I am (and have been) of a similar view to Adey. At the moment there are far more questions than answers, that therefore makes it difficult to make a call about the coach.

Also, Adey, with regard to Morro's & Menzies views, there have been subtle messages of support in Morro's blogs certainly.

One from the top of my head refers to Morro going in to coaching and him mirroring many of the traits Macca has.

These less obvious "messages of support" make me think more and more that the coach isn't the problem.

BOOM!



Got it in one. Do we honestly think that if Macca's coaching was that bad he'd still be in a job. I would suggest that there are things going on behind the scenes that most posters on here are unaware of. The fact there is no relegation may be a timely addition to SL for the Bulls and one season of underachievment may be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I do hope its just that Bradford are in a stage of "rebuilding"

When judging McNamara I've been inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt until now as it was obvious the massive turn over of players would make it a transitional period for a couple of years. Once you get past the point where the majority of the players are his picks i think you can start accessing him on 2 things.

1) The players he has recruited. While this is constrained by finances to some extent, where we don't appear to have spare cash to pay transfer fees and our 2 purchased players Platt and Solomona have had mixed success, we haven't really pulled in anyone who's been an unqualified success (I'd exclude Morrison from this except for his injuries).
During this time we've also not attracted any true class at the top of their game and instead have a mix of underrated seasoned pro's (Evans and Finnigan spring to mind) and potential (Scruton and Worrincy) along with a lot of squad players.
Overall in this area I don't think he's done anything badly wrong as he's adjusted the balance of our squad to include less overseas players (as required by the change in rules) and generally have a much younger average age.

2) Are the players performing to their potential or improving? This is where the coaching team has to be looked at as a group and in my opinion the thing we've lost is a discipline and mental toughness to win difficult games. Individual players have developed (Cook, Burgess, Halley) but organisation often looks poor and goal line defence is missing too often. When we do get it right the players have shown themselves to be capable but something isn't right mentally and the good days are too far apart.

To be replaced by who?

So far looks like the sack Mac crowd are in the minority.

I can't believe some idiots want to "sack the chairman". How pathetic. Do we have a queue of people waiting to step in to that spot, then?

WTF has he done wrong?

Sorry but I really have no patience at all with the "SACK EVERYBODY" merchants, these people are like the cast of Thriller with no brain, myopia, blinkers and all the strategic nous and long term planning of the vampire zombie undead.

Well i'm in that minority. But i've never rated him as highly as most.

No matter how you see it. 13th place and dumped out of the Challenge cup just isn't good enough.

Couple that with some of the worst performances from the Bulls this century when it doesn't bode well.

Some people have been quiet recently.

It does seem to be anyone who openly just wants McNarama sacked based on results, justs gets shot down straight away, usually by the finance and who else? scenarios. They have a fair point too, but these people seem to be the die hard fans and i'm not sure the average supporters can allow this as an excuse cause it's not open how much financial we are in couple with the fact we are 13th!! The road this team is going down it won't have the fans to rebuild if it can. That's my worry.. 8000+ last week was a joke.

McNamara is responsible for the playing side of the club. It's this thats under performing. It doesn't matter if he doesn't have the same funds available as previous coaches he's spent his budget on these players. Players which he thought we could challenge with.

I voted sack Macca just to put that option in front. Can't make my mind up how all my aliases should vote yet.

What other side to the club is there, and is that performing or over-performing?

What would your view be if, for the sake of argument, decisions about how long a contract to offer players and how much to offer them were not taken by Macca but by someone else, and issues like that were causing problems? Or if, contrary to what we have been led to believe, Macca is not being allowed to spend the full cap (maybe cos of disappointing gates...?) or Macca would love to offer players - current and prospective - the sort of "tax-efficient" (or even brown-envelope?) deals that allegedly some other clubs seemed able to offer but ours will not? Or some player is being paid loads more than others because someone other than the coach made the decision?

The above is all hypothetical, and I'm not hinting at knowledge of info not in the public domain because I don't have any. Just suggesting that its always possible there could be other factors at play that ANY coach would have to contend with.

You and so many others continue to address the symptoms, when none of us on here (unless we have substantial inside information) really know the true cause.

But what if funds are being cut on areas that aren't necessarily visible but would have an impact none the less
E.g.
Training facilities
Nutrition
Travel
Quality Assistant coaches
Other staff - meaning increased weight on SM's shoulders

I'm sure I could think of more, but you get the idea.

Whilst I appreciate these would probably all only have a small net effect, you start adding them all together, coupled with the negativity corner cutting produces, then it becomes a little more than the coach not coaching properly.

Also, to be clear, I am not saying any of these are happening or have happened, I was just highlighting a couple of examples that COULD influence what is going on.

I would be very interested to read a dissertation by the Bulls' conditioner entitled something like:

"[iPlayer Conditioning Over the Easter Schedule - A discussion of the apparent differing performance and energy levels of players and teams in Super League over a busy period[/i"

I put don't know because in many ways I agree with Adey.
No-one can be happy with the teams performances this season. The rhinos match has been the only 80 minute performance and that is not good enough.
I have no idea whether or not Macca is a good coach. Many people who know a lot more about RL than me seem to rate him but the results do not support him. He is certainly an unlucky coach and if results do not improve then he probably will go, if only to give the impression that something is been done.

Sadly I think the problems at the Bulls are much deeper than just the coach and therefore a change of coach may improve results in the short term but is likely to have little effect in the medium to long term.

Well if that's what paddles your canoe, who are we to criticise? I'd rather read a good book personally...

Sorry but that isn't an excuse for the teams performance IMO.
But that doesn't excuse the fact that we are 13th in the league and out of the cup already. Do you think that's what the club hoped the level we would be at after 3 months of the season.
It doesn't matter any that he knew his budget he signed the players I'll make the point again is McNamara happy with the squad he's assembled.
That will be a common thing in a lot of other sports amd teams it's the coaches job to deal with it.
So lets things get worse and worse shall we and the support base get more and more alienated just because we have a coach who can't cope with a few possibly difficulties, difficulties a few coaches in our league would probably love to have.

Woodhouse Grove purpose built plus expected to move into the new Bradford college facility.
They still use the Eddie Brown luxury coach.
It's always been a debate about the current assistant and there worth.
We've increased the staff this year with the appointmet of Stuart Barrow. He nows joins Lee St Hilaire, Basil Richards, Martin Clawson, Martin Higgins, Andy Senior, Paul Medley, Mark Robinson, Phil Tate, Jason Stein.

So the issue now is no longer that the coach is crap, but instead that the coach is maybe not up to coping with and working round issues outside of his control?

Assuming that any of the hypothetical possibilities that I raised are actually real issues? And don't forget, I am not in any way trying to make excuses for what we are seeing - we are way past excuses anyway - just offering other lines of possible enquiry in the face of the lynch mob.

But as I keep saying, you and most others in the "time for a change" camp, and especially the militant "hang 'em high" wing thereof, are still addressing symptoms not causes. Do YOU know what the real causes of our unacceptable performance are? Or are you guessing or surmising or assuming? I sure don't have any idea what's causing it, I just know that I am pretty bogged off with it like everyone else.

Therefore who is to say that replacing the coach will actually solve anything? It may do; then again it may not. As AP rightly said earlier, one way to find out is to go ahead and do it; but if it transpires that that has NOT solved the problem, then you really ARE up shît creek.

Anyone remember the M1 British Midland plane crash a few years ago? IIRC, The warning lights told the pilot - allegedly - that one of the engines was crap so he shut it down. Even though some passengers out of the window could see flames coming out of the other engine. Result was that the action he took did not save the plane, it actually made the situation far worse. I suggest we have to be very careful to make sure we likewise do not shut down the wrong engine, through acting on incomplete or inaccurate information.

Looking at the coaching staff list a couple of things spring to mind. Like the playing staff the average age isn't particularly high so we lack experience in running a top flight club. The other thing is how many of them have been with the club for a significant length of time and are able to bring a winning mentality we certainly had 4 years ago.

Stuart Barrow was added as part of the development coaching staff so again that looks to be a high priority that hopefully long term gives us a squad to compete.

If MacNamara isn't happy with the playing staff he's hardly likely to say so publicly. While they are his players there is always a risk that some players just don't work out like you expect but publicly criticising them or trying to offload (the Ellis debacle reinforced this) them isn't going to help.

Every body in all walks of there working life have to deal with things that are out of their control. Like I've said before other super league coaches will all be having similar issue's it's not just a problem of ours.
So if we are past the stage of them being an issue why keep bringing them up.
Like I've said before most of the other coaches in super league will have a less than ideal working situation but they appear to be making a better use of the available resources.
That's a fair point but do we carry on as we are now just because a change might not work even though things aren't working in the present.

So we [ido[/i have a decent coach after all? Bugger, I will have to change my vote now.



Incidentally, 16 people have voted option 1 yet no one thus far has said so on here or given us the reasons for choosing it?

Because of the difference between "excuses" and "causes," or "reasons" if you prefer. I did not say we are past the stage of any of them being an issue (if indeed any of them are). I said we are past the time for excuses - from whoever. Two different things. I'm fed up with excuses; I want to understand the reasons.

Yes, to a point of course you are right. But I wonder whether our coach is having to contend with a lot more issues than most? Again I speculate, but there is a fair bit of anecdotal indication that he just might. For instance, despite all the early-season poor performance at Warrington, its unlikely their coach has money concerns with Moran in the background. And even more so at the Piedome, where they seem to have invested heavily in support and commercial staff? For example?

If doing his best (option 1) is 13th & out of the CC then you are fooked.

Indeed. Yet strangely 18 people (and counting) have chosen that option. Still none of them have given us a reason why they picked it though.

It must be those pesky 5th column aliases of Tigertot