It is now obvious to all that Potter has lost the plot . This is not surprising, taking into account his past record. 1. Only did reasonably well ar Catalans, as the RL gave them special dispensation to field as many non French as they wished, and they had the best scrum half in RL at that time in Stacey Jones (think Orford then 3 times better|). 2. Did nothing at St Helens despite having one of the best squads in the league. Coaches today must have good motivation skills,look what John Kear has done at Wakefield given the paucity of their present squad. It seems to me Mr Potter has no personality or drive and no idea on game plans.
Further I would question his recruitment. 11 new players. 1. Herbert, not good enough for the NRL and farmed out to junior rugby.2.Walker, too much of a risk after breaking his leg, now only a fraction of the player he was at Leeds. 3.Rayner, now past his best.4. Diskin, disappointing, he would be now on this showing the number 3 choice hooker at Leeds. 5.Royston, perhaps at 28 a leap to far from the Championship. 6.Hargreaves, still young enough to improve but not a world beater. 7. Sibbitt, not good enough for Salford, so why good enough for the Bulls? 8. Ainscough, ditto Wigan. 9. Elima, maybe just past his best. 10. Ah Van, pedestrian. 11, Briggs
, looked good for Featherstone and may in time form a good partnership with Southerwood.
My choice to replace Potter, would be controversial, but why not Ian Millward. Good at St Helens and has now transformed Leigh into the best team in the Championship.
Short term solution, bring in a good motivation coach and forget about Willie Mason. He was poor after the first match.

couldn't possibly be any worse than McBanana surely ?

So now,as an example we are too good for players who cant quite get in at Wigan such as Ainscough? Who would you like him to sign?

Did Potter run over your cat???

No, but the club should be thinking big ,and not going for other clubs rejects. The three players that Wigan have loaned to Barrow, Crosby, Mellor and Tomkins are better than we have got, and should be the sort we wish to sign.

Maybe as they are all rated by Wigan they wouldnt have been available? What do you suggest a team of loan players?

Yeah, please note what you've said. The players Wigan have LOANED out. So what that means is that these ARE players that Wigan want but they don't think they're quite ready for SL but too good for u20s. So loaned them out to Barrow so they get some game time in a more competitive environment.

The trouble that people seem to have on here with their "oh woe is us, why haven't we signed some other player?" is that the people who complain about our signings don't seem to have any better suggestions as to who we could have got.

There's also the fact that we're NOT football. We don't have money to pay transfer fees so we can only sign players who are OOC or as you put it "rejects".

But no, you're right. Come on, who are these players who should have signed.

Right clown you are fella apart from you dont even know correct facts,the loan players went to widnes not barrow.

A few good points...Potter certainly is not motivating the players and seems very laid back about how they are performing (maybe he blows his top behind the scenes?) Also I cannot understand some of his team selections, yet again Sykes at Stand Off?? Sibbitt? And why on earth sign Briggs and not give him a go?

Everyone says about how quietly spoken and calm Potter is, and that he doesn't rant and rave at the players. At half time in the Salford debacle, he was not even speaking. It seemed to be Disko doing all the chat. I think its time the players had someone giving them a right royal roasting to be honest.

All our signings last off season bar Elima and Briggs were not wanted by their old clubs.

My apologies, the players I mentioned are at Widnes. Blame it on old age. Yet it seems to me that this year both Wigan and Saints have many young, talented, skilful and enthusiastic backs available to cover for injuries. According to the Sky RL pundit, Phil Clarke it is because these teams let these youngsters train with the first teamers, and they learn good habits from these players.
Where are the young backs at the Bulls? There must be some but we appear to stick to the same dispirited lot.

I would also like to bring up the Captaincy. Lynch is a good leader by example, but is that enough? For Diskin to chair the team talk at the interval instead of the Coach and Captain makes me wonder.

As ever, that's the thing to do - sack, the coach, sack everyone, and bring out the Magic Chequebook, to buy up everybody else's best players. And Wayne Bennett.

It would probably work. Meanwhile, back on our planet . . .

Olivier Elima - could be out for the rest of the season.
Shaun Ainscough - ankle ligaments
Paul Sykes (hamstring) and Matt Diskin (shoulder) also went off injured against Warrington
This is to add to existing injury absentees Brett Kearney, Jamie Langley, Nick Scruton, Danny Addy, Gareth Raynor and Dave Halley, as well as our ex-7, the (home)sick Orford who is the reason we have got Herbert.

We have who we have, injured players, deal with it. How about thinking of what we can do with the squad we have.

I would love to get into that Bulls dressing room and speak my mind but I can't. But things need to be addressed by Potter, in attack why are we flat? In defence why do we move up only 2m and let the opposition run at us?

You get deeper in attack = more space, less drop ball, more confusion for the defence with dummy runners etc.
You move up 5-8m in defence = less space for attackers resulting in more errors, more aggressivness, and the attackers will be slower as they do't have 8m to get their speed up.

I was told about a horrible rumour of a dressing room bust up yesterday which I really hope isn't true.

So why post it?

To be honest, I'd rather hear of a 'bust up' than the notion that the players accept defeat with a shrug of their shoulders and a smile.....

At least it would show that some of them, at least, actually care.

Well, two of them have been farmed out to Sheffield Eagles....

'bust ups' have,and always will potentially happen in all sporting teams - it happened at Catalans last season and is rife at TO13 this season,hence the poor displays and general lack of confidence in the camp between coach & players or coach plus 'favourite' players & players

I sat directly in front of Potter at the Catalans game and his body language was totally negative and the language was very anglo-saxon - I can't recall any positive comments being sent down to the touchline ! the team left for the bus and Potter stormed out,face looking like thunder - looks like big problems in the camp which must affect the performances ?

Laid back is certainly not how I'd describe Potter.

If that was his reaction to the Les Cats game performance, after the Wire debecle he must have been way beyond apoplectic...

(Or if not, he bloody well should have been!)

I think we need to keep Potter. It's not an enviable position he's in at the moment but hopefully he can turn it around. I think his record as a coach in SL is good so it's not as though we've hired some donkey.

I can't believe we have a 'Potter out' thread already.

Potter's already proven himself as a coach by turning Catalans into a top 8 side and getting them to the cup final.

Despite what some Saints fans say he also got them to a few GFs despite losing their first choice halfbacks.

I'd say it's our players that need to prove themselves.

I totally agree.

As a coach you should be able to motivate the team to try their hardest week in week out.

None of us know if he is or isn't trying to do this.

As professional rugby players.....if you've got the skill and passion you shouldn't need a coach to motivate you and play well.

What really concerns me is the lack of leadership on the field.

We need a Jimmy Lowes type of player IMO....someone who leads by example and is willing to voice their opinion captain or not.