative position to me, and certainly not hands on coaching.

We can take as read the fact that England won't win any competitions since, as just about everybody accepts, we don't have players of the right quality in anything like the quantities they do in Australia or New Zealand. If we imported the entire Aussie coaching staff and back-up teams, doubled their pay, [iand[/i threw twice as much money at the England team as we do now, we still wouldn't win the world cup for that one reason alone. Nor is this likely to change unless RL suddenly overtakes soccer as the number one sport in the UK, which, if Macca were to achieve his task of bring [isufficient[/i youngsters into the game, is pretty much just what he would have to do.

The job, in short is a hopeless task, in rugby terms it's a hospital pass, from which Macca can only come out of as a loser. I sincerely hope that Macca is only keeping his options open, after all, so far as I understand the situation he's not yet had an [iactual[/i offer from anybody (the Bulls, or from the RFL), so it would be pretty dumb to prematurely reject anything. I hope Hood ties him up PDQ.

Agree with Bulliac in that the England job is a poisoned chalice. There's been a lot of more experienced coaches than McNamara take the job with much better players than are around now and come up with nothing more than the odd series win over NZ. Usually they end up in the job for a mere couple of years at best and get universally slagged off in the process.

I could understand McNamara going to work at Roosters for Smith or taking a head coach job at another SL club but the England job just strikes me as the wrong option for him, unless he doesn't want to do hands on week to week coaching anymore.

As for the Bulls. The directors have to weigh up the best option for the club. Only they will know who else is available, how much money they have and all the full facts about what McNamara's done in his time at the Bulls. It's them who make the final decision and we just have to trust they get it right.

Personally, based on what little I know I'd rather keep McNamara than bring in someone as equally unproved as a Lowes, McDermott or Jowitt type. Alternatively if we can get and afford an experienced NRL coach or someone in the Michael McGuire mould I'd take them on to provide some fresh ideas.

He is showing signs of improvement but, lets be honest, bar Wigan who have we actually beaten?

His tenure has been a poor one and if you are comforted with a couple of wins v Salford and Cas then bully for you but I remain unconvinced.

Wasn't actually talking about the keyboards warriors on here

i was talking about real people who want trophys at all costs, no matter what damage its done to the club! Anyway your time has come old septic, you can rejoice in the fact your bile and ignorance (and you aint alone on that, ill grant you that) may have helped in Bradford losing the best young coach in British RL!

Well done, give yourself a pat on the back, now you can press on with your next agenda, Nobbys return