Think you need to engage your brain pal. Raynor was the one who tried to cheat by halling back BJB. Silverwood and Ganson caught him out. If Raynor had not tried to cheat you might have one.

A fantastic display from Bradford and I think that you’ll only get better from here. If only you’d carried on from where you left off in the first half, then I think that this game would have been yours. Leeds once again seemed to be relying on individual superstardom displays and thankfully it worked off today. I certainly liked the look of Chev Walker.

All the best for the rest of the season!

Ok .. kicking off for my first post
This is what sorely miss about not being able to get to any games .. as an avid life long Northern/Bulls supporter of nearly 40 years, it never gets old watching or listening to a great game between 2 bitter rivals with the tries, the oohs, the ahs and controversies that always go hand in hand with our great game. Disappointed we lost but hey, it sounded like an excellent game (thanks to BCB radio which I'm happy I can get here in China).

Roll on this new season, should be an exciting one ... Good Luck COYB!

Briggs stripped the ball one on one. Webb then regathered, play on. It was the correct decision.

For a first competitive run out, considering we lost Herbert before the game, I'm pleased with the overall effort.
Losing Platt and Langley meant we were knackered come the final 15 and it was always going to be a struggle to turn Leeds over once they picked up a head of steam.
Just remember it's only a league game, I've seen enough today to be convinced that we'll win more games than we lose this season, hopefully we'll be in the top 8 come September and can give the playoffs a good go.

And stop moaning about the ref, damn near every decision was spot on today.

Buderus was offside (down field) during the Leuluai try. However, it was a great effort and we appeared to be competing with greater speed and direction than last year. Well played.

Then why was Raynor's try disallowed? The ball was stripped one on one in the ingoal and was pounced on. But that was given as no try.

Those decisions can go either way I suppose, there has to be some responsibility on the ball carrier to retain possession. Walker never really had the ball under control, but you're right in that a video ref decision might have resulted in a try. Not sure there's any disputing the Webb decision though.

9th.

The learning to count is coming along well.

The video referee is over used in super league yet this was the exact reason it was introduced and it wasn't used. It was a try.

All in all after watching that game I came away pretty happy. Despite losing, the lads put in a good team performance and played some nice rugby.

One of the main differences between the teams for mine was the Leeds looked like a team that had played together for a long time while Bradford still looked like the combinations needed a little more work to gel fully.

Credit to Leeds, they showed some good determination to come back and win and showed that they're a difficult team to defend against when they get a roll on.

Some good signs for the Bulls I reckon it'll come good by mid season and, with a bit of luck, we'll be firing on all cylinders come the business end of the season.

We need it too come good well before mid season.

A win would have been a nice end to CNY.

They've got it wrong over there though it's not the year of the rabbit this years is the year of the Wolf as it supposedly has been every year for the last five (according to Eddie and Stevo anyway).

thought your boys played well today unlucky not to come away with a win a good run out for a new team think a top six place is on the cards

Hope to god we don't have to wait for the year of the Bull

Get yer bets on for the Bulls to win the CC SL and WCC in 2021

I know one when I see one bigchris.

By mid season other clubs will also have worked out how to play against us. We might improve but we could do with a few wins before we'll lose the advantage of unfamilarity.

We look to be very solid and well organised, some big improvements from last season. Perhaps lacking a touch of class.

Generally very very encouraging from the new-look team. List any one of numerous individual events that, had they gone the other way, would have given us the win. That includes some silly penalties and the odd wrong decision at crucial times. Without the benefit of some key (and justified) penalties Leeds would never had have the possession and field position to claw so far back.

Most of Ganson's calls looked correct IMO, although two key ones - what seemed a clear forward pass for their first try, and what looked suspiciously like a knock on near their line approaching the end - looked to have been missed and were not examined by the sky muppetry. So we'll never know.

I suspect Silverwood's decisions were probably correct on the strictest interpretations of the rules - Leeds would have gone apoplectic had the penalty try not been given - but he did seem to be finding a way to disallow our tries wherever possible. The Walker decision seemed very very very harsh and indeed totally unfair to me, since Walker never played at the ball and it only touched him as a result of the other guy's actions. I feel that was a wrong decision, and it cost us the match.

I will freely admit that I very much doubt Leeds would have been under the same degree of scrutiny had the roles been reversed, and indeed I wonder whether Ganson would have even gone to the screen for a couple of the decisions. And I base that statement solely on my observations from previous Leeds-Bradford encounters at MM, before any tirades start.

All that aside, I think our lads surprised many people today, contributed to a great game that really should have been ours. Given its a new team still work in progress - and also given we have considerable space still under the cap (before Leeds bemoan what players they were missing) I think many reasons to be cheerful tonight!

Well done guys.







ps: Before anyone berates my observations above, interesting to see Connor's take including this twittering: "Really good for 60 mins. Good gameplan, good kicking game abs plenty of craft. Chev decision a shocker and PT debatable."

I'd be quietly hopeful that the Bulls will improve a lot from here. I disagree about the 'familiarity' of other teams causing problems - I'd expect that the opposite starts to happen as combinations gel. The other issue you won't have this year is being a one-man team.

Tota lly agree altho we won Whitehead was far away the best player on the park. A star ffor the future IMO

Chev's disallowed try should have been a try.
Seniors high shot on Kearney should have been a penalty.
Royston milked a penalty.
Leeds' penalty try was right decision.
We should have got penalty try when Delany pulled Royston back as he would have scored.
Leeds' 1st try was forward pass.
Webb did knock on.
Raynor got sucked in to much.
Whitehead best player on pitch without a doubt.
Bulls to be in top 6 by end of year.

Funnily enough, I find it hard to disagree with most of that.

Please don't remind of the corruption mate I've only just calmed down, although I suspect when I watch the replay in a minute I'll be in the zone again.

I'm still pleased with the overall performance. We outplayed the Rhinos for most of the match and with 9 new faces and a new coach i'm pretty happy with that. I'd love to have won - I thought we deserved to- but credit to the Rhinos, they stuck at it, didn't panic and ended up getting the result.

I don't think we were 'cheated' this time, but alll the 50/50 calls in the second half went to the Rhinos, and imo it wasn't a penalty try as he didn't deliberately take him out, he went for the ball (no doubt the Rhinos will see it one way and us the other). Using the same interpretation, could we have been given a penalty try when Delaney was sin binned? The worst one for me was when Walker 'knocked on' in the first half. BJB ripped that out and the least Ganson should have done was go to the video ref.

Cracking game anyway, wish we could have won but I am very excited for the rest of the season after that performance.

Credit to most of the Rhinos fans too - it would have been easy to come on and gloat but you've given our lads the credit they deserve.

And Elliott - What a player.

Agree that's why I'm staying out of it.