Excellent point.

But remember this is all part of "the plan"

It is and hopefully the fans forum will go some way to explaining this question.

A couple of other points:

1. On Saints maintenance of their position, don't forget they had a 3 year absence from OT.
Although I accept they've recovered quicker than we look to be.

2. Rebuilding is a long process and in response to some other comments, I do think there has had to be an element of tearing things down to start again.
You can't invent a good junior side, that takes an awful lot of time and energy and the absence of these players who could and would have broken the first team have seen an elevated wage bill due to the fact we've had to sign established players, players who, quite rightly, have higher salary expectations.

3. Cibaman also raises a good point re: hidden gems. Maybe if the Aus option is becoming more limited, there are some hidden gems in the NL's

Perhaps the biggest of several parts of the puzzle you are missing is the issue of "Will sacking McNamara make things better?" You treat this as a no-brainer, when the fact is that it would cause great disruption and the club would have to be very fortunate to recruit a coach of sufficient ability to counteract that. Just for example, Brian Mac's record at Quins suggests that good as he is, in the unlikely event of him taking the job, he would not meet this standard.

Agreed.

What's to say SM leaving wouldn't also see some of the top names leave too, in an uncertain environment, that would be quite possible!

A question I will be putting for the fans forum is how many juniors have they forecasted to make it through to be regular first teamers each season over the next 3 to 4 years. No need to name names, I appreciate that's impossible but they must have some idea of numbers.

I would also ask if they thought the current first team was capable of providing the right environment for young players to progress given the first team performances so far this season.

I do have a worry that we may be expecting a little too much from junior development and are possibly not recruiting from outside as well as we might. If cash is tight the temptation is there to spend more on bringing young players though as it's more economical. The risk is that will impact on the cash available to recruit from outside so we get fewer proven top class players.

Aside from occasional gluts of young players coming through every once in a while it seems to me that you can't expect more than a couple to come through each year.

While I hope this plan may pay dividands in the long term I worry that the club doesn't have the finance or support to underpin this very long term approach.

Where is the evidence that Brian Mc would not meet this standard? He has turned a mediocre team, whose survival I was concerned about, into a consistent, well-coached, top 5 team. Steve Mc has turned a top 5 team into a bottom 2 team.

No it isn't all down to Steve, and I don't think theres any true fans on here would be as unintelligent as to think it is all down to him. But the question is a valid one in that, `can he turn it around?'

Good question.

As you might of guessed, I think he can.
Although we have declined over that last few years, I think that was inevitable and would have happened under anyone.

Correct so it also then follows that McNamara isn't alone in having to turn it around.

But concentrating on what he can influence I'm still not sure he's up to it. Despite all the problems he's had to endure we still appear to be deteriorating and he's confessed more than once to be baffled why that's the case.

Not a good sign.

It isn't a good sign.
But is it a turn of phrase in the heat of interview? (Serious question, I'm not defending him)

How long do we wait? (Again, serious question)

Do we have to accept we're never going to be the same force again? (Still being serious!)

If it's a turn of phrase it's one he needs to stop using as it makes him look like he's not in control. If he isn't baffled then we'd surely start to address some of the areas where we struggle yet I've seen little sign of that.

How long do we wait? Until we're a top 4 side again? I think we're four or five players away from that at the moment. It depends on the plan the club has for turning things around.

Do we accept we're never going to be the same force again? No! Absolutely not. The club must aim to set high standards above everyone else. Being happy with simply competing is a losers mentality, there has to be a long term aim to be a championship winning team.

Will we manage it? Who knows? There have been three successful periods in the past 102 years. I hope we don't have to wait another thirty years for the next one.

Maybe, maybe not. But definitely not to the extent you are currently appearing.

Indeed. If anything it's more serious than that. Super League, recent success and the Odsal situation have all raised the stakes alarmingly (or exhilaratingly, if you like to live on the edge

). If we don't achieve some sort of success, we don't get our crowds back. That may cripple us in itself, but it makes us less likely to retain Superleague status. Without Superleague status - but with the Odsal burden - we don't exist!

Even if the OSV comes through, I can't help but think that it only makes it a greater pressure (with the addition of a moral imperative) for us to get back to being at least among the best.

To be fair, I don't think there's any way of knowing that for sure.

Maybe we wouldn't have won a game with someone else?
Then again, maybe we'd be top!?

I'd go with that. The problem of course is when suitable players are going to become available and what prospects do we have in the academy.



That's certainly my feeling too, lets hope the club reaffirm this at the forum



Lets hope so.
I just hope we start to see the slide turn into a climb again soon

Lets be fair mate, when you are sat in 13th place, the only way to go is up!

[size=59P.s. I know we could drop to 14th[/size

Exactly! In the words of The Johnson " You show me a good loser and i'll show you a loser."

But like wise you treat it as a no brainer that we will get better under McNamara. Even though the form of the last 12 months suggests this isn't going to happen. So this leaves us then in the stupid situation then even though he's failing we can't replace him because his replacement might do no better it's a strange logic.

So you thought we would be in this mess at the end of the 2007 season when we finished 3rd. It's just seems to be a convenient excuse now things have gone wrong.

Evidence of my own eyes over the last couple of years. They seem to be doing OK this year though they have still had some pretty shocking results in and amongst there. If he coaches them to a play-off berth for the first time then that would be a great accomplishment but they've been in the spots before only to fall away. I suspect he could do a similar job at Bradford given the time and presuming he wanted to come here and effectively start from scratch. Which gets onto RER's point. I am not presuming SM will get it right. I just think it's a likelier scenario than we chuck him out for AN Other, who improves first team results signficantly while also maintaining the youth project which as I understand it is very reliant on SM's personal relationship with the prospects we do have.

The reason why I want SM to stay is the same reason I think BM won't ( and probably shouldn't) come. They are both a few years into what I see as ten year jobs, minimum, building a club from the bottom down. Now I sympathise with Bullseye's squeaky bum on this (though not his 'three periods of success' - Champions 1903-04, and don't you forget it

), but if we are going to be a top club again then I think this has to be the approach. I think that our savvy in the market in the first years of Super League is now replicated by a lot of clubs - there's no way we'd be the only ones in for Lowes, TV, Les even these days. So we'd better get growing our own.

If I'm completely honest, no, probably not.
Hopfully we've hit the bottom and are now going to rise again.

The NRL has shown us you can finish bottom and go on to win the comp in a short turnaround

I don't know what the problem if on the field this season.
We could have easily won more games than we had. Even 5 of those (e.g. Wakefield, Cas, Hudds, Celtic and Salford), would have seen us on 19 points, in 4th, with a game in hand and the season suddenly has a different outlook.

I also don't know whether there's an issue behind closed doors. I certainly haven't any sort of whisper whatsoever to suggest he's lost the dressing room/

I still say we'll make the 8

I find it hard to understand how you can compere Bradford and Harlequins.

Echo'd af.

I also understand Steve's relationship with the Juniors is and has been a key factor in them choosing the Bulls.

I only hope it's a little less than 10 years in the making.
Could the club survive that?

If we're going to talk about B Mc's record then we have to. And I realise each has different issues and you might typically expect higher league finishes from Bradford. But then until this year, SM has provided that and yet may this season again. I doubt you would get long odds on us overtaking Quins by the end of the year, and as WB has pointed out, the sheer volume of one-score-or-less defeats is what separates us from a handy top four spot and a place in the quarter-final draw.

I'm not slagging off BM. But if he and his results were magically transported to Odsal retrospectively, there's plenty on here that would be.