I may be jumping the gun here before the obligatory settling-in period of 10 games is over, but what are everyone's thoughts about Franny's tenure so far as head coach?

IMO all in all he seems to be coping with difficult injury situation and doing well so far. He seems to have picked up from where Potter left off rather than taking us back to the baffling half-decade in which the club persisted with the lame-duck McNamara.

I was expecting a difficult season after all the turmoil at the club with some sort of coaching merry-go-round at the end of the season, with Cummins returning to Leeds, Brain Mac taking over England and McNamara returning to the Bulls after a strong but trophy-less outing in the WC. Perhaps this may not come to pass now. This message board needs McNamara back at the helm

Before the start of the season there were some comparisons between Cummins and McNamara.

They were both young British coaches getting their first taste of being the head man at a SL club. Both followed respected head coaches, though Cummins had less of a legacy to live up to following Potter than McNamara had following Noble.

However, the differences were there too.

McNamara took over the current champions and turned them, year on year into also rans who were unable to make it to the play offs, where as Cummins is taking over from a man who had the unenviable task of rebuilding the team following the questionable tenure of McNamara. He[Cummins also has had to build a team out of scraps following the implosion of the club last year.

But I'm more confident in Cummins building up the team than I was in McNamara continuing the legacy.

We've got 4 points from the first 4 games, we're in 7th place and have a positive points tally, something we've not had for along while.

TBH the whole "give him 10 games" thing is an unfair assessment of Cummins ability as a head coach. His player retention and recruitment was severely hampered by the administration troubles and the fact that the Bulls have less Sky money than all the other clubs in the league. However the squad he's managed to cobble together look like they could at least scrape their way into the lower play-off spots.

So lets see what Cummins can do 10 games into the 2014 season after he's had a proper off-season, has full monies available to aid his player recruitment. Then we'll have a better idea of what he's capable of.

He has had an ok start. I am quite pleased with him thus far. Nice to see a bit of passion on the sidelines too.

Time will tell on how successful he is but he is working on a lower budget than the previous coaches so he has an extra burden to face.

One thing for sure though is that IF he does start emulating the "success" of McNamara then he will lose the support of the fans much quicker given his loyalties before joining us. McNamara had too many fans who remembered him fondly playing for us.

I suppose looking at it the only things FC & SM have in common is that they were both young Head Coachs starting at the Bulls, lot of differences otherwise.
1)FC has had a better and longer apprenticeship than SM who was dropped into the top job a couple of years to soon.
2)FC is starting from ground zero SM Started with the law of diminishing financial returns
3)FC has a small but stable squad of Players SM due to item 2 was losing good players in the Team on a regular basis and not able to replace like for like
4)FC has an experienced Assistant Coach in Lee. SM had two very inexperienced assistant Coachs in Lee & Basil and that was one of his biggest mistakes
5)FC doesn't have the weight of Fans expectations on him at present. SM had the full load and when your in an avalanche you don't always know how fast you are going downhill!

Theres at a lot more to it but at the end of the day it's a result based Industry and that how FC will be judged!

Yes, the Fighting Cock is ok, in fact it's bloody marvelous.

Except they don't sell Stella.

But surely that's something in it's favour?

Not if you like Stella.....

Drinking Stella in the Fighting Cock would be like going to a Michelin Star Restaurant and asking for a chip butty.

While you may really enjoy a chip butty, there's so much better quality on offer.

Its sadly a while since I last visited the FC, but I seem to recall one of our number said he'd like a pint of lager shandy and it all went very quiet...

I was going to go to TFC last night, but ended up getting stuck in Fanny's instead....

In fairness, I have always preferred a fanny over a cock. Good choice.

Going back to the original topic I would say FC has made a pretty good start - little time and funds to do much with the squad this year, and seems to have got a good spirit going in the team.

But one thing that has stood out for me was that FC's post match comments all seem pretty open and honest. Going back to the infamous SM post match talks when I kept thinking I must have accidentally gone to the wrong game as he certainly wasn't talking about the match I had just seen!!!!!

We know what we did wrong and we'll correct that for next week. It's all simple things, so we should be able to sort that out.



Next week....


We know what we did wrong and we'll correct that for next week. It's all simple things, so we should be able to sort that out.



Next week.....

We know what we did wrong and we'll correct that for next week. It's all simple things, so we should be able to sort that out.

I'd say that going by today's result FC doesn't just say he'll get the team to correct it's mistakes, he makes it happen.

I once played out in the pennine foothills. After a game you were gagging & often downed a shandy before hitting the ale. One of our lads ordered a pint of shandy, the barman said "No-one puts lemonade in my beer lad". Beer it was.

...FC after 11 games is definitely OK. manages a small squad, lack of props, injuries, brilliant motivation of Sammut to score a mere 30 points. And even if he had the full cap to spend, I believe he would still buy carefully, to fit his plan. So for now I am looking at the last 9 fixtures, 6 of them at home, ok some top teams there, but playing like this there will be some great games and hopefully attendances.

If we keep going like we are we can only get better and i think we will give wigan a real go next week (heres hoping), other teams seem to fall when they come knocking but think we have in built resilience atm and if we can get into them like leeds and hudds did should be a tasty encounter.

Looking at the remainder of the season think we should do ok to make the PO's could be 17-2-9 the way we are going, also happy that we havent been on the end of any tonkings yet 36-10 vs saints and 30-10 vs catalan dont seem to bad scores considering the others that have been going around.

FC doing a great job under the circumstances didnt think he would eclipse Potter of last season but he seems to be doing that, let him continue to build after this season, get some more money behind us attract the right peopl and players andwho knows could be the start of something special

Yesterday was a massive result,with,if I'm not mistaken,next 3 league games Wigan,Warrington,Leeds,we definately needed the 2 points yesterday

If we could get even just 2 points out of next 3 games,that would put us on 16 points after 14,games,I would say we should be looking to finish 6 or 7th

Not taking anything for granted,but can we finally start expecting better than fighting for 8th or 9th place or even 10th

Now that Gale is back as well,even better,and still Foster,Blythe and Bateman to come back

Happy days for a change,just need another 3 or 4000 on the gate to enjoy the good rugby on show

Impressed with how the team is going and even more impressed with how he sees the game and his comments in the press. I had a few reservations about whether he was the experienced man we needed but I am pleased to say that so far I have been proved wrong to have worried.

Just hope things are progressing off the field to allow him the budget to continue the improvement with the team. This side with a couple more quality additions would be a real handful for any side in SL.