Deacon looks a totally different player when he attacks the line, he can do it, i just wish he'd do it more often. He had a good game last night.

He was very good last night, showed some imagination, creative chip kicks over the line for himself, Godwin and Sykes, good step for his own try and a brilliant pass to Worrincy for his try. Only problem is that he keeps getting his head staved in, and only seems to show that sort of brilliance now and again - all part of getting older and slowing up - plus all the knocks he's taken.

Some great plays but I thought his fifth tackle options in their twenty kept Hull in the game.

Deacon, Platt, Worrincy, Sheriffe & Langley.


The usual scapegoats :- all had good games.

Id still get rid of Sheriffe he's useless.

He showed some guts too, couple of nasty head wounds, he has always been pretty tough has decas. Good showing yesterday.

Churlish of me not to mention outright the best dg under pressure I've ever seen live. Also, his try really took some scoring.

The amount of metalwork he has in his head now - it should be more or less indestructible. Picking up signals from another world though - that could be a problem. Need to develop a scrumcap lined with tinfoil

Don't be too hasty, he didn't really make any glaring errors that I can remember and he was also responsible for Platt's break early in the first half.

I fully expect McNamara to sort out his defence during the off season though.

The off season is not long enough.

It will be this year

I think last years offseason was a major contributor to this seasons no show. Whether you include the conditioning they do, the set piece and analysis, we looked to suffer from the lack of warm weather training and friendlies. There was that week when it snowed heavily and they struggled to get much decent training done. Warm weather training allows more work to get done in a set period of time, its been said many times before. And then we've got to get meaningful friendlies to put the training into practice.

You can plan and train all you want but you need to bring the contact element in so the players can understand what works and what needs to be tweaked before competition starts properly

I also appreciate its not easy to get the overseas players back but they should be back and training at the same time. Don't think we'll have too many on international duty

Agreed. It`s not that he even needs to break the line, by just attempting to do so he puts the defenders in two minds. When he rarely tries the run it just allows the defence to back off and target the pass, by drawing tacklers in to himself he gives the runners a better chance.

That's the key, he needs to actually have runners and options to create that doubt. Too many times he's got no options so he gets mullered.

That and him too often being our only available kicking option on the 5th means he attracts too much attention. We seemed to catch on to this in the latter half of the season, hope it's sunk in now.

We certainly did at Hull. We went to Sykes so often I was beginning to think Deacs was carrying an injury!!

If this seasons anything to go by then the solution is to play 20 preseason friendlies, all of them in Spain!!!! Come on..

We only got going when the pressure and expectation was off the players. At the start of the season we were speaking about having a crack at the top three and it continued when every player in the squad did the "we can make the playoffs" interview.

What is needed is less talk and more action. God, we virtually do everyone's team talk for them by printing rubbish in the T&A.

The team need to get fit quick. ALL the squad need to be in on Nov 1st and we need to have probably 3 friendlies or warm ups against decent teams ( preferably SL) which could be behind closed doors!

we need to hit the ground running and build next year. Other teams, like Leeds and Saints have got ageing squads and i believe that our younger squad can flourish. But the whole organisation needs to be more honest in its dealings with the public and stop traeting us like idiots. it needs to get out in to BRADFORD and give people a reason to get to matches. On average there has been space for 15000 extra people in Odsal, lets get them in, either cheap or free, to crate a buzz.. tose of us who are die hard fans wont mind paying if there is a resultant increase in interest and/or finances.

I think the rumoured shake up of the coaching staff would be the best place to start.

I'm not wanting to question any of their commitment or ability, but our fitness has seemed to be an issue. Sure, we don't have guys blowing hard after the kick off, but we seem to sag in the 2nd and 4th quarters of the game. You have to wonder if our conditioner is keeping up with the curve of personal fitness ideas and systems

It seems to have been like that for a while. I don't think there's been enough stamina building work. It's not enough to just have them pumping iron. Once they're back in training they want to get them over the moors doing some long distance running.

Think that's as much to do with a lack of impact off the bench to get us on the front foot again rather than any general fitness issue.

Once we started putting Burgess on the bench we had some spark off the bench that Koppy is less able to provide. We could do with more if poss.

In the old days we had Anderson and Fielden coming off the bench. That'd get any team back on the front foot. Some recent losses versus Wigan and St Helens can be traced directly to the impact provided by the likes of Paleassina and Hock and more recently Puletua and Faasavalu.

Leeds could easily put out a quality back line where Burrow & McGuire are the oldest at 26. Bradford have Halley at 22 & ......err..........unless you are considering the vastly experienced Crookes. Saints have an ageing or overrated backline, but they do have a number of kids with much more SL experience, with the diamond that is Eastmond.
The forwards are more arguable I agree.